Hi, what laptop would you recommend for programming. I was thinking of a Thinkpad

It depends on what kind of programming you want to do, I am an android developer therefore i need some high spec machine so I use MBP

Depends what software you need to run to Do your job.

I need multiple virtual servers, and I run a Linux os as vm inside windows 10.

So a high end laptop with a lot of ram keeps me going.

But if you only need a heavy ide and compilation then a mid range laptop would be suitable or if you’re only compiling in terminal and writing hello worlds then anything would do.

I guess you really need to work out what your spec requirements are and buy something suitable.

Think about what kind of programming you do.

If you want to do iOS apps, you know you need a Mac.

If you want to use IDEs, you know you'll need RAM, or upgradability in RAM.

If you want to do heavy computations (by which I mean you'd need GPU acceleration), you know you'll either need a dGPU, an eGPU compatible laptop, or a cloud based solution. That applies to machine learning for example.

If you want to do real time radio signal processing, you'll need a beefy local configuration, because offloading computation won't help there.

Once you know what you'll need, work from that. Go you stores and try out keyboards to choose the ones you like. If you want future-proofing, try to get at least one thunderbolt 3 port.

And DO NOT cheap out on the screen. This is the one think you can't upgrade, so make sure you goddam love it because you'll be staring at it for a long time.

Weigh out pros and cons, and if you have to use it in transports, try not to buy one you couldn't afford to lose

Personally I do a lot of web based dev in terminal so a Thinkpad x201 does the job perfectly for me

@muhrahmatullah

What component is high spec in a MBP?

@dcode basically everything except the gpu

Acer Aspire E15
Does the work for me

@muhrahmatullah
As long a 2core i5 is high spec you are right but i'm afraid frankly it is mid spec in it's best.

Honestly for professional Dev work I have been very impressed with my MacBook pro. I've used all of the systems and the pollish is nice. But the cost is very real and you don't get much computing power for the money.

@dcode On 15" models you can actually get pretty good CPUs, although it's thrice the price. I think the 7700hq was in there, but I'm too lazy to check so I wouldn't take my word for it.

I find Macs great for on the go dev, at least the ones before the latest redesign. They're just perfect for use by itself (my ThinkPad' s thinkpad, on the other hand, is nausea inducing). Everything apart from computing power is about as good as it gets.

I don't like the new ones much, but that touch bar must be real nice when displaying IDE toolbars, I think that's the only reason I'd use it though.

Macs are great to use, and unless you shell out two salaries in them, you'll have all the time you want to admire their perfect finition while waiting for them to finish the task you see them out to do, so that's a win-win 😁

I would strongly recommend a non-consumer-grade laptop (business laptop / workstation)... These can sometimes be big, or heavy, but they're made with forward thinking - you can replace nearly every part in them... Also, they can outlive many other consumer-grade / home / gamer laptops.

I have an HP Elitebook 8570w - it is rather bulky, and heavy, but I love it. I feel like I'm actually working on a quality computer.
It came with an nVidia Quadro K2000 video card, and a 2nd gen Core i7 (I'll address the CPU upgrade when I'll have the money...) but I upgraded it with a 120 GB SSD, a 1TB secondary HDD from my old laptop, and 12 gigs of RAM. It runs like a charm! 🙂

And it was only 2500 RON (652 USD) as refurbished.

Sidenote: Romania is not the country for cheap computer parts... 😕

Very good thought on thinking about a ThinkPad, I think they're worth a thought