Ask HN: What's the best laptop for a programmer that isn't a MacBook Pro?
I'm soon graduating from college and I'm looking to upgrade my 4 year old laptop. I'm not looking to buy a MacBook as I run Linux full time and I intend to continue doing it. I want to know what the programmers at HN would consider to be a good machine given that:
- It should be under $2000, preferably closer to $1500.
- It should have upgradeable parts, which preferably includes the RAM
- Decent battery life as I'm not looking to work from a café the whole time. Anything over 6hrs is great.
- Good screen. But not a touch screen. Preferably matte.
- Discrete graphics is good, but not required.
- The manufacturer provides reasonably good service for its products.
At this moment I'm looking at Dell XPS 15 and Thinkpad T460. I'm actually looking for personal opinions because a machine is more than the sum of its parts.
48 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 93.5 ms ] threadMore than that, I'd buy me a used Thinkpad for half the price of a new one. The technology did not make any huge leaps for the last 2-3 years, but corporations do routinely sell their older machines with very decent specs. The only concern would be the battery. I'd buy me a 6-cell standard battery, plus an extra battery for the optical drive bay. "6hrs" is attainable, unless you do CPU-intensive things all the way.
Besides T series, Carbon X1 might be appealing, but it does not have upgradeadle RAM, AFAIK.
Not always the fastest machines or the best battery life but for the tiny amount of $$ you pay you will get a surprisingly good development machine.
I used to work for Dell's AES -- American Enterprise Support -- in support of the Precision line of laptops and desktops, along with servers etc.
For the most part, Latitude and Precision laptops were exactly the same hardware. Same motherboard. Same graphics. Same CPU. Same Memory. Different emblem on out case. Heftier price tag so you had better (American) support.
On the Precision 5510 site I'm able to tweak CPU options, RAM, disk. The XPS 15 site, I can only pick from stock builds (and a bunch of upsell addons).
The Precision 5510 site also has the option to pick Ubuntu and avoid the MS tax. Not so on the XPS 15 site.
I think you can look at it from a website usability mindset: XPS 15 site is simplified for consumers and Precision robust in options for business.
Sure you can spin a few vms but your CPU will probably become a bottleneck long before you reach the 64gb limit.
I'm currently using the W520 as my everyday development machine. It's heavy enough that I leave it in its dock most of the time, but taking it to and from work isn't terrible. It might grow annoying if you had to carry it long distances in a backpack or briefcase. I can't tell you what battery life is like because I'm either hammering the hell out of the CPU or barely touching it, depending on what I'm doing, so lifetime varies widely.
The X301 is much slimmer and lighter. Its battery life pretty much sucks, so I swapped the DVD player out for a second battery, and between the two it'll stand 4+ hours of heavy use. I use this machine as my personal travel laptop, and it is also the machine I use for DJ gigs.
$700 with 8GB RAM and 1080p screen. PCI slot, flash battery are only upgradable parts. If you treat it as something to last you for two years, then it's wonderful.
due to libinput. you can switch back to the old input method though
I like the thunderbolt 3 port which allows me to connect to up to 3 external displays and my usb peripherals, something that I cannot find with any of this generations laptops since docks stopped being a thing
Superb appart from a few minor downsides:
- build in speakers are glitchy (crackle when you adjust screen brightness or on other random occasions)
- bluetooth is not good enough for a mouse, seems to collide with wifi usage (this one bugs me. A dongle is quite a price to pay when you have only 2 usb ports)
- not the best battery life (trade-off with the graphics card I guess)
- screen flicker on lowest brightness
- keys rattle in the wind (not really an issue, but strange to hear really silently tic tic tic like a harddrive, when you just have an SSD inside.
- screws on the back are flimsy. I found it hard to tell when they are really tight and to get them in straight. Was a bit scary but seems to have worked out :)
The rest is still awesome and I'd buy it again :). Good build, small, matte display and within my budget. (I put more ram, threw the HD in to an external enclosure and put in a good SSD)
I used to get this thing where the screen would turn off because apparently the thunderbolt 3 circuits are interfering/being interefered by the wifi. But even this has stopped, maybe through a bios update?
Despite the sort of scary quality stories, when you get a good one, it's really great. The touch screen I was surprised actually comes into play, especially for demoing apps, or in tight quarters like a coach plane seat, where you can't even get to the touchpad.
The reason why doesn't have much to do with the specs. I've rocked Thinkpads for years, but I just can't get behind Lenovo anymore.
Anecdote time: Couple years ago (in the T410 era) I was on an IT team looking for new laptops for a small company. We got a guarantee from a Lenovo sales person and someone from their support side that we could pay for NBD repairs and they'd fix machines with Linux. When our first repair need came up, they refused to do anything until we re-installed Windows. For a bad display (it was all pink), nothing to do with Windows! We ended up keeping a spare, vanilla Windows 7 HDD around for when we needed it, but it left a bad taste.
Couple that with their more recent headlines about spyware in Windows machines, and back doors on some their mobile devices, and well... Fuck Lenovo.
My vote for Thinkpad would be fueled by nostalgia at this point. I'd give Dell the money for just trying and doing a damn fine job making Linux laptops people want to use. I've come across threads where they're supporting alt distros like Arch.
-- edit
The Razer Blade Pro is as costly as a rMBP, but imho more worth it. Switched keyboard, big trackpad to the right, is a really nice layout. The screen, by all accounts is incredible, and the raided M.2 drives are insanely fast. Definitely outside budget, but if you keep it for 4-5 years it's possibly worth it.
Not as powerful as the top-end XPS, but certainly no slouch. I much prefer the Latitude's keyboard as well. And it has Ethernet. Which is awesome. No driver or hardware issues at all running Linux.
I installed elementaryOS 0.4 (dual boot with Windows 10) and had no issues whatsoever. Everything worked out of the box, including the touch screen, multi-touch/two-finger scrolling, and keyboard hot keys.
On Linux Mint however, the cursor was hidden/invisible. Everything else worked (including the touch screen). I didn't spend much time trying to get it work, just continued using elementary.
The Dell XPS's have some weird Linux issues with the headphones and touchpad using Ubuntu 16.10 which probably will get straightened out at some point as more people use them.
Its irritating but other than that I love them.
Bout 5ish hours battery on both on Ubuntu.
Also note that the XPS 13 matte has a weird dynamic brightness that cannot be deactivated and has had multiple keyboard issues reported on reddit
Compared to older Thinkpads, they do not have a wobbly battery or noisy fan any more, and you may still get a decent keyboard (or you may not, it's a bit of a lottery).
Thinkpads now have at-least-FHD matte displays available. And it's possible to upgrade the disk(s), RAM, and battery. The battery is now hot-swap-able, and battery models are compatible across most models covering 2 generations. I'm using both a T550, which I like, and X260, which is a PoS by design, and being able to grab any extra battery and swap it mid-way through a trip without switching the laptop off, is quite nice. Fedora is running on both without any issue.
The X2nn series stopped being awesome somewhere between the X220 and X230. The newer ones are dropping to Acer ergonomic and quality levels...
I actually do have a 1920x1080 and a QHD laptop, which I barely touch because neither have the great keyboard of the X220.
I am in the same situation. I can't decide between Lenovo Thinkpad and Dell XPS 13/15 Developer Edition. This happened because I came across the HN discussion and saw a lot of people who recommended between those. Then, I just saw this discussion.
Actually, I have been deciding to choose Dell XPS over Lenovo because its security (I am still doubt with that and need to read more). I heard that Lenovo laptops have backdoor/SuperFish installed, is that true?
That being said the only things keeping me in the Thinkpad camp are the battery life (that's truly liberating, although a competitor will probably catch up with them) and the trackpoint (on that front no other brand comes close, and none seem interested in closing that gap). But my experience with the X260 is so bad (keyboard leaving marks on the screen, screen bezel leaving marks on the palm-rest, picking up the laptop by the bottom left corner may disconnect the underlying HDD and crash the machine -- a defect known since the X240!) that I will probably forego Lenovo entirely in the future.
Dell XPS do have good press, but I've had multiple bad experiences with Dell across several generations, so much so that we taunt colleagues still stuck with that brand at the office ("so I see you've brought your hair-dryer today!").
It's clear now. Your explanation eases my worries. I will looking forward for its security issue. I have googled that that issue can't be detected and removed.
Like what you said, I read someone has same experience when he's using Dell XPS.
I got the idea from the Linux Voice magazine in UK (highly recommended!) where many of the developers they interviewed used ancient Thinkpad X series.
If you do image editing you have to be careful with Thinkpads, the color space of recent screens has been quite bad in some models. Completely fine for coding etc though.
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad w510, which I bought in 2009. I work as a software developer, scientist and play games occasionally.
Pros:
- Extremely Powerful.
- i7, 4 Cores
- Came with 4 GB RAM
- GeForce Quatro Fx 880M
- 1920x1080 Color Calibrated Matte Touch Screen
- TrackPoint Style Pointer, see: https://xkcd.com/243/
- It's ugly and heavy, so less likely to be stolen
Cons:
- Heavy
- Battery lasts 30-40 mins, used to be 1.5 hrs.
- Loud after a couple of years of clogged up fan
- Price: I got a 30% academia discount, but it still was € 2600
- Screen is a little dim
My laptop is 7 years old now, but it is still running very well. I recently replaced the fan and it was quite easy to get replacement components. The old model came with 4GB RAM and a 500GB HDD, which I replaced with a 500GB SSD and 16GB RAM. It looks like it will last for another couple of years.
# Usabilty
Sturdy Keyboard. Good layout, F-Keys, and dedicated Power button, Volume controls, Home/End/Pg/Del button block. None of this "PRESS FN TO USE WINDOWS nonsense".
Touchscreen is nice, but I rarely use it as a primary input device. The touchscreen was unusable on Windows 7, but since Windows 8 it handles nicely. I didn't want it when I bought it, but it came piggybackriding the Full HD display, which I desparately wanted. Back then, most manufacturers were switching from 4:3 to a wide screen display layout and I didn't see myself using a 1388x<RandomNumber> display, especially because my old laptop had 1400x1050 resolution.
I can't stress enough how great the TrackPoint Stick mouse is on IBM Notebooks. Many people really hate it (please don't start a flamewar), but I love it, for it allows you to use the mouse without ever leaving the home row. It can be used quite precisely, but it takes some getting used to. I once played through the shooter "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" on a 4 hour train ride using only the track point mouse.
# Power
- During Software Development, I occasionally run several Windows / Ubuntu VMs at once, Visual Studio, IntelliJ, and it still handles nicely.
- I played Borderlands 2 for a long time on this machine. I had to reduce some graphic effects a little, but I could play it on full res (1080p).
- I run Photoshop and Lightroom, which can be resource hogs, but the machine can easily handle them
# Mobility
It is really heavy and also the power supply weighs a ton. The massive battery sticks out from the back. I bought it as a work horse, I got a work horse. Heavy, but reliable.
# Compatibility
I ran Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Arch Linux, Windows 10, each at least a year (except for my first Windows 10 install). Everything worked with arch, Windows 10 has all drivers and everything works fine. Just don't try to get into OpenGL programming when running nouveau drivers for the Nvidia Quatro FX on Arch Linux. They produce random system lockups (reported by others on the web) and don't support full sharder lang profiles. But other than that, you're going to be fine.
# Longevity
Getting replacement parts was really great, and I feel I made the right choice. My girlfriend as a MbP which she also bought around 2009/2010, which is running really slowly these days. She can't replace the harddrive, her battery is weak and she is stuck with 4GB RAM.
Being able to alter my hardware was a factor I didn't consider when I bought my laptop, but it turned out to be really handy. This is something you might want to look out for - how long the laptop will run and how you can extend its life.
Modern slim notebooks are very limited in this regard (it's nothing specific to the mbp), as it can be difficult to impossible to replace outdated components. However, a multicore system, SSD and decent amount of RAM should have you set up for the future.
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