
Ask HN: What's the best laptop for development now? - lz400
I want to replace my old MBP. A couple of years ago I&#x27;d have bought a newer model and be done with it. But I hate the touch bar, the keyboard and the lack of ports on the new one. I was hoping for a nicely priced Surface Book 2 but seems MS doesn&#x27;t have a lot of interest.<p>If one doesn&#x27;t care about OS, what&#x27;s are the best laptops for development at this moment? Thinking ~13&quot;, 256-512 SSD, 8-16gb.
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quantummkv
Both the Dell XPS 13 and 15 are solid machines with a wide array of options.
Personally using a XPS 13 over here without any issue.

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cholantesh
As a new owner of an XPS 15, I will say HiDPI life is a big adjustment. But
that's a first world problem I suppose.

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limeblack
The T model thinkpads meet your criteria. If you want something cheap but
works buy an older Thinkpad model(If you don't mind Ebay you can buy them
really cheap there).

If you want future upgradability and don't mind spending more I would get
Thinkpad p50. It supports up to 64gb of RAM(Yes I know you didn't say you
wanted lots of RAM or a 15 in screen).

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12s12m
I just bought a refurbished T430 for my sister. These things are built like
tanks. Because of the enterprise usage patterns there are many good
refurbished laptops available for sale.

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richardknop
I'd still hesitantly say Macbook Pro. This might change if the next iteration
won't come with 32GB RAM option. Especially if you are working on large
platforms with many services and need to recreate local development
environment by running dozens of containers. Plus you need to have your IDE
open, several Chrome tabs with documentation, Slack, mail app. It's getting
difficult with 16GB memory, often using around 10GB with idle system.

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twoquestions
All this waste of memory turns my stomach. It's sad that it takes one of the
most powerful personal computers made with a ton of RAM to make modern
software, effectively locking out those who can't afford this.

What value is gained by such a large memory footprint for all this stuff which
isn't really an innovation from capability we had in 2007?

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richardknop
Modern software is very complex unfortunately. Especially with proliferation
of PaaS like kubernetes and container technology. You often need to have local
version of entire PaaS running to be able to effectively debug problems or
test new features. Plus all different services like sql/nosql databases, key
value stores, message queues, web servers etc.

Of course, some people will say why are you using IDE? I hear this often from
hardcore vim users. "Just use vim". But that realistically doesn't save much
memory and Chrome is another memory hog. And what if you do some mobile work
and need to open Android Studio or XCode, another several GBs of memory needed
just for that.

Also don't forget about the whole suite of collaboration tools used at work
which we didn't really have before like Slack, Dropbox, JIRA, Google Docs,
Github, JIRA. You will have all of these opened either in browser or as
standalone apps to be more productive.

People with powerful computers will be more effective. You can do almost
everything on older less advanced computer but you will be less productive
than somebody with newest tech.

I remember in 2011 working for a company in London where every developer
workstation had 64GB RAM. That was 7 years ago so I am surprised 16GB is
considered as too much in 2017.

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roschdal
A desktop computer is superior for development, in terms of performance and
price.

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pc86
I'm in this camp, if for no other reason than by the time you take a laptop
and add a mechanical keyboard, a nice mouth, and an extra monitor, you would
have been better off having just bought a desktop.

Unless you want to buy a dock and everything, use the laptop as a desktop 90%
of the time and just have it portable for when you need to go to a client or
something.

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rajeshmr
I am gonna be a bit off-course and say, whichever laptop you have could be the
best if you play to its strengths.

I used Asus x205ta laptop and it still is one of my best investments.
Elsewhere on HN, i have mentioned that i setup vagrant and used the machine to
its best. All i cared was to have a browser and a terminal. :)

EDIT : Asus x205ta is a $199-ish netbook.. with an atom processor and 2gb ram,
11-inch screen.

Currently i use an MBA (2015) model.

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DanBC
Installing Linux on the ASUS x205ta is unfun.

[https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2254322](https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2254322)

The 2 GB of ram is suboptimal for 64 bit OSs, and the 32 bit EUFI means
bootloaders are not straightforward.

Windows 10 is much better for this machine than Windows 8 because of the move
away from WIMBoot to CompactOS. Upgrading from 8 to 10 requires at least X (I
forget how many) free gigabytes, which may require removal of a bunch of
software before updating.

It sounds like I hate the machine, but I don't, it's a very nice tiny cheap
little netbook.

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rajeshmr
Actually I didn't care to install Linux ;) I used vagrant and installed Ubuntu
on top of it.. used putty to ssh into the VM and for all Linux things. Browser
for all internet things. Solved my use case :) a browser and a terminal for
dev!

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12s12m
I have researched a lot into this. A thinkpad x1 carbon seems like the best
machine for a developer.

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lz400
This looks very nice indeed

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saluki
I still like the MBair as well. I would get another Air and wait to get a pro
next time, rumor has it magsafe is coming back next year. Can probably get a
good deal on a 2016.

Apple hardware and OS is still so much better than windows for development.

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miguelrochefort
> Apple hardware and OS is still so much better than windows for development.

Why?

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usaphp
> But I hate the touch bar, the keyboard

Do you hate it because you read a lot of negative initial posts about? I've
used the new keyboard for half a year now and it become the one I enjoy more
now compared to an older one. The touch bar is a nice addition, I can't say I
can't leave without it but it's definitely helps me in a lot of apps and I
certainly can't say that I hate it, why would anyone hate it? It's a helpful
addition.

~~~
defnotadog
I got a new MBP 15" through work and I was also hesitant about the keyboard,
touch bar and trackpad. I previously had a 13" MBP. I actually love the
keyboard and trackpad. I find it hard to use the old MBPs with the smaller
trackpad. The touch bar is mostly used for spotify and that's about it. Using
the FN keys are fine. I wish it wasn't there but I don't think it's a reason
not to buy a MBP (if you are willing to spend the money).

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sh87
I dont mind the touchbar. Got used to the no-feedback esc key. But oh dear the
keyboard, hell no. Been using it for 3 months now and I cant for the life of
me use that thing. Its probably because i switch between this 2016 15" mbp and
a 2012 13" mbp. The trackpad is just as good but cant see why they had to bump
up the surface area to such an extent that the right click is soo far off to
the right bottom. The missing (old) usb port and missing hdmi port is still a
mess. I like my 2012 13" mbp which I upgraded to 16 Gb ram myself, better than
the new one.

Edit: just wanted to add that I find the 2016 mbp is amazingly light and the
screen is gorgeous. Battery life is great as usual. In summary just the
missing ports and the flat keyboard that I do not like.

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usaphp
> that the right click is soo far off to the right bottom

Why are you not using two finger click for the secondary click instead of the
area click? With new force trackpad you can click anywhere your fingers are
it's so much more convenient in my opinion.

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philippz
I used to work with HP Elitebook (yes, Windows) for 7 years and after that
switched to Macbook Pro. I enjoyed both. While the Mac has the right
filesystem in place, is fast and reliable. The HP Elitebook was easy to
upgrade in terms of hardware. I enjoyed both. The HP Elitebook was a bit heavy
though especially because it is very well processed and i used the drive slot
for a second SSD.

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limeblack
I have also used an Elitebook. It was okay. Their battery life at least when I
used them were terrible(both length and amount of times recharged). I went
through 3 batteries while I owned such laptop.

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philippz
That sounds crazy. Of course the battery life suffered over time but it an
"ok"ish manner. I heavily made used of the dockingstation and i always removed
the battery beforehand to protect it.

But to be honest, meanwhile i prefer the mac pro.

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chrisbennet
After 2 MAc Book Pro's, I switched to a Dell XPS 15. I suspect the XPS 13 is
just as great.

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shanecleveland
[http://laptopkarma.com/?brand=Dell&ssd_size=256GB&ram=8](http://laptopkarma.com/?brand=Dell&ssd_size=256GB&ram=8)

The XPS gets some love in Reddit comments. The GTX (gaming laptop), not
surprisingly, gets more. I believe there is just a bent towards gaming in
general for laptop recommendations on Reddit.

You can play with the filters on the site linked above to define the results
differently.

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freehunter
>I hate the... lack of ports on the new one. I was hoping for a nicely priced
Surface Book 2

You do realize the new MBP and the Surface Book have the same number of USB
ports, right?

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lz400
The SB has full size USB ports, the new MBP USB-c. That alone for me is better
as I don't want to deal with adaptors.

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8draco8
I will argue that for most cases (at least mine) 1 USB-C port would be enough.
I would just revert back to the way I was using my old Thinkpad T23 back in
the days - with docking station. Just use one beefy USB-C hub/dock and
Bluetooth mouse if I need it on the go. The only drawback at the moment is
lack of USB-C flash drives which is changing but not fast enough, so there
would have to be just one USB adaptor in my bag for those rare cases when I
need to plug someones flash drive.

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prthkms
System76 makes some of the best Linux machines suited for developers.

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8draco8
No their not. There is just a lot of buzz around them and ads shouted by big
podcasters but they are not so good. They are just re branded Chinese laptops
with Linux distros slapped on in. The build quality is poor (plastics, poor
touchpads, screens, batteries) and they don't keep their value pretty well. If
you want Linux laptop you should really look in to something like Lenovo
Thinkpad series or Dell XPS.

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whyagaindavid
2016 macbook air.

