Comments on: Developer Laptops in 2016

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 16:15:39 +0000

In reply to Ali. As far as I know, it's pretty okay for an inexpensive machine.

By: Ali

Ali — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 01:13:29 +0000

Hi,

Any idea about dell inspiron 13 7000 ?

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 17:02:49 +0000

In reply to Guillaume Duveau. I went an odd route and got myself a Chromebook. However, I lost it in a house fire. If I had to buy a machine today, it'd be a Mac. If I couldn't have a Mac, a Dell XPS, though I'm not fond of the company after my experience with my wife's laptop which had full coverage but apparently not for fire.

By: Guillaume Duveau

Guillaume Duveau — Sat, 15 Apr 2017 01:27:08 +0000

Hi Antonio,

What did you end up with ?

I came up on your blog post because I am, too, in research of my new dev laptop. 3 months ago, I bought a refurbished Macbook Air early 2015, basic processor, 8Gb RAM, 128Go SSD. I’m not happy at all with it and I’m gonna sell it. I thought third-party SSD would come up but there is nothing worthy. Then, I am very disappointed with OS-X for developpers. I mean, you can’t do any serious job with Docker on OS X. And even with virtual machine, there are lots of issues because of the proprietary filesystem and general non-standard issues with OS X.

My main machine is under Linux since 15 years. Time to switch to a generic PC laptop with Linux. I’m considering Dell XPS 13 and some Lenovos, I’d prefer a lightweight machine. But I want it to be fully upgradable and standard. I want to be able to change the RAM, the SSD and I would very much like to have 2 SSD slots.

Greatings from my quest for my perfect pro laptop 🙂

By: Developing with a Chromebook

Developing with a Chromebook — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 23:42:27 +0000

[…] my previous post on laptops for developers, I shortlisted a few options. In this one, I share the story of how I will end up developing […]

By: László Földes

László Földes — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 11:11:46 +0000

I have taken the Yoga 900 into consideration but it is very much designed for the home user and I needed something that works well in an office environment.
The 900 has too few USB slots, no docking port, no ethernet port, but looks nice 🙂 same as a MacBook Air.
The Yoga 460 is from the business line of Lenovo’s, it has 3 USB 3.0, full size HDMI, a DisplayPort and a OneLink dock port on the notebook (but no ethernet either). The dock is great, it has 7 USB, audio, 2 HDMI ports, RJ-45 and an old VGA connector.
Being new, they needed some firmware updates to fix minor problems but so far this is a fairly good setup.

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 18:48:52 +0000

In reply to Földes László. Their Yoga line is indeed a nice alternative. When researching it, I particularly looked at the Yoga 900 series.

By: Földes László

Földes László — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 18:42:27 +0000

A good substitute for the X1 Carbon is the Lenovo Yoga 460 (I wouldn’t buy Apple notebooks, I’m not a fan).
I bought the same config you as you mentioned (8GB RAM, i5 6th generation CPU) but the main reason over the X1 was that I was *replacing* my notebook and not buying new one, and the Yoga 460 has a replaceable, 2.5″, 7 mm HDD or SSD so I could bring over my already used 1TB SATA SSD.

By: Antonio Cangiano

Antonio Cangiano — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 14:01:32 +0000

In reply to Al Chou. Thank you for the suggestions, Al. I actually bought my previous MBP as refurbished + IBM employee discount, so it saved me quite a bit. Of the laptops I mentioned above, I'd get a discount on the Apple and the Lenovo ones.

By: Al Chou

Al Chou — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 13:55:37 +0000

I recommend getting a refurbished Mac laptop so you don’t pay full price. Tanga.com generally has the best prices, though not the widest selection. Probably the best deal on a MacBook Air when they’re in stock. Though upping the RAM on one of those to 8 GB will be pricey. Adding disk space, though, seems possibly reasonable via a NiftyDisk (or a TarDisk, if you absolutely require the space to appear all as one volume).