I use two 13" Macbook Airs. One is an 1.3 GHz i5 from 2013 which is admittedly slowish at times with heavy Atom and browser use. The other is an 2.2 GHz i7 from 2015 and that one is pretty awesome.
The batteries on those machines are amazing. They really last for 7-9 hours depending on use. The 2013 one is starting to show the "Service battery" warning every now and then but no performance degradation is noticeable yet. It's been through 380 cycles so far.
If you use a non-Retina Macbook like those, I suggest using a bitmap font for programming (I'm using Terminus myself). It's totally sharp and easy on the eyes. Crank up the contrast in your editor's color theme and you're all set.
I've got the min-2012 i7 Air -- love the machine, and it still runs fast and great. The battery is pretty terrible though. I'm probably due for a new one. When I took it to my local Apple reseller, they told me that they didn't think the battery needed replacing -- but they are wrong, and I should just pay them to do it anyway :-p
Thanks for the recommendation of Terminus! I normally use Inconsolata with ITerm's anti-aliasing, nominally 18pt (though it's nowhere near as big as that sounds). Terminus (without AA) is amazingly sharp! I'm not sure if it's as readable as Inconsolata, but I'll try it out for a few days and see how I feel.
Yup, me too with the caveat that I don't really use it as a primary work machine - have a desktop for that. But, if i'm on the Macbook Air, and I need more power, I remote into a machine with more power. The battery life and portability are perfect for me.
That said, I've been keeping an eye out for alternatives for future replacements after my current Air dies, as Apple seems to be flirting with ending the line? Or it least it seems like a stepchild wedged between the Macbook and Macbook Pro lines. A premium build, portable laptop that runs well integrated Linux would be nice - but honestly I'm skeptical that a competitor will emerge. Maybe a librem 13.
Plenty of go for web browsing, compiling embedded code, and LaTeX, so long as you don't need to run 20 virtual machines, do video encoding, or play games.
This depends a lot of your needs. I use the Asus Zenbook UX305CA with Ubuntu 16.04 and I really love it. When it breaks I will probably get the same one again (or a modern version of it).
Now on the pros/cons:
+ Super lightweight and thin, can carry it anywhere.
+ Quite solid. Not the same as Macs, but a lot more than most laptops.
+ Silent. It uses an m3/m5 so it doesn't need fans.
+ Battery. It lasts 4h with max brightness and around 6 with low one. It's a lot more than I tried before and few laptops with Linux last this long (in my experience). Totally a letdown for Mac users (;
+ Price. I bought it for $650 + ~$130 for importing it, which still makes it really cheap.
+ 1080p 13.3" mate display. It's exactly just what I want. No glaring, no dirty touchscreen, not too small nor too big, good resolution but maintains the battery.
- No keyboard backlight. However you should not be programming with the lights off.
- No computing power. From time to time I like experimenting with something for which I'd need more power
like 3D or video edition.
- No USB Type-C. Of course the laptop is old for this standard, so I'm hoping for the next refresh they add
it (and not USB-C + a proprietary charging method like they did in the UX303).
This is a huge plus for me. After switching to Fedora on my previous laptop, I could never get the damn backlight to shut off, and it crippled my battery life.
I use Parallels for .NET development and the Mac side for web browsing, iOS development, and the terminal.
If I didn't depend on MacOS, I'd like to try an XPS 13 with dual-booted Linux/Windows 10. Although one nice thing about Parallels is that I can have my iTerm2/zsh shell managing .NET development I have to do on the Windows side, and I'd lose that if I dual-booted and I'd have to use something way inferior like Cygwin or something.
I've been involved in the *nix ecosystem for a long time, so I'm familiar with the commands/file structure/etc. And PowerShell isn't even close to replicating the terminal experience I currently have.
My work issued me some random shitty dell with parts that barely work and something fails about every 4 months... This is not one of their high end models, but it does have an i7 6700 and 64gb of RAM. So when it does work it is decently fast.
Intel i7 6700k, nVidia 980, 64gb of RAM, RAID 1 of M2 Samsung 920 SSDs (read spead of 1.2GB/s) for root filesystem, and a RAID 1 of 2TB HGST spinning disks for long term storage.
It is great for short compile times while still being technically portable. I do a little openCL/cuda work on it, but not as much as I had planned. It is more than capable for this.
I occasionally game and I generally put the settings on "ultra" and have no complaints about framerates (but I also play older games like borderlands II and indy games). I usually keep games in a VM too, an that doesn't hurt the performance enough to notice.
I went with System76 instead of buying the clevo/sager alternative (because System76 rebrands clevo/sager) is the ease in getting parts and support from System76. They are always easy to work with and I am able to get parts for old machines easily. This is valuable to me, because I am comfortable doing my own hardware maintenance up to and including soldering of minor parts. I have been able to get individual power jacks from them.
That's a beast, doesn't it weigh a ton and don't you worry about having spinners knocking around in your bag?
Do you need that much in a luggable? I would have that setup on a desktop, having that in my portable machine would remove most of the advantages of it (for me at least)?
I work out of 3 offices (home and 2 jobs). I have desktops at two of the offices that run servers that matter for local office stuff. I move this laptop around when I plan on being at a given office for a work day. This thing builds faster than any desktop I have (currently).
I have never tried to bring it on a plane, I suspect they would charge me for an extra ticket because the laptop is too heavy. Seriously, I would bring one of my smaller machines if I planned on being mobile multiple times through the day. I have clevo ultrabook, access to a macbook air through one of my jobs and a small collection of netbooks, if I don't need much I might just stick with my phone (or a tablet) and a bluetooth keyboard.
I use a chromebook, it's cheap, it works, it's lightweight, it has a decent battery life. I bought it used for about $100. I switch to linux if I need to do development. The only thing I wish it had was a higher resolution. My inability to do work with it has never been of the hardware but of not knowing how or being lazy.
Got it to upgrade from a 2008 15" Macbook Pro in 2013, and it's still running like a champ. I only really upgrade my laptops every five years and it looks like it will easily beat that. I even have it encrypted with FileVault and there's absolutely no slowness with development.
I even use it to use Remote Play for my PS4, really nice way to game when I'm not at my house.
The only real issue is that I wish I would have splurged on the SSD. For me, 512GB doesn't cut it with the amount of projects and repositories I have on my built in SSD, and this includes my extensive prog rock music collection.
It's not lightweight though, ~5 lbs in your backpack does add strain to your shoulders if you walk around with it. The battery is sufficient for me at around 4 hours of use with medium to full brightness, enough, at least, so I don't /need/ to take my charger in to work.
I have the same machine and very happy with it. I agree with the 512GB, but at the time the price difference wasn't worth it. I think the best thing is to have an external disk that can talk thunderbolt speeds and leave the rarely used things in there.
I've debated getting an external drive. Thunderbolt drives are still too expensive compared to USB3 ones. And I do like the fact that I don't need to carry an external drive with me if I need to see that one previous project since I find I do that occasionally to find some code logic or a solution to a problem in my previous projects.
They're still "rarely used", but td so convenient to have access to them always. I could get Dropbox but then I'm paying for data space monthly.
2014 MBP (15"). I've never seen machines with the same build quality as Apple, and the trackpad is really excellent - smoother than anything else I've used. Display is also fantastic.
I love this machine, although Apple's direction makes me want to switch to something else like a ThinkPad X1 Carbon.
~5 yr old MacBook Air at home (I bought it because at that time it was the cheapest lightweight laptop with a great battery life).
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) at work (I could have gotten any laptop and any OS and many people actually go for those but I just went ahead with the standard issue).
I am fine with both and I was fine with my Dell Linux work laptop before this workplace and a Windows work desktop before that. For me there is no "one true" machine or gadget or as some people say it "X is the only real Y". What I do, Android development earlier - and now front-end development which I hate and that's why I will be leaving this workplace soon, any of these machines are good enough (well, to be honest my 5 year old Air is not so enough anymore). Another reason I don't do much professional hobbyist thing once I am out of my workplace (not proud of it as such but no regrets so far either) - I use the time after work to read fiction, play badminton, travel/trek, sketch, films etc.
If I have to buy another laptop (which will be for personal use if at all) I would like something like LiteBook (https://litebook.store). 13-inchish, lightweight, good battery life - decent power (not really sure how LiteBook fares here) to browse, films, music and some development here and there. Or, MacBook Air if hopefully Apple doesn't kill the line miraculously or doesn't increase the price.
But if I must buy one at home, for development, it will be a custom build PC. Yes, desktop. And a nice simple wooden table and comfy chair along with that.
I use a thinkpad t61p. I've had it since 2011 and it still runs just a good as it did when I bought it. Its extremely modular, rugged, and has fantastic linux support. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it's battery life is pretty sub-par but most places that I use it have power outlets so it hasn't been an issue yet. It also has the best keyboard that I have ever used in my life by far.
You're right! Mine does run pretty hot and was having overheating issues last summer, but once I replaced the thermal paste on it it hasn't had an issue since. Considering that it was a 9 year old laptop then I was very pleased that was the only issue that I've had with it thusfar
15" rMBP. Got it in March 2015 and it's been rock-solid for over 2 years now (my previous Macbook lasted 4+ years before having a sporadic boot problem that probably could've been fixed if I wasn't ready to replace it anyway). Fast, stable, excellent build quality, no complaints. I was a little disappointed in the touchbar MBP but it would still be an easy choice for me if I had to get a new machine.
Yep, I went for 16GB and maxed out the processor, very glad as well. The specs are still well above average for the industry, I don't think I'll replace it til 2019 barring an accident or whatever.
It's actually really easy to install Ubuntu on a Mac these days, and even dual-boot. I did it a couple years ago on a small partition for fun. I still vastly prefer OSX though, and the trackpad drivers are much smoother in OSX.
The choice of laptop will mainly depend on your needs and workflow.
My main machine is an HP Stream 11 2017 edition. It's very small and portable and has great battery life (I easily get 8.5hours a day out of it).
In terms of specs it's extremely limited, only having 2gb of RAM and all but because I'm mostly working on remote VPS instances, I don't really feel the lack of memory.
Oh and I obviously wiped windows and replaced it with xubuntu 16.04.
Same here. I vary across distributions, going from OpenSUSE to Ubuntu to Fedora back to Ubuntu, but XFCE is the only constant there. I spend my day switching between the command line and a browser so XFCE is just what I need as a desktop environment.
I am using an MSI Ghost Pro gs63vr for a few reasons:
- My Macbook Pro (late 2014) was getting just an hour or two of battery life when running Windows in Fusion. I work in Windows and Linux mostly. I use the OS X laptop for browsing and iTunes.
- I needed a good video card for Counter-Strike:GO. I recently started playing again and the MBP couldn't cut it. It has a 1060 GTX.
- It has a quad core processor and 16gb of RAM.
- It is about 4.1lbs and slim.
- At $1300, it's not a bad deal.
Cons:
- The screen is washed out since I bought it from Best Buy who apparently uses a lower quality screen in their build (hence the price).
- I had to reinstall Windows because the standard installed software was causing the fans to spin to the point of a high whine. I was getting 1 hour of battery life out of the box. I now get at least 4.
- I am not a keyboard geek, but the keys feel smaller or more compressed. Likely due to the fact that it has a number pad. I wish it didn't have that and that the keyboard were more spacious. I am still getting used to it, a month later.
Dell XPS 9360 13.3" screen
- No Mac policy (Unfortunately I have to use one at work)
- 4K resolution
- Lightweight, at least as compared to my previous Lenovo
- Bought the windows edition but put Ubuntu on it.
- Resolution scales well with Cinnamon.
- Battery life is about 6 hours with IntelliJ, netty, Postgres running.
I am not sure I understand what you mean by could whine? I did have to replace my AC adapter because the one in the box would not work any more. Dell shipped another one out next day.
The XPS 13 looks like the perfect machine for me but all these coil whine reports scared me away from it. Then I found out a friend of mine bought one (the XPS 15 though), and when I asked him about it he said he never noticed anything.
I really can't tell if it's only on some machines or if most people simply don't notice/don't care.
The XPS 15 does not suffer from coil whine. However almost all the XPS 13's will have it. Some will be quite others will be really loud. Its a gamble and shame on Dell for not fixing it after so many complaints
Lenovo thinkpad t460s. I got it in part because of a great deal.
The biggest complaint I have is the screen brightness. Battery life could also be better. Otherwise, I love the keyboard feel and it feels really solid while remaining compact and light.
In my research, the real other contenders were the dell xps line or other thinkpads.
It's a two-in-one design and comes with a Kaby Lake Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SDD, IPS FHD display, and USB-C.
It's incredibly stylish, thin and lightweight. It looks and feels like a premium machine. Very easy to carry around and use, but still packs a good amount of processing power. Battery life is pretty good; maybe not the best, but definitely more than I need. Its tablet/reversible modes are nice to have, but not something I use often.
Mine is dual-booted with Arch Linux, which was a fairly easy install. Mostly I'm booted into Linux for development, but sometimes switch over to Windows for games.
Price was around ~$1300, which I believe is slightly cheaper than the XPS 13.
2012 15inch Macbook pro (retina) i7(2.3GHz quad-core) 256g SSD.
The battery died after 2 years, but since I had that extended warranty it was covered. The bill would have been $500 otherwise becz it's glued to the screen (or some such nonsense). Now I'm super paranoid about the battery and leave it plugged in 90% of the time. Wish I could upgrade the SSD.
Not super impressed by the new mac laptops (really not that big of a difference for me).
Now thinking of taking the hit and getting a Windows10/Ubuntu desktop (with maybe 32G/64G memory) with an AMD Ryzen7 and a Nvidia1080. Wish I could get a mac desktop like that, but given up hope that Apple can pull their finger out.
I use a 2012 MacBook Pro 15". I bought a second hand as it was the last mac laptop with a nvidia card. Not the fastest but makes a difference for most machine learning calculations.
It's got 16GB but it's not quite fast enough for my taste. I find myself waisting time on Twitter or HN when compiling or training models or running integration tests.
My ideal laptop would be a 13" mac laptop with a 4K screen, a nvidia card with 3GB of ram, 32GB ram and a nice fast 512GB hard drive. Perhaps it can have a thunderbolt so I can hook up an external 1080 nvidia
Sadly I realize Apple is never going to release such laptops.. I'm describing a Razr Blade or a DEll XPS :(
I feel the same... Why Apple don't listen to their pro users.
I would like to be able to game, video edit, photoshop and get a decent fps (not doing all this at the same time).
My ideal MacBook Pro would be a 13" or 15" with retina display, i7 Kaby Lake, with at least 16gb of ram and a nvidia GTX 970.
A 7 year old macbook pro...
It's a 2010 13inch unibody model, still gets about 5 hours on the original battery.
I've upgraded the ram to 16gigs, and put in a 256gig SSD.
It runs buttery smooth and is super fast.
I'm surprised it has lasted lasted this long really, my previous macbook pro lasted about 3 years before the hinge/screen tearing issues started.
I'm not sure what ill move to when this one dies, I'm not i pressed with the trend of machines not being user serviceable...
If i wasn't able to swap parts out then I'd probably have had to buy a new one a few years back.
I got one of the newer ones a few months ago, running Arch. It's got great battery life, very light, pretty powerful. It wasn't the cheapest (I think around $1,300, can't remember), but I suspect it will last. Only "linux issue" is that the media keys didn't work out of the box. Actually, I've never gotten around to figuring out why, maybe I'll do that now.
I purchased a 13-inch HP laptop from Costco[1] recently for $1000. It's 7th-gen i7, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd and 3200 x 1800 touch display. Battery life could be better but it's aesthetically pleasing and performs well for mobile and web app development while also running VMs.
Latest XPS13 running arch. So far the least annoying setup I've had in recent memory, having switched from macs (although I've had to stick to 4.9 as 4.10 causes all kinds of issues for me).
Oh, the trackpad is a bit annoying too and often palm detection doesn't work which makes for some nice random scrolling etc but that's minor to the gripes I had with OSX.
In the future wish I could have it in the same style body as 'the macbook' though. Easily my favourite of all lappies I owned from a hw view.
A 2012 Asus Zenbook UX31A. I'm really surprised how strong it is going after 4.5 years, in terms of battery (80% capacity at last full charge) as well as build quality. (A screw has fallen out at the bottom, but there's 10 of them, so I'm not particularly worried.) The only thing that bugs me is the non-upgradeable RAM. I'm stuck at 4 GB. I'll certainly make sure that my next notebook is more upgradable in that regard.
Thinkpad T460p--actually running Windows 10 Pro right now. Superfast, decent battery life. Could use a slightly brighter display but overall this machine is great!
I use a Surface Pro 3 as my laptop, running Windows. I avoid doing real work on it though -- not nearly enough memory, terribly slow CPU. I mostly use it for SSH, IRC, email, and web browsing. Occasionally I'll write some Rust code on it. I use a custom built desktop with 16GB of RAM and a Xeon E3-1230v2. Planning on upgrading that to either a Ryzen 1800X or some Naples Point configuration with at least 32GB of RAM soon.
Thinkpad T460 - best laptop ive owned yet. Great keyboard, great battery life, great linux support out of the box (everything works including suspend resume).
unfortunately t460 doesn't have one of these. It has the dreadful chiclet style keys. Fortunately I use external keyboard most of the time, but in those moments that I don't I wish the darkest circles of hell upon the genius that approved this change.
Currently, a chromebook pixel 2015 running Debian testing. But today should arrive my new alienware 13: skylake + gtx1060, oled screen, 250gb ssd boot, 500gb ssd for /home (zfs). I expect to also install debian. I want to play with cuda on the nvidia gpu and run a few games on windows.
I got an MBP at work bt I really don't like it, it's there only when I need to compile something for iOS.
How is the trackpad on the surface pro line compared to Macs? Its something that I care about now that I never used to until I started using Macs more.
ThinkPads are the only real option. I can't stand the heat and bad ergonomics of Apple's stuff (the keyboard is weird, the trackpad feels off, the metal gets way too hot). And no nipple mouse, if you're into that. And dongles/lack of ports are silly - I care more about functionality than showing off my laptop's sleekness.
T series (14") have better keyboards, but the 12" form of the X series is great. It's mostly a choice of X260 vs T460s (or the x70 models coming out this month). The X1 is interesting if you wanna look flashy, but lack of user serviceable parts isn't too attractive.
I usually run my X250 with throttling turned on, and TPFanControl to keep the temps down so the keyboard stays nice and cool.
Biggest problem: ThinkPad screens suck. The T470s will have a 3K screen so that might be better than what they've offered before. 16:9 really sucks though. If they'd just ship a 16:10 or3:2 "Retina" quality screen I'd be so very happy.
Some people just like Apple's design though. I don't get it but there's no accounting for taste. So if you can stand the keyboard and heat, go for it?
Edit: ThinkPad service is fantastic. Get the next business day business warranty. Any hint of something I just call them up and they come out and replace it all. Excellent.
>I usually run my X250 with throttling turned on, and TPFanControl to keep the temps down so the keyboard stays nice and cool.
How come you are willing to look the other way (even going so far as to install third party software) when your thinkpad is overheating but not when its a macbook?
I want it cool to the touch, not even warm (that is, what's acceptable to many people isn't to me). But even on full blast it's not hot like the Macbooks I've touched. Maybe the metal case?
What do you think about the Thinkpad 13? I could get far better internals for my budget, and while the build quality seems slightly lower I think it's fine.
hp elitebook 8440p 8gb/1tb hybrid ssd, dual boot, ubuntu / win 10, bought it back in july 2010, runs great, with only disadvantage currently being the weight, around 2.5kg
i moved to ethiopia with this machine and i am happy i paid the premium price back then, just one time i cracked the screen and it was within the warranty period and had a universal coverage so i got it replaced, the local hp rep though while replacing the screen messed up the one corner near the function keys of my keyboard, so it is kinda buckled, but all works fine
once or twice a year i get visits from abroad and i test flashy new machines, and i just can't convince myself to get another one based on what i have seen this far, it seems only the aesthetics are what is progressing, the new one looks undoubtedly sexy, and very light weight
but within a year or so, i might have to retire my dear one.
I don't use laptops. I use a desktop, because desktops are cheaper than any comparable laptops. I also don't have any desire to work for my employer outside of the office, and when I have to they have an awesome VPN / remote access setup that allows me to connect to my desktop from anywhere.
I don't make heavy use of my laptop, but I'll chime in here anyway.
Currently, I have a ThinkPad Yoga S1. I got it because it's thin, light, and powerful and I needed to be able to use it in the field. The multi-mode is actually a useful feature for me; there are times I need to draw some notes on it, or prop it up for easier access/viewing. Adaptability like that is a good feature for my use case.
I like it, but one big warning: keys started falling off the keyboard after a few months of light use, and required a full keyboard replacement (because Lenovo doesn't sell individual replacement keys I guess), which Lenovo forced me to do myself despite having maxed out the warranty options, including on-site service.
I was annoyed but didn't fight this too much because I assumed it must be fairly simple if they allow users to do it, and I know that on my other laptop, the keyboard is the first thing you have to take out. Nope, it's opposite on the Yoga; you have to take everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, out to get to the keyboard, which is at the bottom, not the top.
It turned into a massive timesink, a two-day disassembly and reassembly project because I didn't want my brand new laptop to have missing screws or little issues from being reassembled incorrectly. I hate assembling things in general and prefer to pay someone to assemble my desktops for me, let alone tiny, ultra-tight contraptions like modern ultrabooks. I still feel like I got ripped off on that, and I probably won't buy any warranty options from Lenovo in the future.
Prior to that, I had a System76 17" Bonobo Pro. Basically the polar opposite of the Yoga. This was the top of the line laptop from System76 at the time. It's huge and bulky, but I did that on purpose because I wanted the functionality and the screen space. The build does feel cheap in some places, but it's held up well now for several years.
Unfortunately, I had a bad experience with System76 when that laptop was just a couple of days old. The system stopped POSTing and I needed it for an on-site contracting project that was already underway (that's why I bought it). I begged them to offer an expedited repair and return process, including offering to pay extra for it and to pay for expedited shipping both ways, and they refused to do this. I got the repaired system back 3 weeks later and the system has always had little quirks and hard locks since.
* maxed out Thinkpad T460p, i7 with four cores, 32 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, Ubuntu - its a Workstation at 14" and I use it for software engineering (JVM stuff, Node), but non-company stuff
* 2016 MBP 15" Retina with i7, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD for software engineering for the company I work for
I use the 12 inch MacBook and love it. It's extremely portable, which is what I value most. It's still perfectly capable of handling the web development I do, though I probably wouldn't want to be doing native mobile app development on it.
A desktop with six core CPU, lots of memory and a nvme drive, as well as an ultrawide 3440x1440 34" curved monitor - sandwiched between two 16:10 24s on a stand.
Because it's fast, and I can organise my editors / visual studio / environment!
So far I love the machine - USB-C is the future of computing. I'm sill not used to the feel of the touchbar when hitting ESC, but I mostly use it as a desktop with another keyboard anyway.
Second hand W520 , Primary mSATA for OS. 2x1TB for Data and VMs, i7 , 32GB RAM. Bought it for INR 24K. I always by Thinkpad or Lenovo W series in second hand and upgrade it
13" macbook pro 2016 non-touchbar, reason is MacOS, great trackpad, 16:10 retina screen and it's nicer to hit cmd with my thumb than ctrl with my pinkie.
x230 from 2013 - still best laptop I ever used.
I have a T460p here for testing that I could upgrade to, but apart from the bigger screen everything feels just a tad worse.
I also have a FSC S710 in active use, but only because it's there and I'm too cheap to replace it.
I use an HP 8470p with 8GB of memory running Windows XP (intentional refusal to upgrade to Windows 10). I bought it refurbished off Ebay last year for slightly less than $200 including free shipping.
I used to love to tinker with different flavors of windows and linux, but it got to a point where I just wanted "something that works" and I don't have to bother too much working around incompatibilities and bugs. That's when I switched to a MacBook Pro. Couldn't be happier. I had the previous 2011 version for two years when I got this one. Still going strong after 4 years and I don't see any reason to "upgrade" it any time soon.
This is my primary machine for everything.
* It's powerful enough for my development work.
* It's small/light enough to take with me.
* For my work the battery goes for 14 hours.
* It's not so expensive as "premium" laptops go.
* OSX with homebrew has all the things I like about Linux, but wifi and power management work flawlessly out of the box.