Laptops for programmers?

modi123

modi123

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 6, 2006
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I am looking at getting a laptop, and I am curious what other programmers are using.

Things like speed, keyboard layout, and so on would be nice to know.

Thanks!

- modi

I'm developing in .NET and SQL if that matters..
 
I have an ASUS G2. It's quite fast. Depending on the nature of the work you're doing, you'll always end up hitting some limitation. For me, it's disk space and memory. Until there's a laptop with more than a terabyte of storage and eight gigs of memory, I'll never completely have a desktop replacement.
 
mikeblas said:
I have an ASUS G2. It's quite fast. Depending on the nature of the work you're doing, you'll always end up hitting some limitation. For me, it's disk space and memory. Until there's a laptop with more than a terabyte of storage and eight gigs of memory, I'll never completely have a desktop replacement.
Click to expand...

what in the world do you use that much storage for?
 
mikeblas said:
I have an ASUS G2. It's quite fast. Depending on the nature of the work you're doing, you'll always end up hitting some limitation. For me, it's disk space and memory. Until there's a laptop with more than a terabyte of storage and eight gigs of memory, I'll never completely have a desktop replacement.
Click to expand...

Ah.. I was hoping for Mike's commentary. Stellar! Not a bad option, but I am looking for something less than 9.7lbs. I would like to be mobil-ish.. I was looking at the ASUS W75.. but that has a 13.3" screen... 4ish lbs though.. 2.5 hour battery life is not bad..

hmm..

ASUS g2 review for everyone else
 
I'm running a t60p - fast enough with a good bit of RAM, and holds up nicely. One of the key things I would look for is resolution. I've got a 1600x1200 screen. I've used laptops with smaller resolution (but same sized screens) and not been happy with them. Next time I would do 1920x1200 as long as it fits in a laptop bag.
 
I'm incredibly happy with my Asus A8Js. 14.1" 1440x960 screen. Plenty of power and even a halfway decent video card if I want to do any light gaming. Very good mix of comfort, portability, and power. Also, came with 1 x 1gb from the factory so upgrading the memory was all of 40 bucks.

It's also very light IMO. Not uncomfortable to carry around in the least. Nice sleek silver conservative appearance if that matters. Got mine from Newegg.
 
What's the difference in making your programming machine portable .... you've already got your weight approximation. I don't think I've ever changed my mind for a programming machine because of the keyboard, matte vs glossy finish, slimness, or any of that kind of stuff.

Other than the .NET requirements I'd save the money and spend it elsewhere.
 
I use a macbook w/ parallels (gonna switch to vmware sooner or later, just haven't had a chance) and boot camp to do my dev (not as much windows development these days, although I do that on it as well). it's about 4lb as well.
 
i just got a thinkpad t61 and its pretty slick. really nice keyboard, a laptop light built into the lid so you can work in the dark, 14.1" widescreen (higher res than the 4:3 14.1"'s 1024x768 i had at work). decent battery life with the nvidia card and 7-cell battery, but not steller (3 hours or so if you're actively using it but not doing intensive stuff, i.e. programming ;p ). core 2 duo, obviously great for multitasking, but also nice to have if you're messing around with multi-threaded code. bout 5.5 lb's with the larger battery. linux support is >okay< if you're a linux programmer (everything works pretty much, just a pita to set up), or want to port/test on another platform. good wireless range with the atheros card and built-in antennas and various other wireless optimizations they worked into it.

great little machine.
 
I just picked up the hp dv2422, Turion X2 1.8ghz, 2gb ram, geforce 6150, 12 cell batt. It's a 14" lappy (1280x800) and ran me $799 (canadian). I'm using it for fairly heavy coding while I go to school, Oracle, SQL, Java, PHP, C#

I think the main concern would be ram, you'll have so many different applications open that you'll need at least 2gb to have things running decently. A tie for most important would be resolution because you're going to have all these applications open, you'll need screen real estate. Battery was big for me as a few classes won't have nearby outlets, and this one can get up to 7 hours if I have the processor undervolted, no wifi, low brightness. 5 hours with normal web use.

I'll be runnign around a lot as well from class to class, to and from home, so the 14" form factor is extremely important in keeping the weight down while extending battery life.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Go for cheap if you'll be hauling it all over, the last thing you need is a bad bump taking out a pricey notebook.
 
Me? I do a lot of database work, using huge datasets, involving hundreds of tables, views, stored procedures, triggers, and interacting programs. Simple queries generate millions of probabilistically ranked tuples.

So, what do I use? An inexpensive, easily portable, laptop that's tough, reliable, light, and easy to keep clean. My development datasets and RDBM's sit on a remote computer cluster. I do some compiling from time to time, but once again, I use a remote machine paid for by someone else. Doing compiles with a laptop's hard drive is excruciating. Avoid it at all costs.

---

Most importantly, don't ever put data on your laptop if there is any sensitive information on it whatsoever. You have to operate as if your laptop will be stolen at some point. Ignore performance specs and get a laptop with a screen you like and a keyboard you can stand. Sit down and use it before buying. There is a huge difference between manufacturers in that regard, and only you can judge whether you like the screen and keyboard.

As others have said, weight and size matter a lot when you're lugging one around.
 
I regret getting my 17" widescreen if that helps. Can't take this thing anywhere without getting a sore shoulder. Back then, I thought that screen size was awesome for laptops. Now, it's the devil.
 
I got some HP nx6325 from my previous job with a turionx2, 1gig of ram and pretty big screen but it was very light and had an amazing battery life, it was perfect, the only problem i had with it was that i had to give it back when i changed jobs.

I liked it so much i returned my dell lattitude and bought nx6325 off ebay, for 500 pound, it had 2 gig of ram , AMD turionx2 and a 120gb 7200rpm hdd, it runs xp sp2 and it is very fast with my heavy programming in visual studio 2005, and it is okay with sql 2005, but id recommend you put a copy of sql on another computer and use that as a database server, trust me you will notice the difference (this is what i do now).
 
on the job i work with a dell precesion M65 specs:

C2D t7400
4 GB DDR2 667
100? GB hard disk space
15,4" lcd 1920*1200 (and external 19" panel)

i almost never use the thing on the go, so i normally work with the external screen for dual desktop and an external generic dell keyboard. my mouse is a logitech Mx518

my personal laptop is a 12.1" MSI s271 with a turion x2 tl-56 and a gig of ram, it was chosen for portability mainly, and i never use it for actual programming
 
I like the Lenovo thinkpads, I use an older X series as my personal laptop (X22), but hear good things about the T61/X61. Their keyboards are among the best. Just load em up on memory, and you should be good to go. Plus i much prefer trackpoint over trackpads.

I've also used some dell precision M90's (17") that are pretty good for demo machines, but too big to use as a laptop. Whatever video card thats in it has dual video outputs (vga & dvi-d) that makes it useful to us.
 
IBM Thinkpad T42p
- 1.6 GHz Pentium M
- 60 GB 7200rpm HDD
- 2 GB RAM
- 1600x1200 resolution native
- ATI Fire GL graphics
- 9 cell battery (under normal to heavy load, averages 1.5-2 hours of charge)

I do primarily development in .Net, a little bit of PHP, and SQL Server 2000/2005. Runs great for simultaneous IDE's, and I've also run localized QA test environments using VMware. And during downtime from developing, it can handle gaming in CS:S or HL2 without a problem :D

I love the keyboard, the LCD's clarity, and the simple drivers/application updater utility from IBM. It's been very solid and very reliable for many years now.
 
I've got a Lenovo 3000 N100 - Core Duo 1.83GHz, 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm, NVidia 7300Go and 1680x1050. Think they're discontinued in favour of the N200 now (Core 2 Duo being the only discernible difference). It's a pretty quick laptop - in point of fact, it runs Ubuntu significantly faster than the XP I've got running on it (dual boot), and all the hardware is detected with no problems...except the webcam, which I don't really care about.

To be honest, the hardware spec was pretty much irrelevant except for the screen - I can't live with any less than 1680x1050 these days. Resolution means everything to me - the more real-estate I have, the better. I mainly use it for Java/Eclipse and Rails/Aptana. Can't fault it, really :)

It's not particularly light (2.8kg), and the battery life is down to about 100 minutes after a year of heavy use, but hey - I didn't pay for it ;)
 
modi123 said:
Not a bad option, but I am looking for something less than 9.7lbs.
Click to expand...
You'll need to figure out what compromises you want to make and live with hem. If you go for lighter weight, you're going to have a smaller battery and a smaller display, generally. If weight is more important than screen size, go for it!
 
My job gave me an HP/Compaq NC6400 to write code on while im out of the office. Its pretty nice. Dual core, wireless, bluetooth, finger print scanner (who uses these things anyways?). Fantastic battery life (I get around ~5 hours on a full charge) and its very very light for its size. I'd recommend it.
 
I program on a Dell 710M (besides my PC at work it's my only PC). It's small, only has a 12.1" screen, and does 1280x800. I've found NO problems with size or screen resolution. When I'm working on my laptop it's usually to do more focused tasks / chunks of code, where I don't have to have a lot of reference material to follow.

Then again, it sounds like I do a lot different programming than most everyone here. Primarily just PHP programming, some JavaScript, and then web development (XHTML & CSS), but that's not really programming.

-Nick
 
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