Hi bargainers,
I am uni student studing I.C.T, and into programming. And I am looking for good laptop on the market with good price. Can only afford to $650 :(
Thank you!!
Good Laptop for Programming Student
Comments
Not just you, was wondering how you would program a student and what you could get them to do.
So what is "it"?
An IT student who doesn't know what laptop to buy?
You'd think this would be surprising… but it's not. I'm studying IT at the moment as well and I look at some of my class mates and honestly wonder what kind of future they could expect in this industry.
Visit http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/product…
Pick a laptop that is within your budget and size range. I recommend DFO-3099521LT
Done.
Some tips for choosing a UNI laptop
- Avoid a 15" laptop, too bulky to carry with you. 13" is best, though I prefer 11".
- Lighter = better. No more than 2KG. Needs to be of ggod build quality.
- Spec requirements aren't all that high for a comp.sci course, you just need anything faster than an Atom. You don't really need a fast computer to write code on, but possibly look at 8GB of RAM as a minimum.
I'd say for programming stay clear of an 11" screen. 13" at a minimum as you will spend a lot of time looking at it and I can tell you it is much easier to do my app development on my XPS (15") than my Surface Pro (11").
I would go the DFO-2877388LR as it has the 14" HD screen and higher capacity 9 cell battery. The CPU differences wont be noticable for this purpose either.
Either way, after you have purchased your laptop, save up and grab extra memory (up to 8GB, 4 may be enough depending on your use case.) and an SSD.Go for a lightweight 15". You'll need at least 8GB of RAM if doing basic IDE (Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc). You need better CPU and RAM if you are going to run Virtual Machines on the same laptop (VMWare, Virtual Box, etc).
I've got a 13" netbook that I've tried using for development - it is painful with the screen real eastate. I need as much screen space as possible (IDE, console logging, browser/app ui).
It will be hard to find a powerful, lightweight machine for under $1000.
You might have to bite the bullet and buy whatever specs you can for the price and deal with lugging the machine around with you to class. Make sure to get a backpack for it.
I agree with all of the above, even though sometimes it conflicts!
Usually when I fire up my VM containing my IDE I'm at my desk, and I use a second monitor; maybe the OP could get away with 13" + second screen.
I agree minimum of 8GB of RAM for Windows.
See also Frankfu's setup below. Where I work, I'm one of the few people not using a Mac for coding. Because they are Unix based, less need to have a VM to host your IDE, so less need for 8GB of RAM. But I doubt you'd get a decent Air for your budget.
Re 1: Speaking from experience, as an IT/programming student, there are many times when 13" is significantly lacking, particularly if you code in IDE's/suites like xcode, VisualStudio, etc. I outright couldn't do it on my 13"er - needed to use mu 24" external. Not that the full 24" was really needed - but 13" was hell. 15, even 17" may be better. Or 13" with a decent external, but don't expect to do the above kind of development on the go, at least not efficiently.
Re: 3: also not necessarily true. depends on the courses and requirements, but i regularly run 2-3 Virtual Machines on top of my host operating system. Throw in xcode or visual studio or some other IDE - shit can get real, real quick.
I gotta say scrimshaw's recommendations are awful.
- Bigger screen = better. Minimum FHD resolution, if you don't want to stab yourself, and minimum 15" if not larger, so you can actually see what you're typing for extended periods. I'd recommend 17" if you drive to uni or 15.6 if you public transport.
- Fast CPU… again meaning you need a larger laptop. Since you're a student, you'll get things wrong. Frequent compile / test cycles are quite taxing on time if you have a slow CPU. I'd go minimum i5-u class CPU, and prefer a full quad i7.
- Dedicated GPU… didn't help with any of the stuff I did when I was at uni 20 years ago, but I'd expect student curriculum now to include Android or iOS development, meaning you'd need to run the emulator to test. Slow emulator is painful.
- Good keyboard. I couldn't really use my Acer v3-720 to write code… well, I could, but keys don't feel right so there'd be a lot of time wasted correcting typos and stuff. This would vary from model to model, so this is something you'd need to see/touch the machine to verify yourself. You should be able to type 50wpm+ on a decent keyboard with 99.5% accuracy. Also watch out for the position and size of the track pad. Ideally, you want a small one, not a large "MacBook type" track pad.
The ball of your palm will hit the track pad and move the cursor to unintended places.
Lenovo ThinkPad E450 + Full HD option with student discount + cashback should get it under $650. It's a 14" at 1.8kg. Yes you'll want Full HD when you have multiple text editor window, terminals, web browsers running at the same time.
What kind of programming would you be doing?
Here is what I'm using as a PT software engineering student
used Macbook Air 13" ($500~600)
used 23" Monitor ($40~50)
used 1TB portable HD ($30)Conclusion:
scrimshaw —> Dell Salesman
scotty —> Thinkpad Salesman
Please correct your typo OP. "studing IT" may give the wrong impression to some. Cheers!