Budget laptop for development

[MikiPCMan]

Hi everyone,

 

So, I'd like to buy a laptop in late-September/early-October for about $400.

I know, that's a tight budget, but I'm currently 16 years old, and my parents aren't going to finance it, and that's the money I have.

So I mainly do development in these languages/environments:

• Android
• Flutter
• Java(FX)
• Dart
• Unity or Unreal (not currently doing any development in these, but I want to try them when I have the time.)

My main IDE is IntelliJ Idea, which I am running on Linux.

As for distro, I am kinda used to Ubuntu based distros, and currently running elementaryOS, but I am trying other stuff as well.

But if the laptop can be "Hackintoshed", that would be the icing on the cake.

I won't be doing gaming on this laptop, I have my desktop for that.

I need the battery to last at least about 4 hours, but ideally more.

Having USB-C would be a benefit, but not a requirement.

The laptop should have (at least) 8GBs of RAM, since I have a bad habit of using a ton of Chrome tabs while developing.

Having an SSD would also be a huge bonus (otherwise I need to buy one separately).

Second hand is certainly an option, but I live in Hungary, so factor in EU pricing and shipping, not US.

I am not afraid of upgrading the RAM or changing the hard drive to an SSD, but I'm going to need to factor that in the cost as well.

I am also not afraid of doing weird stuff (eg. buying a Chromebook and replacing the OS on it.).

I know this is a lot from such a tight budget, but I hope there are options.

So what are your recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

[mrchow19910319]

Unreal does not run well on iGPU. 

With your budget could you find one that has a dedicated GPU? 

[Erfsh]

At the moment this seems to be a good option.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073YC5D78/ref=psdc_13896615011_t2_B01K1IO3QW

Though it doesn't have SSD and USB Type-C, and the screen is 720p.

[Gung Pow Chicken]

Honestly if your looking for something you could upgrade down the road and turn into a nice long term machine you can get a cheap Thinkpad T430, T530 or W530 all of which have a socketed CPU and can support either a QM or XM chip with the proper cooling. I've tried a T430 and it doesn't have adequate cooling to use an XM chip safely, but can cool a QM chip with the right HFS.

 

Both the T530 and T430 can be configured with 32gb of ram, while the base model T530 only supports 16gb along with the T430 topping out at 16gb also.

 

When it comes to the Display is where T430's become pitiful, the best display you can pack in one these days is a 1600x900 matte black display, but both the T530 and W530 have HD 1080p displays.

 

A fully upgraded T430 is around $400 and will mop the floor with most laptops being released today, and the W530/T530 have a little pricier tag at 500-600 but thats with an unlocked 3940XM which is definitely a competitor to current mobile gen CPU's.

 

The nice thing about all three of these is the typing experience, all of them can be modified to use an XX20 series keyboard which is by far the best keyboard on a laptop.

[MikiPCMan]

On 8/18/2017 at 2:12 PM, Icuw1pc said:

Honestly if your looking for something you could upgrade down the road and turn into a nice long term machine you can get a cheap Thinkpad T430, T530 or W530 all of which have a socketed CPU and can support either a QM or XM chip with the proper cooling. I've tried a T430 and it doesn't have adequate cooling to use an XM chip safely, but can cool a QM chip with the right HFS.

 

Both the T530 and T430 can be configured with 32gb of ram, while the base model T530 only supports 16gb along with the T430 topping out at 16gb also.

 

When it comes to the Display is where T430's become pitiful, the best display you can pack in one these days is a 1600x900 matte black display, but both the T530 and W530 have HD 1080p displays.

 

A fully upgraded T430 is around $400 and will mop the floor with most laptops being released today, and the W530/T530 have a little pricier tag at 500-600 but thats with an unlocked 3940XM which is definitely a competitor to current mobile gen CPU's.

 

The nice thing about all three of these is the typing experience, all of them can be modified to use an XX20 series keyboard which is by far the best keyboard on a laptop.

OK, I'm considering this, I might wait and work a bit, so I can grab the T530...

Thanks.

[Gung Pow Chicken]

On 8/19/2017 at 7:12 AM, MikiPCMan said:

OK, I'm considering this, I might wait and work a bit, so I can grab the T530...

Thanks.

They are amazing machines, and I can almost guarantee you won't regret it.

 

If you ever have any questions along the way feel free to shoot me a message.

[WkdPaul]

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