6
anon404
5y

Guys help me choose
I need to buy a laptop for development

Dell XPS 13
Thinkpad X1 Carbon
MacBook pro 13" without touch pad
Or something else?

Which one should I go for?
Budget: 1.3L INR (~2000usd)

Comments
  • 10
    A Mac only if you already know all the keyboard shortcuts of MacOS, otherwise the first few weeks will be a bit... unproductive.

    Anyway you might want add for what kind of development you will be using you notebook for.
  • 9
    Mac only if you need xcode.

    Other than that need more info on what you do
  • 8
    Imho, buying a macbook or any mac, should be considered only in these cases:

    1. You need to code apps for ios or osx
    2. Money is not an issue(got cash to burn?), you can spend da money in the mac* even if you are not gonna code ios or osx apps and won't need those extra bucks that you could have if you wouldn't bought a mac
  • 9
    Thinkpad all the way B)
  • 8
    XPS for sure, but I'm biased because I hate the ThinkPad keyboards
  • 3
    And about a real advise. I got an asus and it's been quite good. 3+ years with me and no issues
  • 3
    XPS if you don't install debian. 😅
    Mac is nice, but the specs will stink by comparison.
  • 4
    Be me, get an MSI and ignore all the advice.
  • 10
    @C0D4 I use rpi4
  • 4
    @devTea the 4GB model could probably work as a lightweight pc/laptop.

    1.5GHZ quad core and 4GB Ram, for a webdev this would be awesome.

    Interesting, I was just looking at them when I got you're notif.
  • 4
    XPS XPS XPS XPS
    All the way.

    If u work on Linux or ever decide to do so, Thinkpads suck at that
  • 2
    System76 Darter pro
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins Nope. Speaking from experience of 3 friends
  • 5
    If you're a frontend, node, or Python developer Macs are absolutely the best to work on it's so much easier to deal with npm or pip issues when working on bash. Windows bash subsystem is nice but it's not there yet and Linux is not as seamless to live your whole computing life on it vs a Mac.

    If you're more budget conscious, want to do things with a nice video card or do a lot of dot net stuff, use a pc. The xps is a very good consumer line and msi is starting to get nice. Generally, if you can afford it get a business class laptop because they last longer and work better together as a whole.

    I use both of and Mac but find myself usually using my apple laptop and remoting into my PC for things I need specifically on there.
  • 2
    @C0D4 @devTea They do look great! I'm thinking about getting one "just because", haha
  • 1
    xps 13
  • 2
    @Jilano that's what my rpi3b was for 😂

    But the 4, I think I would actually use for more then a simple web server.
  • 1
    @thinkbonobo if you are frontend, node or python dev, you can always use Linux. I'm not saying that Macs are bad, but I think that at this budget it's better to go for something more powerful than Mac unless he needs to use XCode.
  • 1
    @anon404 i dont know if this is realistic where you live, but i got my 15" MBP (in 2015, when it was the newest) for 2100 chf (was about 2100 usd). I wouldnt bu, 13" in my opinion
  • 1
    @Konsole who?
    Our college students have got ideapads not thinkpads
  • 1
    @gitlog 🤦‍♂️ Mixed them up.

    Though I don't see Linux support improving between the two.
  • 1
    @Konsole thinkpads are very good

    XPS is also but not value for money imo
    Dell is generally more costly than its counterparts
  • 1
    @gitlog The problem lies with Lenovo bootloader/firmware/bios Not with the specs so I don't know how they will be better. But maybe.

    Also Dell may be more expensive. But in the long run, it runs flawless without problems. And after sales service of Dell is much better than counterparts.
  • 1
    @mindev some frontend also uses like XD or design tools, so it’s probably safer to use mac in case you have to use those things
  • 1
    @Konsole Out of curiosity, what doesn't work on Thinkpads for you? Besides the fingerprint and NFC reader, I didn't have any problems with my Thinkpad yet, using Linux.
  • 1
    @sbiewald !me. I didn't dare buy Lenovo after seeing them.
    For one , Ubuntu would get stuck on login screen.
    For other, it installed and booted, but the sleep function never worked. On sleep, the screen would turn off, but laptop would stay poweron. Also it used to randomly crash.
    For third. Ubuntu never worked. It used to get installed but laptop would always boot in Windows instead of grub. And Lenovo bootloader didn't give the option to switch to grub. I tried installing 3 distros on her laptop. None worked
  • 2
    Bro go with a gaming laptop because you will receive a powerful GPU which will let you do machine learning stuff in the future
  • 1
    Macbook. It's a productivity beast for me. I have a Thinkpad too.
  • 1
    @BlackOrange the truth being spoken

    Although it make take a few tries to install Ubuntu on your gaming laptop, it is what that must be actually purchased for the price point and effectiveness
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins They are completely right as I was there with each one of them. Maybe Thinkpads have better support that ideapads, but I am not gonna trust Lenovo with linux
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins Please see my above comments
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins lol, they worked on everything except Lenovo.
    Dell ☑️
    Hp ☑️
    Msi ☑️
    Acer ☑️ (though there were some problems lateron)

    So maybe a kernel issue, but when everything works except Lenovo,
    I am not gonna buy it
  • 1
    @FrodoSwaggins 🤷‍♂️
  • 4
    @Konsole ThinkPads and Ideapads are quite different. ThinkPads have great support, much better build quality, and A+ Linux support (in general). Ideapads are absolute shite in just about every way. ThinkPads (especially T series) are also much more expensive :p

    I would not go for Lenovo consumer laptops either, ThinkPads are business laptops, comparable to Dell Latitudes and stuff (also a great series).
  • 1
    @mindev

    I totally hear what your saying and if you use Linux regularly then it's def cheaper. However, there's always random little issues that I've run into when working on Linux that are much more of a pain to resolve or (probably my fault in PC selection) it's a much more fluid experience for me to work on a Mac because I run into less laptop / is related issues. Moreover when I do, it's easier to search for solutions with people who have the exact same setup as me. If you're on a tight budget though you can get a much cheaper setup with a pc laptop.
  • 2
    @devTea haha all bullshit aside I'm actually debating that idea
  • 3
    @PerfectAsshole that front end needs software that is not supported on linux?
  • 3
    @devTea rpi4. As much as i would love to buy me a cluster of them the arm architecture messes up my idea. I'm hopeing they eventually make a 386 version where i really can one day
  • 2
    @PerfectAsshole oh I’m just meme’ing the rpi4, cheers
  • 2
    @PerfectAsshole I'm also planning to make a cluster of 32 rpis
    How many are you planning to use?

    I guess I'll make up a reason to the college to buy me those..
    Also, it'll require a big network switch, good smps and fans, pcb printing and 3D printing

    Gotta sort that out

    Or maybe open a go fund me (except that in India it's ketto as go fund me doesn't function here.... And ketto is not so famous)

    What about you? How do you plan to do it?
  • 2
    @PerfectAsshole maybe show the college the code of my diffusion algorithms and ask them that I want to test the simulation in real life and not just on my laptop
  • 3
    @gitlog well the arm cpu breaks my idea. For a cluster i would love to setup a kubernetes cluster. I still might buy a few to setup mpd/icecast for my house but that's about it. Then again for that usecase i can buy a pi3 when they go on discount
  • 1
    @PerfectAsshole why?
    You can run kubernetes on RPi cluster
  • 0
    @gitlog i don't believe it can run standard docker images since they run as 386
  • 1
    @gitlog might have to take another look into it then
  • 1
  • 0
    @PerfectAsshole well I deleted that comment because I wanted to check it on my rpi before claiming something and not depend on my memory

    I don't have it at my hand now
  • 1
    @C0D4 @gitlog https://github.com/StefanScherer/... this has me believing that a container needs to be built for the rpi.
  • 2
    @C0D4 but thanks for the link it helped me find out real quick
  • 1
    @PerfectAsshole I knew it was possible, even if you have to build it.

    Haven't tried it myself though, pretty sure you're going to need more then a 1GB pi to run docker anyway and I don't have a cluster.
  • 0
    @C0D4 no
    I use docket on rpi 3b+ for pihole
  • 1
    @gitlog 🤔why would you run pi-hole inside a container?

    Surprising it can handle that actually.
    I thought docker was more resource hungry for some reason.

    i shall go look into this deeper.
  • 2
    @C0D4 i did so because of one of the core reason docker was made

    Dependency handling

    I do all kinds of shit on my RPi (software ( I'm not @Haxk20 or @Condor)) so I otherwise mess up the entire OS quite quickly
  • 1
    @gitlog I just automate my home with mine + it's a browser for my tv when I can be bothered 😅

    But yea they are great for messing around with, and just a wipe and restore the card and away we go again for those rainy days.
  • 2
    @C0D4 yeah having to rebuild from scratch is a deal breaker for me. I like being able to test things quickly and having to build an image before running it adds extra time for something that i might wind up not using
  • 3
    @PerfectAsshole ARM is actually pretty well-supported these days - it's comparable to 386 now. Of course 386 kinda dying off though and ARM being the new hot lass in the club, so... And for the Raspberry Pi there exists HypriotOS that's essentially a skimmed down version of Raspbian Lite, with k8s already in it. Really cool!
  • 0
    Thanks guy, I bought a MacBook 13" 2019
  • 0
    And I loveeee it
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