If you had to write code all day, what laptop would you buy and why?
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Software Engineer
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paulmilbank: If you had to write code all day, what laptop would you buy and why?
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paulmilbank: Yeah, sorry should have been more clear. External screens, keyboards, docks etc would be provided. We have all our Devs run dual 24" screens and any laptop has a usb3 dock.
Was more thinking about size, ram, CPU, screen res, ssd vs hdd, ie speed vs storage. Is any i7 with 16GB ram fine (generally we load up RAM on any dev machine.), or should we only be looking at the i7M procs over the U versions?
Guess what I really want to know would be is a 16GB i7 ultrabook good, or do you need a workstation class machine for development?
We need some of our devs to be mobile and I don't want them to be feeling that working on a laptop is the worst experience in the world.
Software Engineer
(the practice of real science, engineering and management)
A.I. (Automation rebranded)
Gender Neutral
(a person who believes in equality and who does not believe in/use stereotypes. Examples such as gender, binary, nonbinary, male/female etc.)
...they/their/them...
TwoSeven:paulmilbank: Yeah, sorry should have been more clear. External screens, keyboards, docks etc would be provided. We have all our Devs run dual 24" screens and any laptop has a usb3 dock.
Was more thinking about size, ram, CPU, screen res, ssd vs hdd, ie speed vs storage. Is any i7 with 16GB ram fine (generally we load up RAM on any dev machine.), or should we only be looking at the i7M procs over the U versions?
Guess what I really want to know would be is a 16GB i7 ultrabook good, or do you need a workstation class machine for development?
We need some of our devs to be mobile and I don't want them to be feeling that working on a laptop is the worst experience in the world.
To be honest, I wouldn't do mainstream development on a laptop - a dedicated workstation class machine (Dell/HP etc.) would be much cheaper and way more capable and configurable as compared to a laptop (for the price of a cheap laptop, you'd be looking at a pretty high end workstation). The laptop would be good for onsite visits and the like.
Generally I spec a developer rig these days with 32Gb+ memory, Core I7, 128Gb+ SSD for OS, 1TB SATA for data/vms and a pretty good graphics card for multiple 24" monitors.
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networkn:TwoSeven:paulmilbank: Yeah, sorry should have been more clear. External screens, keyboards, docks etc would be provided. We have all our Devs run dual 24" screens and any laptop has a usb3 dock.
Was more thinking about size, ram, CPU, screen res, ssd vs hdd, ie speed vs storage. Is any i7 with 16GB ram fine (generally we load up RAM on any dev machine.), or should we only be looking at the i7M procs over the U versions?
Guess what I really want to know would be is a 16GB i7 ultrabook good, or do you need a workstation class machine for development?
We need some of our devs to be mobile and I don't want them to be feeling that working on a laptop is the worst experience in the world.
To be honest, I wouldn't do mainstream development on a laptop - a dedicated workstation class machine (Dell/HP etc.) would be much cheaper and way more capable and configurable as compared to a laptop (for the price of a cheap laptop, you'd be looking at a pretty high end workstation). The laptop would be good for onsite visits and the like.
Generally I spec a developer rig these days with 32Gb+ memory, Core I7, 128Gb+ SSD for OS, 1TB SATA for data/vms and a pretty good graphics card for multiple 24" monitors.
Seriously 32GB? Are they virtualizing? Our dev houses we support usually have a couple of Hyper-V servers where the devs run the vm's they need.
Software Engineer
(the practice of real science, engineering and management)
A.I. (Automation rebranded)
Gender Neutral
(a person who believes in equality and who does not believe in/use stereotypes. Examples such as gender, binary, nonbinary, male/female etc.)
...they/their/them...
“Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.” Douglas Adams
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Dynamic: If you want performance + storage, consider fitting one of the Western Digital Dual Drives. They are a 1Tb 2.5" HDD with 128Gb of SSD caching the most frequently access files. Near-SSD performance but with heaps of space for data files or modest VMs.
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paulmilbank:Dynamic: If you want performance + storage, consider fitting one of the Western Digital Dual Drives. They are a 1Tb 2.5" HDD with 128Gb of SSD caching the most frequently access files. Near-SSD performance but with heaps of space for data files or modest VMs.
Nice, have you used one. Just saw them on our suppliers site. Would like to give one a go.
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networkn: I'd go with HP Elitebooks. They have loads of connectivity options various configs for screen size vs weight and vary in price. They don't vary in quality or warranty both of which are better than average by some margin. If productivity is important, stump for SSD's over processor speed. An I5 would be plenty for most devs but I'd consider an SSD essential to any staff member these days.
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