Ask HN: What’s your current dev laptop?

9 points by notkurt 4 years ago | 25 comments

I’ve been holding out for the new 16” MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon, however recently the new Dell XPS 15 (9510) reviews have caught my attention. WSl2 has made a pretty compelling case for Windows (So I’m happy to make the jump to Windows). While I’d love to run Linux on my daily driver I can’t go without the Adobe CC Suite or Outlook. With a bit of discount stacking I’ve managed to get the price down on a pretty well specced 9510. I’m also having my doubts about the current state of Apple Silicon when it comes to being suitable as a primary dev machine.

So, I’m curious to know what you are all currently daily driving as a development laptop? Are there any other business style laptops that fall within the same XPS 15’s tier that you’d recommend? I’ve had a look at Lenovo’s and HP’s offerings and honestly I’ve found their current product suite lacking when it comes to features and price.

ozzythecat 4 years ago |

16” 2019 MacBook Pro with an i7 processor and 16GB ram.

I do much of my work using iTerm2, Sublime text, CLion, and IntelliJ, with a little bit of Xcode depending on the project. I also write a lot of documents. I usually start in Sublime and then move over to a collaborative GUI editor that’s used throughout my company.

I love MacOS.

Two other programs I used extensively are Omnigraffle for designs and diagrams and Omnifocus for outlining deliverables.

I use a 120hz 1440P display and a mechanical keyboard. No complaints about my work setup at all.

satvikpendem 4 years ago | |

Same laptop as you, I run Bootcamp when docked however as I found that macOS won't stay on for long running processes while Windows does.

MacOS on battery power though since Apple forces Windows to use the discrete GPU. Only macOS can use the iGPU.

skydhash 4 years ago |

I have a 2015 MBP but I rarely use it now. It was overheating and the battery swelled up (I’ve replaced the battery since). Now, I’m using the M1 mac mini as I freelance and no longer go to a coworking space. I have a 27 inch dell monitor (I don’t really like dual monitor), the Keyboardio Atreus (slightly wider space between the wrists and thumbs pressing shift and enter keys) and a trackball. Works fine for me as I do Web and Mobile development.

fm200 4 years ago |

Thinkpad t14, intel version, 48 gigs of ram, 1TB ssd, win10 with wsl2.. using it for ~6 months now, i switched from osx, no complaints so far

notkurt 4 years ago | |

Coming from OS X, are there any key features you miss?

jnieminen 4 years ago | | |

The retina screen and the fantastic touchpad.

giantg2 4 years ago |

I have a 14 year old Dell 1525 (or something) with a newer SSD. All these people with 24GB+ of RAM... mine is 32 bit (3.8ishGB).

Rochus 4 years ago | |

Same here, do all my work on an HP Elitebook 2530p with 4G RAM 128 G SDD; this is a very good machine with a track point and long battery life of which I have several copies.

mikewarot 4 years ago |

HP Envy x360 convertible, with 8 GB of RAM, and 256 of SSD, running stock Windows 10. Compiles always take under 3 seconds, so it's fast enough. My vision is shot, so I use a 32" HP monitor at 1920*1080 for the main display.

The keyboard is a bit weird in size, so I've got an external USB keyboard and mouse.

SalimoS 4 years ago |

2012 non Retina MacBook Pro 15" (macOS Big Sur using patched sur) because I’m a “looking for job” iOS developer freelancer (with Ruby on Rails from time to time)

So waiting the 14" Apple Silicon on Monday for the jump

elviejo 4 years ago |

17" LG Gram with 40 gigs pf RAM... Super light and with lots of screen real state to read a lot of code... plus xmonad to manage all that screen.

mathematically 4 years ago |

Dell XPS 17. With WSL and 64GB of RAM it's basically unbeatable as a dev laptop.

notkurt 4 years ago | |

Any chance you've tried out Dell Mobile Connect? It seems pretty useful, but can't tell if it's a half baked POS...

mathematically 4 years ago | | |

I haven't tried it. I tried using an RDP client once but it wasn't a good experience. Now that I know this exists I might give it a try.

speedgoose 4 years ago |

I use a MacBook pro M1, but I use Github Codespaces when I need more ram.

kingkongjaffa 4 years ago | |

How much ram is on the Macbook?

What use case do you find yourself needing more ram for?

speedgoose 4 years ago | | |

My company bought the default MacBook pro M1 by mistake, so a ridiculous 8Gb. I will get a 16gb soon, reducing the need to spawn a cloud vm often.

I like to have more ram to run the full development environment independently of the other developers. We use a few software services that love to waste memory.

shams93 4 years ago |

ThinkPad chromebook with ryzen5 running nodejs, python and android studio.

iExploder 4 years ago |

not sure this could be classified as business, but...

TUXEDO Pulse 14 - gen 1

(2x 32GB) 3200MHz CL22 Samsung

AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (8x 2.9-4.2GHz Eight-Core, 16 Threads, 12 MB Cache, 45 W TDP)

1000 GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus

rossdavidh 4 years ago |

System76 GalagaPro

Jugurtha 4 years ago |

Dell XPS 15 9570.

notkurt 4 years ago | |

Any issues with it over the years? Seem to have read some mixed results regarding their reliability.

Jugurtha 4 years ago | | |

None until recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28648321

Side note: virtual ethernet interfaces will drain your battery like crazy (if you run minikube, for example).

yuppie_scum 4 years ago |

2018 MBP

Graffur 4 years ago |

mid 2015 mbp