Programming Laptop

[PixelDrift]

I'm looking to buy a new laptop for programming.

 

I've been holding off for the new Macbook Pro Retina 13 inch, as I've always wanted something premium to code on and I hear they're pretty good, but does anyone know of any alternatives that are great for programming that may twist my arm?

 

[Lehti]

Anything that doesn't thermal throttle like crazy would be rather nice

[don_svetlio]

Lenovo ThinkPad T460S. It's rated as the best work-grade laptop available. The keyboard is MUCH better than the Macbook, battery life is better, build quality is improved as unlike the aluminium Macbooks, it features a magnesium alloy chassis for increased durability and rigidity while also being thin and light. It also has MUCH better cooling and a 25W ULV CPU allowing for better performance and less noise/heat. Overall - better machine. Macbooks are cosmetic items - ThinkPads are the real work-horses of major companies.

[Ronda]

Having tried the Macbook Pro, I can say that I found the keyboard to be way too light. That and it has one of those horrible dinky Enter keys that are way too easy to miss.

Get a laptop with a good keyboard, like a Latitude, Thinkpad, Probook or Lifebook.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Ronda said:

Having tried the Macbook Pro, I can say that I found the keyboard to be way too light. That and it has one of those horrible dinky Enter keys that are way too easy to miss.

Get a laptop with a good keyboard, like a Latitude, Thinkpad, Probook or Lifebook.

Elitebook and Vostro are also decent

[Dackzy]

Get a ThinkPad, they have the best keyboard ever on a laptop and their build quality will make a mac look like a cheap toy, not joking a ThinkPad is something you could bring to hell and back and it would be fine, while a mac will just die. I would look at the T460s, it is really a amazing machine and the battery life is insane much better than a Mac's, that is just how it is. The T460s also has support for a NVMe SSD, that means that the harddrive can be insanely fast, you can put a Samsung 950 pro in it and get the full speed of it....

 

You get a ThinkPad if you want to get shit done and you get a Mac if you edit videos or you just like having a thermal throttling laptop that looks nice.

[KuJoe]

You can program just fine on a Chromebook. Seriously you can code on literally any computer that accepts inputs and lets you copy the code elsewhere. You can code on your phone if you hook up a keyboard (and it's easier if you mirror the display onto a TV or monitor). If you need a quad core CPU with 8GB of RAM and a dedicated GPU to code you're doing it all wrong.

[neoxid501]

Thinkpad 460 or 460s (if you're on a budgest Thinkpad 13 is a great alternative). But pretty much anything would do the trick.

 

I will say however, that getting a Mac in this situation isn't a bad idea just because Apple basically won't let you publish anything on iOS without it so if you want to make stuff cross-platform you will need one. I'm sure there are work arounds that I might have to look in to (since I'm PC/Android only), but if you're just need it for programming classes get a cheap PC, and invest into something more expensive later on when you already have the programming experience. That's just my 2 cents

[kerbingamer376]

The keyboards on macbooks suck. I'd recommend thinkpads, chromebooks, whatever. Just check the keyboard is decent before you buy it.