programming computer

I'm looking at purchasing a new laptop for programming and general work. Does anyone have any recommendations. I'm trying not to break the bank while keeping some speed and storage any help is appreciated. Thx

I bought below

Dell Precision 5540 15.6" laptop i9-9880H, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Quadro T2000

I have been happy with it, I paid 1800 for it, it does not have a Ethernet port so I had to get a USB to Ethernet adapter, if you want to hardwire your Ethernet

Brand is a matter of personal preference. The best money you can spend on any part is to stick with all solid state drives.

I currently have a few years old Dell Precision, and while it functions and performs very well, I hate the size and weight of the machine. The precision line is my company's standard issue for engineers, but when i checked the new precision series spec sheets show they weigh over 10lbs. Also, their 15"+ screens make them harder carry in a bag or sit down in the field.



I had the company special order me a 14" Latitude 7420 with the best i7 processor offered, 32GB of ram, and a 1TB NVMe M.2 hard drive. I tried to strike a balance between performance and size and weight. When I'm at my desk, i use a dock, so the smaller screen and lack of a number pad doesn't bother me. My only complaint is the lack of a wired NIC, but mounting a USB adapter directly to a VM works better than bridging a NIC on the host anyway, so that wasn't a killer.


There really isn't a perfect laptop to get because it all depends on what you prefer. Because virtual machines play such a large roll with automation software now, the main things to get is at LEAST 16GB of RAM (32 prefered), a solid state hard drive with 512GB min(1 TB+ prefered), and good processor with as many cores as you can get(i7+ series if intel). The rest is all just personal preference.

Check availability.
We recently bought a new laptop for the same purpose. We were told all i9's were backordered for months.

OK i will check them out.

• Is your laptop only used in an office environment? Or will it also come along with you to the factory floor?
• If the latter, is it a clean or dirty environment? Dirty/dusty? Corrosive? Wet? Hot? Cold? Mechanically rough? Think bumps, vibration, risk of being dropped?
• Do you travel a lot, if so is traveling light important to you? Are you willing to carry more weight for more performance/storage/screen size, battery life?

Without answers to these and your personal preferences there is little else I can recommend other than what has been said before:

• decent processing power
• 16GB RAM min, 32GB preferred
• solid state storage, 500GB min, 1TB preferred.

If you intend to use VM's a lot, you may want a laptop that has room for an additional solid state drive for VM storage (modern M2 drives are small, fast and quite affordable).

Laptop keyboards vary wildly between brands. I for one am a sucker for Lenovo keyboards (spoiled for life).

Programming software typically benefits more from high single core performance rather than a multitude of cores in hexacore/octacore systems. Single core processor speeds have not gone up much in recent years.

Currently AMD gives better speed, Intel gives longer battery life (keep in mind though that this is a huge generalization, YMMV).

One of the guy here just got Lenovo T15P, I think.

It feels like an entire generation forward of Dell. USB-C charging, 5-6 hours of battery life and about 2/3 weight of a comparable Dell.

Yes, get 16GB+ of ram.

Get you a MacBook Pro with the M1 chip and you won't regret it. You can get it loaded out for $2400.00 or less if you don't need the max amount of storage and Ram. The base model is about $1300.00

I love mine but it's the 13-inch screen so when the next one comes out with the larger screen I will upgrade and donate this one to one of the kids.

Phil Buchanan said:

Get you a MacBook Pro with the M1 chip and you won't regret it. You can get it loaded out for $2400.00 or less if you don't need the max amount of storage and Ram. The base model is about $1300.00

I love mine but it's the 13-inch screen so when the next one comes out with the larger screen I will upgrade and donate this one to one of the kids.

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Are you really suggesting a MacBook pro running applications designed and tested on Windows is a good thing ?


The slightest hint to RA tech support that you are running their software on iOS will send them running for the hills....

daba said:

Are you really suggesting a MacBook pro running applications designed and tested on Windows is a good thing ?


The slightest hint to RA tech support that you are running their software on iOS will send them running for the hills....

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I would assume he’s suggesting the Mac as the host and still use Windows as guests.

Maxkling said:

I would assume he’s suggesting the Mac as the host and still use Windows as guests.

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That still gives the "opportunity" for RA to suggest you are not running their software on a native OS that they have tested it on.

I very much doubt you will get a statement from them that it will be supported even on a VM, let alone an OS kludge !!

They will not take responsibility for any third-party software.

daba said:

That still gives the "opportunity" for RA to suggest you are not running their software on a native OS that they have tested it on.

I very much doubt you will get a statement from them that it will be supported even on a VM, let alone an OS kludge !!

They will not take responsibility for any third-party software.

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Yeah, I could see that. But, I just learned that Rockwell is offering their software bundles in virtual machines. I think someone just mentioned you can download a Windows virtual machine directly from Rockwell with Studio v20-33. Once you host the VM you just need to activate Windows and your good to go. I think I’m going to dabble in that next week.

Running PLC software in VM's is common practice for quite a while now. The essence of virtualisation means it makes no difference to the VM which OS the host runs.

Toine said:

Running PLC software in VM's is common practice for quite a while now....

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Yes it is and I wish it was not, I get about 3-5 calls a day with people looking for support and I would say that 80% of them are running VM's and the VM's are the issue, I run VM's also but if I ever have issues the first thing I do is load to the host and see if I am still having the issue most of the time the issue goes away.

I had 3 calls last week where they were running Windows XP VM on a W10 host all 3 were issues with AB, I had them load RSLinx to the host and they all were communicating once that was done.