Are you an IT professional who is looking a laptop for programming and coding? If you choose a laptop and are faced with diversity in the market and do not know what you need - this article will help you figure it out. You know, many types of laptops for Linux, Revit, programming and more. So today we will help how to buy a suitable laptop for coding.
Immediately note that there is no universal advice on what a laptop should be for development. You still have to choose; we will only help direct your choice in the right direction. Also, this article will be useful to you if you can put an imaginary check mark next to the following statements:
- You are a web developer (or study)
- Your new laptop will be your main machine.
Choosing a laptop for programming:
Are you thinking to buy a laptop? If you plan to buy a specialized laptop, let's consider the best options with our TOP-10 rating. There are many types of factors which you should consider before buying a laptop for gaming, coding or programming.
Compactness
Think about how often you need to change the location in which you work. If you are used to sitting in one place, then a 15+ inch screen will not be a strong obstacle.
If mobility is important, then you should think about more modest diagonals of 12-13 inches, which are guaranteed to fit in almost any backpack and will be more comfortable.
Most likely, you will not need a version like 2 in 1 with a removable touchscreen keyboard. In compactness and convenience, you will not win much, and battery life is likely to suffer.
Display
Most budget notebooks have a screen of 1366 x 768 pixels with very mediocre picture quality. Most likely, your eyes will not like the work of such a monitor for a dozen hours in a row.
Fashionable 4k displays will be expensive overkill. It will not help you in your work, and the battery life will be reduced due to the greedy screen.
Anyway, the screen in Full-HD resolution of 1920 × 1080 with a high-quality IPS matrix would be the best option, and it is better not to skimp on it. And, of course, pay attention to the viewing angles.
CPU
As with the display, it's better not to be greedy. In most cases, Intel's i5 or i7 with a frequency of 3 GHz will suffice.
RAM
It is unlikely that a working machine with less than 4 gigabytes of RAM can be enough for someone, but it is better to take care of a variant of at least 8 gigabytes. And if you have some free money, consider investing in 16 gigabytes of RAM. It is very important for improving laptop performance.
Inner memory
This item is titled that way, and not “HDD” or “Hard Disk”, because it's time to think about SSD. In work, speed is essential, both in the search on the disk. So when the system is booted, the speed of reading/ write has long been ahead of the magnetic heads. Also, even the budget options for solid-state drives have a service life comparable to HDD.
As far as roominess is concerned, it is possible. More is better. You should start with at least 256 gigabytes, if you can afford it, then 512. And if you have enough money after investing in 16 GB of RAM, you can purchase 1 TB SSD at the same time.
Keyboard
You will have a lot to use the keyboard, as you probably guess. So you must feel comfortable and pleasant to type. Be sure to press the buttons before purchasing. As for the view, it’s a matter of taste. Some people like clear pressing and echoing mechanics, for someone it’s important to have a small stroke and ease of pressing.
Battery
This moment is more important for those who plan to work for a long time without external energy sources. But pay attention that the laptop battery has a stated operating time of at least 6 hours.
It will not be superfluous to go through the relevant sites with reviews and forums before buying and read about the fact that the owners of such machines write about battery quality.
Operating system
For the most part, this article is written for Windows users, as they have the largest selection. If you are thinking of getting used to macOS, then you have a small selection among several recent Pro MacBooks with different hardware configurations.
If comfortable work on your laptop under Linux is important to you, some manufacturers (for example, Dell) produce high-quality machines with pre-installed distributions.
Discrete or integrated graphics?
Having a dedicated video card is not necessary for a programming laptop, unless you are writing graphically-intensive games, which you should then check. Modern Intel processors have built-in graphics, the power of which is sufficient for most programming tasks.
A video card is not as important for web development as a good SSD or a large amount of RAM. Better save on the integrated graphics and invest in something more necessary.
