Best laptop for a computer science degree?

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All gaming laptops suits for every computer science students, if u r rich enough , go for macbook

no-laptop

Thinkpad x220

Any non-windows laptop and i5/i7/Ryzen will be good.

Lol my laptop came with DOS

Literally any would do, but specifically it depends on what you want to do during your degree.
Web dev? The shittiest piece of crap you can find should be okay.
Competitive programming? Same as above.
Gamedev, graphics, machine/deep learning? You want a solid Nvidia GPU and a strong CPU with good RAM. This isn't going to be cheap but it's totally worth it. I'd recommend an i5 8th gen and 1050ti or equivalent as minimum (AMD is riskier but still okay if you know your stuff).
App dev? Any decent midrange machine with good RAM and an okayish processor.

General advice: get an SSD if you can. No, seriously. It's not even funny how much of a difference that makes and it'll pay for itself in avoiding frustration and speeding up literally every workflow.

Brands: I like Dell, and the Lenovo thinkpad laptops (X/T series etc) are nice. Stay away from consumer Lenovo laptops. Look for reviews of company support in your area. It's extremely important, do not skip this.

@RantSomeWhere if would prefer MacBook for that price range

@KushagraKarira the price varies from different countries bruh

One that has a screen

Anything that is small and has SSD

Anything lightweight and comfortable. Avoid dedicated gpus unless you *really* need one (eg. Machine Learning).
Avoid the overpriced crap.

Oh, and get one with an ssd. Or replace the hdd it has with an ssd right from the start. Best way to avoid waiting forever for boot times/loading programs/multitasking, especially in the long run.

@endor ssds are dirt cheap right now so as long as op I comfortable opening the laptop up (in the case of the x220 it's just one screw) she'll be okay with any laptop with removable storage. https://amazon.com/Samsung-MZ-76Q1T...

A MacBook pro. Simple.

@RantSomeWhere How are MacBooks horrible? Ever since I switched from a thinkpad with Linux to a MacBook pro I don't feel like ever going back

Here’s what I would suggest:
Intel i7
16GB Ram
256GB ssd + 1TB hdd
Will you be gaming or doing graphics as part of your degree/ other projects?
If not, then don’t worry about a gpu. If so, do get a gpu.

At least a 6 core i7, 32GB RAM, RTX 2080 and 512GB NVMe.

Unless you're paying for it yourself, then a quad core i5, 8GB RAM, GTX 1060 and 256GB SSD.

🙃

Anything that isn't an Acer. Lenovo, Dell and Apple are the most durable laptops that I've worked with.

@irene possibly.

@RantSomeWhere Apple devices are UNIX based. They are far less limited than computers running on Windows if you know how to handle a terminal.

@frickerg any windows computer can run Linux. You never know what apple will do with their proprietary drm/tpm bullshit. They do everything to lock you into their software and hardware ecosystem.

Don't buy AMD stuff, spend some extra bucks and get a good product.

This should cover you for programming, some gaming and virtualization: (sorted most important to least important)
- min 256 gb ssd
- decent 4 core cpu
- around 8gb of ram
- 1tb hdd storage
- dedicated graphics card (for gaming/video editing/machine learning)

I like slim/small screen beazels/lightweight.

Take a look at some deals, or use a site to choose your hardware and get the best deal.

@RantSomeWhere
Well, all good laptops are expensive, I don't think the price argument is that strong anymore these days. Also MacBooks can do more with less so a weaker on paper MacBook might perform equally well with a stronger system on Windows or Linux. I experienced this back when I was on Ubuntu and the guy next to me was using a MacBook pro. His machine wasn't stronger than mine at all, yet it was way smoother to work with it.

Could you elaborate on the closed ecosystem comment? It is Unix based so you have tons of freedom. Of course you can't customize it to the level you could with Linux but I myself don't really care, it works very well the way it comes. There are some places where I miss how I could tweak my Linux machine but as a trade-off for the above-mentioned smoothest id take every day of the week.

As for repairs, they're quite reliable so you'll be repairing them less anyway.

Keyboard is weird, I'll give you that. But you'll get used it it, it's not that bad.

@RantSomeWhere Well the pricing is not only about hardware. Sure, there's obviously a brand premium on the devices, but the software they have on it costs money too.

As for the apple ecosystem and walled garden, I have to disagree. My MacBook is the only apple device I own and it does what its supposed to do very well. I actually feel more free than I did in Linux because more quality software is available for me. Take MS Office for example, last I was on Linux you had to cope with the open source alternatives which quite honestly suck compared to MS office. Not to say that the macOS version of MS office is great tho, it too sucks compared to the windows version, but it's still way better than libre or any of the other open source ones.

As for Louis, I've seen his channel. Tho the thing to keep in mind is that majority of his stuff is Macs so the sample is massively biased. He could dig up similar shit in other laptops if he worked as much on them

@RantSomeWhere Yes but I'm not talking about the iPhone here. I get that iPhones are way more locked down but that does not affect MacBooks.

Also, I do not share your conviction for open source or free software. If it's a good tool that helps me do better work then I'm willing to pay money for it. I don't see anything wrong with that

netbook, then teamviewer or ssh into your real desktop.

@Froot window management on mac os is horrible. Even windows is a joy to use compared to that garbage

its weird...its really weird...no one said "'wkXX' tag is not for questions"

@RantSomeWhere the actual issue is that the software costs something? Imagine getting paid for programming 😂 I love open source, but I pay for software I actually use and see no problem with it... Each to their own. I also have to disagree to the closed ecosystem. The only Apple device I have is my laptop from work which is a 2016 model and runs marvelously. The Mojave OS is very stable and I haven't had a single crash since I use it... Now technically I did not pay for that Laptop which might give me a more positive opinion, was developing on Linux before but the lack of Microsoft Office for my uni courses was a real no-no since we cannot write our papers in Libre (which sucks so hard and is the reason why I prefer to pay for a good piece of software).

@fuck2code ohh yeah the standard window management sucks so hard! But there is a tool called Magnet which counters that luckily.

@RantSomeWhere coming from Linux I luckily know how to spy on the software that spies on me.

But I get your point and I understand where you're coming from. However the spying occurs in every major company, that's how their business models work. I don't mind giving up a part of my privacy if the company states which data they use. Google for example is very transparent about it which I consider a good thing.

Nonetheless I am a huge fan of good community-driven software. Visual Studio Code is one of my favorite tools of all time and a perfect example on how open-source can be amazing. Libre Office is the opposite of that and is barely usable and feels less flexible than its proprietary counterparts (considering that Microsoft Office is supporting 3rd party plugins for citations etc.).

I'd rather have well working proprietary software over crappy open-source implementations. But after all this is just my opinion and yours is perfectly valid as well.

@asgs Yeah I should’ve lol. Still figuring out how to use this.

@RantSomeWhere GDPR sort of covers that, im in Europe. Also, open source is cool but do you really read the source code of everything? I doubt it, you'd have no time left for actual work 😀
That's where GDPR kicks in, I can't verify it but I trust that it follows the law and tells me what it collects.

@frickerg You catch my point exactly 😀

@115105109 ye sorry lmao

@Deeshti dont worry, I'm just joking :) ... still weird though!

@RantSomeWhere How so? It forces the developer to enclose what data it's collection so I can review. It also gives you the tools to see the data collected about you (data subject access request)

Could you elaborate on what you meant?

@Froot apple can afford to pay the fines for gdpr because of prism

@RantSomeWhere google is managing just fine even though they are getting fined constantly. Not surprising tbh

@RantSomeWhere No. They can't force me to do anything. If they do something with my data that I don't agree with then I won't use their software.

But this discussion seems to be going into tin foil hat land so I don't see any value with going forward with it.

@Froot
>tinfoil hat land
Ummm no? Apple hides behind their fake promises of impenetrable security when they have willingly broken that promise.
https://bgr.com/2016/01/...

@RantSomeWhere I never said I don't agree with data collection. What I said was that I can review the data being collected and make an I formed decision if I'm ok with that or not.

Also, "it's not a conspiracy, it's the truth" is what every tin foil hat warrior says.

@Froot so what is the reason me or @RantSomeWhere would lie about this?

@Froot @fuck2code I'm not saying you are lying about this. Lying would mean you know the truth, I don't just don't believe that's the case.

@RantSomeWhere Alright.
I think we've derailed this thread far enough. It's time we stop and let it go back to what it was supposed to be about, laptops.