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Ask HN: Laptops for programming (that aren't Apple laptops)?

27 points by lelandbatey ↗ HN
I'm looking for a laptop with:

1. 1080p screen 2. 5+ hours of battery life 3. A keyboard that's nice to type on

I don't care if it's made of wood and painted with rainbows and superheroes, but for the life of me I just cannot find a straightforward laptop for programming. I don't care about gaming, I don't care about hard disk size beyond about 120GB. It just has to be "fast enough" with a nice long battery, good screen, and a keyboard that doesn't make me hate typing.

Why must it be so hard to find a site that lets me filter on resolution instead of screen size? Why do all the reviews I find online talk about the "finish" of the laptop, or the way it looks? Why can't I find any reviews from professionals?

Btw, there's a project for you: detailed collection of data about different products, similar to [0]PcPartPicker, but for things like laptops, or cars, or whatever.

47 comments

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andor
Any business laptop should do, take a look at Thinkpad, Dell Latitude and HP models. The Lenovo T440s has a good 14 inch 1080p IPS panel.
mattl
ThinkPad T440s. Insane battery life, 1080p model exists Trackpad is a POS but that can be fixed easily.
lelandbatey
What do you mean when you say the trackpad can be "fixed easily". Do you mean just use a mouse, or is there some other way to improve it?
pwnna
Yeah I would like to know as well. This is why I won't buy another thinkpad after T430 if they don't restore the top buttons for the trackpoint.

Right now I have a T420 (which has the famous overheating issue) and a W530 and I'm quite happy. However this may change in the next couple of years.

As far as Mac goes, I use a Macbook at work and I absolutely hate it. Mostly as I have my nice Linux environments setup and cannot understand why Apple can't conform to the standard CTRL SUPER ALT keyboard. Though this is just my opinion.

jamesbritt
This is why I won't buy another thinkpad after T430 if they don't restore the top buttons for the trackpoint.

I get the feeling that ship has sailed; Lenovo seems to want to make second-best Dell or Apple machines instead of first-rate Thinkpad machines.

I've a few Thinkpad standalone keyboards (all without the trackpad) and I just assume that with whatever my next laptop is I'll end up using one of those external keyboards.

I've even sketched out ideas on how I might modify one so that it can be plopped on top of an existing laptop keyboard without hitting anything.

piinbinary
Agree that the Trackpad is a POS.

Another thing to note: the wireless card is an Intel 7260, which does not play well under Linux (the drivers are really buggy and it drops the connection several times an hour if you are connected to a multi-access point network).

The keyboard is not as good as the older ThinkPads (I love my T510), but it's still pretty good for a laptop.

The battery life is at least 5 hours of practical use for me.

UnoriginalGuy
I'd say a Thinkpad T or W series are quite safe bets. With the 9 cell battery you'll get quite a bit more than 5 hours of battery and the keyboards are a dream.

Honestly if it isn't a Macbook then it is a Thinkpad. I myself have a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 but that is only used for coding part time, I have a big heavy "workstation replacement" laptop with a keyboard/mouse/monitor as my main coding machine(and gaming)

reirob
Agree on ThinkPad, but attention the models from this year on (model names finishing with 40) don't have physical trackpoint/-pad buttons anymore, the keyboard layout is less accessible, the models with touchscreen reflect so much you get headaches after 30 minutes. I sent back a T440 and bought a used T430. I am too worried about my next model.
dkhar
Some of the newer Asus Zenbooks have the three criteria you're looking for, but they're very flaky on consistency and reliability (different trackpad hardware on the same laptop at random, screens dying randomly).

I actually have no huge OS preference, but I use a MacBook because it's literally the only thing on the market right now that fulfills those three criteria (I also have a fourth: <5 lbs) and reliably performs for longer than a year.

Lenovo's keeping up to some extent (I loved the X220 and X230, but the X240 is no longer competitive. Like others here have mentioned, the T440s is pretty nice, but the trackpad is clunky), but HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, and everyone else seem to have completely forgotten about the business laptop market. What happened, laptop manufacturers?

tjdetwiler
Can you elaborate on your opinion of the x240 (x220/x230 fan here, never used am x240)
dkhar
In short, I think the X240 improves incrementally on its predecessors, but the rest of the market has moved fast enough that it's behind the curve now.

Slightly longer:

For $1000 today, I can get a Macbook Air with:

- An SSD

- Twice the battery life (yeah, the X240 has nice removable batteries, but that kind of defeats the point of an ultraportable)

- A higher res screen that's only half an inch bigger

- A far nicer trackpad

- A nicer graphics chipset

I'd be giving up:

- Alloy roll cage and spill protection

- Powerbridge (hot-swappable batteries)

- A touch screen/digitizer (an Intuos2 ($40 from ebay) fills that gap nicely for me)

I don't think the X240 is a bad laptop, but, right now, the costs far outweigh the benefits.

scholia
Go to Amazon.com and search for laptop 1080 or laptop 1080p or your preferred resolution

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/177-6303522-8868339...

The Lenovo T440 is a good choice because you can have up to 12GB of RAM and its two batteries last "up to 17 hours" (the second battery is swappable). Screen resolution is 1600 x 900.

The standard processor is a 2.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U, which isn't very fast (but is ultra-low voltage). You can upgrade the spec to an i7-4600U.

There's a review at http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T440-20B...

I don't like the new Lenovo ThinkPad keyboards as much as the old IBM ones, but views differ.

HP EliteBook Folio 1040 G1 is also worth a look.

seanmcdirmid
Don't buy a 1080p if you can afford not to. These will be obsolete in a year or two as the whole industry moves over to UHD.
mjcohen
Everything will be obsolete in a year or two. You just have to decide what piece of obsolete equipment will do the job you need done. And don't complain.
seanmcdirmid
But this is the year where we truly start moving to UHD en masse, you can get a UHD laptop already for around $800. Software is eventually going to be optimized for 2X pixel densities, and your 1080p screen will be worthless.
lelandbatey
Except a 1080p screen at 15 inches is so far ahead of what I currently have that I really don't care. A 1080p screen isn't worthless to me.
seanmcdirmid
I've got 1600 x 900 and the pixels stick out like sore thumbs.
scholia
Are you short-sighted or is that a very big screen?
blind3y3design
Is there a reason you don't want an apple laptop? If it's because you dot want to use osx then simply put windows on it. MacBook actually make really good windows machines. And for the price since your not looking for a massive hdd the new MacBook airs are incredible.
UnoriginalGuy
Respectfully disagree. I read people claim this a lot online and it only makes me wonder: Have you actually tried it?

I tried to install Windows 8 onto a 2013 MBP and to describe the experience as painful would be a massive understatement. I had to manually format the partitions, manually mount drivers into the installer, and bypass Bootcamp's boot process as it would BSOD the Windows installer.

Even once I got Windows 8 to install (and that took over a week, since once you fix one issue there ere are four more waiting for you) the OS ran like a dog and had less than 50% of OS X's battery life (much less than a Thinkpad T440).

OS X is great, it really is. Windows is great. Running Windows on a Macbook is horrifying.

Oh did I mention that both Apple AND Microsoft wash their hands with it when it comes to support? Apple's response: "Contact Microsoft," Microsoft's response: "Contact the laptop's OEM." So anyone who thinks Apple supports Bootcamp, LOL, hell no. To quote one Apple support tech: "Why would you want to run Windows on a Macbook?" and "You should use Parallel Desktops instead, Bootcamp isn't as good."

mjcohen
How about Parallels or VMware?
UnoriginalGuy
They're fine but you're visualized so lose some performance, gpu in particular. But they work as advertised. I was mostly posting about native/bootcamp Windows issues.
un3n
"I tried to install Windows 8" Well theres your problem, and I mean that half jokingly, and half serious. I've ran windows xp and 7 on a mac via bootcamp and it was a great experience, literally the opposite of yours. I had similar requirements as the OP and for me a macbook pro was the best possible option.
UnoriginalGuy
According to Apple's Bootcamp page they supported Windows 8 at that time. It was a supported OS. There just wasn't much support available when you actually spoke to someone at Apple in general when it came to Bootcasmp, they just blamed the Windows installer and sent you to Microsoft (who then sent you back to Apple).
blind3y3design
I have used windows 7 on multiple different MacBooks. My company works with clients that require us to be in a windows environment. I'm also of the opinion that if you're using windows today you should be using windows 7. Windows 8 is, in my personal opinion, a failure as an OS for a desktop environment. I've never had issues installing windows into the boot amp environment. I'm sorry you have not had the same experience.
rickr
If you've got a big box store around check out the lenovo yoga 2. Hidpi screen, ok keyboard, good battery and relativity cheap. The convertible screen comes in handy as well. I thought it would be a gimmick but I ended up using it pretty often.
jamesbritt
I dropped by a local Microsoft store to see machines. They had a Yoga 2 and it looked pretty slick. One thing I liked was the matte screen.

A down side for me with newer, lightweight devices is that often there is no practical way to open them up to change anything.

I have a Thinkpad W500 (WUXGA, yay!) that has hinge issues, so I'm looking for a replacement. The W500 (and I assume other versions of the larger Thinkpads) makes it easy to slide in and out different hard drives, and upgrading memory is easy.

I'd like that in a new machine but it seems to be a feature of workhorse machines that fall short on battery life (as does the W500).

superJoy
There's this: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd. 13" 1080p screen, 128 GB SSD, 4th gen i5, very thin, comes with Ubuntu. $1200

I did all my laptop research in May of this year. Ended up with a Dell M3800. It's the base model with 1080p screen. I added an mSATA SSD. The XPS 15 is the same thing but the GPU is flashed with the Radeon drivers vs. the Quadro. I needed Windows/Quadro for best compatibility with CAD software.

"Retina" screens don't make much difference in my productivity imo.

informatimago
Now, laptops are used usually when moving or in different places.

One important part here is that it must be able to adapt quickly and easily to the different environment, meaning, network connections, external screens (retroprojectors), etc.

Honestly, the only kind of laptop/system that can do that, are MacOSX Apple laptops. I'm afraid I must say that even with Linux you will often have difficulties to connect to the random WIFI setups you'll find, or to manage the external monitors, etc (and I won't even mention MS-Windows, what a joke).

Oh, and there's also the battery life, 8+ or 10+ hours...

I mean, my main workstation is a Linux box, but as laptop, I use a MacBookAir, because when you're on battery you don't want to lose half an hour of battery time connecting to the network (or losing half the times the hibernation state).

As for keyboard, well, it's laptop keyboard anyways. When working at home, just hook a DasKeyboard or a Filco Otaku on the USB port.

Given your need in pixels, you'd want a MacBook Pro Retina. http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

I've worked recently for a year with a Dell laptop with various linux distributions on it (mainly at first ubuntu, but later I switched to debian) and it was quite decent (very nice screen and processor), however it still had those little problem with hibernation, external screens from time to time, switching wifi setups was horrible, and battery time (not mentionning the heat). (On the other hand, I must say that ubuntu works well on a little netbook computer I have around, but of course, I don't ask as much of it as of a development computer (come to think of it, it still had quite a difficult time with a GSM dongle)).

No, really, if you want to be productive with your laptop, use a Mac one.

brdd
"(and I won't even mention MS-Windows, what a joke)."

Just in defense of Windows, which I happily use as both a developer and designer -- the latest versions (Windows 7 or 8) are pretty good at doing the two things you've described. If anything I have had many more problems diagnosing the Internet connections of friends' Macbooks.

And with managing external monitors, Windows has a keyboard shortcut to easily switch, plus it remembers screen configurations. Example: I have external monitors at home and at work. At home my monitor is to the top-left of my laptop screen. At work it's directly to the right. Whenever I hook up the HDMI or Mini Displayport it remembers which is which and automatically switches for me.

I would agree that Macbook Airs are great hardware, but the Windows ecosystem is catching up pretty fast too. Some of the new ultrabooks are really nice -- give them a shot at least.

hackuser
> (and I won't even mention MS-Windows, what a joke).

I've used and supported many Windows laptops. Changing wifi networks and external monitors both work great. For the former, I'm not even sure what issue you've encountered; I just select a network and, if needed, type in a key, and it just works.

brulez
I used to code with a macbook pro for about a year and recently switched to the asus zenbook ux301. I definitely prefer it over the macbook.

I was very disappointed with the multi-monitor support on Mac. Some apps takeover both monitors while others don't, and maximizing/docking windows left/right was just tedious. Windows nails multi-monitor support, even remembering the display configuration based on which external monitor is plugged in.

Not having Linux is annoying because cygwin is pretty terrible, but I just SSH into a remote linux server or local vm.

btgeekboy
Two questions:

1. Have you tried full screen in 10.9? Seems to have improved things a bit, though it's definitely a work in progress.

2. Which SSH client do you use? I'm considering getting a Surface 3 Pro, but the lack of a proper terminal like Terminal.app or Gnome Terminal makes me skittish. PuTTY is...okay. (The alternative would be to get a 13" rMBP to replace the one I'm returning to my soon-former employer this week.)

lelandbatey
If you want a really good terminal on Windows, I recommend installing Cygwin. It's terminal is extremely full featured, as well as giving you a *nix way of interacting with your Windows install. I couldn't live without it!
brulez
1. I haven't, I'll have to give it a try.

2. I use KiTTY, a PuTTY port with a few extra features. It's not amazing but is decent after some configuration.

codemac
> Linux you will often have difficulties to connect to the random WIFI setups you'll find, or to manage the external monitors

I will say that linux has amazingly improved. I haven't had a single problem with my t440s wrt wifi or displays. NetworkManager for wifi and xrandr --auto for displays.. and I'm good to go. Even my thinkpad dock has been working perfectly.

And of course, the thinkpad keyboards are damned nice.

When was the last time you used a linux laptop? Because it doesn't sound recent (within 2 years)

lelandbatey
I owned a Macbook Pro from 2009 till 2012. Though I initially liked it, I found much of it annoying, and by the end spent nearly 100% of my time on it in Windows. I just prefer non-Apple.
dangrossman
I use an ASUS UX301LA-DH71T. It's a 2560x1440 13.3" ultrabook with a Haswell i7 and can run up to 8 hours on battery. It's thin, light, small enough to be portable, and super-capable for development (8GB RAM, dual-SSD RAID, i7 CPU and the integrated GPU is faster than the discrete Radeon in my last laptop). I typically have it docked to a second screen, but use its keyboard for programming. I have no complaints. It even comes with a one-year accidental damage warranty from the manufacturer, which I've never heard of a manufacturer offering before.

http://www.amazon.com/Zenbook-UX301LA-DH71T-Quad-HD-Display-...

If I cared less about having a decent GPU, I'd have also considered the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus (3200x1800 13" screen). I haven't looked at what's come out since the beginning of the year, but these two were the only non-Apple machines that met all my needs.

mxvanzant
Just got one of these today and keyboard is great, screen 1080p, very nice. Running Linux Mint 17 + Mate: Lenovo Thinkpad W540, 20BG0011US.
mxvanzant
Also, battery life seems very long (showing approx. 5 hours left after an hour of use, but I haven't tried it that long yet...)
aosmith
I have an X1 carbon (runs Fedora). I was a mac convert and it's hands down the best machine I've ever owned.
elwell
I've been really happy with my HP ProBook 4530s. As the name hints at: you'll notice a bit of MacBook Pro mimicry; but not in the price. Been using it for a few years and would definitely recommend it still.
elwell
In fact, the keyboard is so close to the MacBook Pro's that you can almost use a silicone keyboard cover that is meant for MacBook Pro. I think only one key doesn't match.
lmilcin
I love my t440s. With 6-cell battery I can survive for almost 20 hours of continuous work on single charge if I don't load it too much.
igaape
If price isn't an issue I'd definitely look into the Razer Blade 14" It's every bit as good as a MacBook Pro in build quality and has really high end specs (since it's a gaming laptop) is also touch screen and a windows machine
eddiedunn
I'm surprized nobody has provided a link to Dell's XPS 13 "Developer edition" laptop.

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...

I bought one after using an Asus UX31E for two years and the Dell laptop is better in almost every aspect. To wit:

* 1080p IPS screen

* 5+ hours of battery

* An amazing keyboard (imho better than Macbook keyboards, which are by many considered among the best laptop keyboards)

* Weight is only 1.36 kg

* Comes with Linux (Ubuntu) pre-installed

The only thing I preferred with my Zenbook was its trackpad, which was smooth and metallic, since my sweaty fingers have a tendency to stick on the XPS trackpad. On the other hand, I _hated_ the Zenbook keyboard, and would choose a good keyboard over a good trackpad any day.