Laptop

Waldg

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Mar 2012
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When buying a laptop for programming pls's what options should a guy look for. Are there any preferences or favorites being used. Any suggestions on what not to buy. Thanks
 
Depends on how much money you have.... I like Dell's so thats all I use

I like 32 bit Windows 7 Pro and get a lot of Ram (6 ish Gig) also a high resolution screen with a good video card, I think the rest is water under the bridge

You can add and modify here http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-e6520/pd

I just bought one of these about 6 months ago and have been very happy, I did upgrade a few things like the screen and memory
 
Thanks. i have not seen any reviews on the Panasonic tough book Which is what I was looking at.
 
Personally I would just look for two things:

1) Physical properties (screen size, weight)
2) Does it have the connectivity that I want (# of USB, HDMI, ESATA, etc).

Built in serial ports are all but dead so if you have to talk serial, make sure you get a good USB-Serial adapter. I'd get the one here for $30.

Make sure the notebook is upgradable to at least 8gigs of RAM and purchase it with the minimum amount that the manufacturer sells it with. Then upgrade it yourself. Places like Dell charge a grip for RAM upgrades. For example, my company bought mine with 8 gigs and they charged $260. Here is 8 gigs for under $40.

my .02...
 
I usually try to find a used Toughbook or Toshiba Tecra that still have the serial port built in. Max out the ram and I never have performace issues.
 
Also depends on how you work. Do you support multiple PLC's/systems? If so, do you use VMWare or similar?
If you use virtual machines, you need to consider extra RAM/CPU specs and size them to support your base Windozs install and your virtual machine requirements.
 
Any reason to not go with Win7 x64?

Also, I have changed my mind on SSD recently, they are very reliable now and I wouldn't hesitat to use it. The problem is that when SSD fail, the data is gone, unlike mag disc where data can mostly be recovered so I would still back important file up on dongle/ext drive.

I actually like the Dell Latitude line, there's so many of them out there so spare parts are readily available and service manual is a google search away.
 
geniusintraining said:
Depends on how much money you have.... I like Dell's so thats all I use

I like 32 bit Windows 7 Pro and get a lot of Ram (6 ish Gig) also a high resolution screen with a good video card, I think the rest is water under the bridge

You can add and modify here http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-e6520/pd

I just bought one of these about 6 months ago and have been very happy, I did upgrade a few things like the screen and memory
Click to expand...

Why not 64 bit ? Did you experience any compatibility issues with that ?
 
passwordg said:
Why not 64 bit ? Did you experience any compatibility issues with that ?
Click to expand...

The big problem is that alot of programing software hasn't been tested on 64-bit machines.

So the question is do you risk getting a 64-bit laptop that may not be able to run my software, or play it safe with a 32-bit machine.

I know what my bosses insist that I do. :mad:
 
Marc_U said:
The big problem is that alot of programing software hasn't been tested on 64-bit machines.

So the question is do you risk getting a 64-bit laptop that may not be able to run my software, or play it safe with a 32-bit machine.

I know what my bosses insist that I do. :mad:
Click to expand...

The problem with a 32 bit OS is you are stuck with a limit of about 3.5 gigs of ram. IMO a 32 bit OS is a huge limitation for a laptop that must last 3-5 years. Virtualization gives you the best of both worlds, have all the ram you can cram into your laptop and 32 bit software runs on a VM. I don't understand Genius' recommendation on a 32-bit OS with 6 gigs of ram, seems a waste unless there is something I am missing????

Laptop considerations should be:
- Resolution
- Processor
- SSD (Absolutely fantastic for OS and running VMs)
- 16 gigs ram

Love my Dell m6600. 256 gig SSD as primary, and a 128 gig SSD as secondary (soon to upgrade to 512). Run 5 VMs w/o a hiccup.
 

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