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Ask HN: What's the best laptop for development now?

18 points by lz400 ↗ HN
I want to replace my old MBP. A couple of years ago I'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't have a lot of interest.

If one doesn't care about OS, what's are the best laptops for development at this moment? Thinking ~13", 256-512 SSD, 8-16gb.

42 comments

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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.

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

Why?

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

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.
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?

Slaul
It's just different tools for the same job. I could build a shed with a hammer, nails, and a handsaw but with a little extra money I could go get more specialized tools that may make me more effective.
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.

freehunter
It's often a choice. Plenty of people develop great software on less hardware. Your life gets easier the more RAM you have, but you don't absolutely need it unless you're doing something specialized where your toolkit is larger than normal.
good_vibes
what ways can you optimize RAM usage?

I have a 2016 MPB with 8gb that works well but still lags sometimes. I suspect having Chrome with multiple tabs is a problem but I don't think Safari would be any better. Or would it?

freehunter
Safari is far better on RAM but it's only an option if it supports the features you need. Unfortunately a couple of tools I use don't work well with Safari, so I had to switch to Chrome. Never saw OSX's "you've run out of memory" message before then.
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.
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.
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.

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

lz400
Agreed but when sometimes you need the mobility
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).
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.

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.

sciolistse
I was pretty wary of the new mbp because of the initial negative posts.. but figured I may as well give it a shot, so I've also had mine since a few weeks after they came out.

In my own opinion all the negative attention was correct. It's not at all unusable, but it's been strictly worse than the previous generation.

The lack of tactile feedback on the touchbar makes me have to look at the keyboard to use it which is a step back. It also doesn't attempt to verify that i'm actually trying to press a button which makes them easier to accidentally press than a real button.

The keyboard is okay, but the buttons occasionally stick and require finagling to fix, typing is marginally slower and less friendly on my wrists than the previous gen.

I preferred using actual right click on my trackpad and on the newer version that's entirely impractical and I have not seen any benefit to the size increase.

None of my issues are dealbreakers and I'm sure most people find the new version to be fantastic.

lz400
From trying it a few minutes, thinking about how I'd use it and from articles. I'm not saying I wouldn't change my mind after 1 year but at this point I don't think I would and I don't like those features.
12s12m
I have researched a lot into this. A thinkpad x1 carbon seems like the best machine for a developer.
lz400
This looks very nice indeed
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).

rpcope1
As someone with a P50, I've been really really impressed with it, even though 64GB has been pretty overkill. I just wish I could have gotten it with a 4k screen instead of just HD.
NumberCruncher
I bought lately a refurbished T430 with 512 GB SSD and 16 GB RAM on Amazon after reading about it on HN. It works fine.
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.
8draco8
I am rocking X230 after two years with MBP and it is excellent, but I have soft spot for Thinkpads as my first laptop was good old IBM T23. Great laptops, very well build, supports Linux out of the box and fantastic upgradability. Battery life is also very good, plus since X240 it is possible to change external battery without turning off the laptop which is handy.
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.
RUG3Y
I'm enjoying my XPS 13.
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.
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?

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

DanBC
Installing Linux on the ASUS x205ta is unfun.

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.

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!