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Good Developer Laptop

1 points by vlangber ↗ HN
I'm currently using a desktop both at work and at home. But I want to switch to a laptop. But I don't want to give up more performance than necessary. And I don't want to pay for a GPU. My requirements:

- 8 Cores or more(Ryzen H/HS or Alder Lake H-series) - 32GB RAM - Good cooling (without too much noise) - No external GPU - Weight and screen size isn't that important

I haven't found any good options. I basically want a Asus Zephyrus G14 without the GPU.

Are there any options out there I haven't found?

8 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 36.5 ms ] thread
danpalmer
I'd pick a brand that is good for what you want, then find a machine that meets that spec.

Most brands conflate "high spec" with "gaming", which is the opposite of what you need. I'd recommend looking at the business lines from Lenovo and Dell, and at the Microsoft laptop range.

Lenovo Thinkpads – good quality, business focused (read: less GPU, more CPU/RAM), Dell – pain to buy from, shitty sales, but I've heard great warranties and support for business customers, Microsoft – no bullshit, pretty much guaranteed to be great for Windows if that's what you want.

All my cards on the table, I'd just buy a Mac, likely a 14" MBP, but that's because I like macOS and the CPUs are very good at the moment. However if you're running Linux/Windows this is not a good option.

vlangber
I haven't found any good laptops from Dell, Lenovo or Microsoft that combined the features I want. I want a "desktop-replacement" CPU, good cooling and without GPU. There are quite a few gaming laptops that fit the bill, except the unnecessary GPU and high price (and ugly styling).
danpalmer
If you want a desktop replacement CPU I'm afraid the price is going to be high whatever you find as it will be a specialist machine. I'd expect $2500 and upwards.

Those 3 companies are probably the closest you're likely to find for high-spec non-gaming machines.

The only other thing I can think of is the Framework laptop. CPU is a laptop CPU but a good one, 32GB RAM, great expansion and repairability, ~$2600 on pre-order. Intel only though for now I believe.

slater
Just bite the bullet and get a Macbook Air or Pro. Yes, you'll have gripes, just different ones that you might actually be OK with, compared to Win/Linux laptop gripes :D
systemBuilder
The problem is that manufacturers want to detect the SWE customers and mark those laptops up by $1000. What do you get for that extra $1000? Another 16GB of RAM ...

We own a Thinkpad yoga and various MacBook pros. The Intel MacBook pros are thigh-burning junk. Put 2 or 3 screens on it and watch it slow to a crawl. The $2k Thinkpad is giving us sketchy battery behavior after 133 power cycles. I'm not happy with any laptops these days the manufacturers are way too "my way or the highway" with their inflexible ripoff config and pricing strategies ..