Best laptop for development

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gumpie

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Hey guys.

So i am starting a new job next week and i am thinking about investing in a nice new laptop. I am currently using a macbook pro 17" (the older one).
I will be doing c# asp.net development and i have found that using the macbook with virtual machines is not a problem.
I was wondering if you suggest getting a upgrade or should this be sufficent?
AND
If you could suggest a laptop of around 20k what would it be?
 
I'd stick with the Macbook Pro - what else do you want? You can run Windows in a VM or natively.

My dream development rig is a nice laptop with a good SSD. For example compiling is often 2-3 times faster with an SSD, or launching apps can be 5-10x faster. It's that much of an improvement. So stick with your Macbook Pro and put in a nice SSD instead of your spinning HD. It's easy.

Good brands are Intel X-25m and Sandforce controller drives.
 
Yea i was thinking about that.
Whats the best place to get a new SSD installed in a macbook?
 
I don't know. Don't really trust any of the Apple suppliers around here anymore. People say Digicape is decent, I don't know if they're around here.

I'd do it myself if I were you, you just need a Torx T6 screwdriver, which is a tricky part. Here are full instructions:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/...-A1229-and-A1261-Hard-Drive-Replacement/319/1

It looks hairy but that's actually totally do-able, just work carefully.
 
Synaesthesia said:
I don't know. Don't really trust any of the Apple suppliers around here anymore. People say Digicape is decent, I don't know if they're around here.
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I recently bought a Macbook Pro from Digicape and they were awesome! Much better than the iStore
 
Monkey101 said:
ASUS G73JH-X1
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+1 If I was spending R20k on a notebook - it would without a singe question or doubt be this one! Much respect to ASUS notebooks :)

ASUS® Gaming Series: G73JH - Intel® Core™ i7 720QM 1.6Hz Quad Processor, 8GB DDR3 1066MHz Memory (4x 2GB - 4 Slots Int.)
2x 500GB 7200RPM 2.5" SATA HDD, BLU-RAY ROM/DVD-RW Drive, 17.3" HD 1920x1080 16:9 ColorShine Widescreen, 2.0 MP Webcam
Intel® P55 Express Mobile Chipset, ATI® Radeon™ Mobility HD5870 1GB Graphics, Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi LAN 802.11 b/g/n @ 300Mbps
Illuminated Chiclet Keyboard, ASUS Gaming Backpack & ASUS Gaming Mouse & Headset, AC Adaptor, 8 Cell 5200mAh Batt.
Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64-Bit, 2 Year Global Collect, Repair & Return Warranty
 
Isn't the G73JH a little overkill for dev work?
Why not just go for a newer model macbook?
 
gumpie said:
You got a price on that Conradl?
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Can do it for R20k - stock only arriving at the end of the month, and can confirm price :( Will be worth the wait - that notebook is really nice. And not overkill at all - maybe just a little :)
 
Conradl said:
Can do it for R20k - stock only arriving at the end of the month, and can confirm price :( Will be worth the wait - that notebook is really nice. And not overkill at all - maybe just a little :)
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hehe... I'm sitting here working on my G73 with a big smile on my face....(yes, I'm an ASP .NET c# developer) :D

Order from the US. The warranty is international AND you get a free 1 year accidental fire/spill etc. warranty built in (ASUS FTW!!!!). Then take the R3.5K that you save from ordering overseas and drop a nice little Intel X25 SSD into it ... and use the extra 500GB HDD that you took out as a backup device. Without a doubt you'll end up with the best possible mobile/desktop replacement solution for R20K that you can find. Also, can I just mention that the screen on the G73 is better than 96% of the screens you find on notebooks these day, it's glossy (unfortunately), but still it looks incredible. Even blows away the 23" Dell LCD I have at work.
A few weeks ago someone spilled a drink on my notebook, I took it to the Asus shop in Sandton and they replaced the keyboard with a new one in 10 mins, and it only cost me 400 bucks...
 
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You'll have to check that with someone else. Mine was ordered together with a colleague's so we could save a few bucks on delivery, I just for the life of me can't remember where we bought it from. I know it wasn't from newegg.
 
kingrob said:
+1

Don't think there is anything better than the Asus G73JH currently on the market....now I just need to win the lotto on Saturday. :)
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Even if you win the lotto you will struggle to get one :D They sell very quickly....
 
The nice thing about that Asus is that you don't really pay that much extra for the mobility factor. If you wanted to build a new i7 desktop system with a 1GB Radeon 5770 (which the Mobility Radeon 5870 is built off), 8 GB DDR3 memory, 2 x 500GB HDD's, Windows 7 x64, a cooling solution, screen etc. you'd actually have to tread carefully to fit it into a R16.5K budget (which is what I paid, just remember I opted for the one without Blu-Ray)
 
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How is the battery life of that Asus though?
I'm also looking at getting a new laptop and was looking at an MBP but now you guys have piqued my interest :P
 
krepunk said:
How is the battery life of that Asus though?
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haha ... well dude, this thing really is a monster, so if you're that worried about battery life I wouldn't suggest it. I've pushed the battery to empty a few times, but I've never actually timed it. AFAIK it usually lasts about 1.5 hours, but you might get a bit more out of it when you use the power saving profiles. Personally I just keep it plugged in whenever I'm using it (yes, it has quite a huge power brick). It does come with a separate small linux installation that allows you to use the turbo boost button as an ON button which boots into a basic linux that allows for basics like web browsing, music, skype etc. I'm not sure how long the battery will last when you use that mode. But to be fair to Asus, there's not much they can really do about the battery life, from what I've read it already has a huge battery pack compared to other gaming notebooks that would easily power a small notebook for an entire day.

The only thing that sucks about using it as a development machine is the fact that for some reason the cursor keys on the keyboard are a bit smaller than the rest of the keys, and they're also not separated from the rest of the keys so when you're doing something like SQL code for instance where you use the cursors all the time it gets a bit irritating since you have to focus more on pressing the right up/down/left/right key each time.

EDIT: A comment I found on the net: "While surfing the Web with minimum screen brightness, we squeezed one hour and 48 minutes out of the G73’s 8-cell battery pack. "

"Battery Life
Testing the battery life of laptops is a contentious thing – do you test for the absolute best-case by disabling everything and leaving the CPU to idle, or do you set a film to loop and measure that? Both of these tests are unrepresentative of what you’ll use for your laptop for the most – a bit of work and web-browsing while on the sofa. We’ve therefore chosen to test by loading up a website with a bit of light Flash animation, which loads the CPU with a moderate amount of work (about 5 per cent CPU load on this laptop). We’ve left the WiFi on, but let Windows dim the screen to half brightness, and also disabled the screensaver and the ability to turn the screen off. Finally, we entered the advanced battery options to make sure that the laptop won’t go to sleep, ensuring that we used the full life of the battery."
TIME: 1.09hrs
 
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the laptop i use is 7730g acer travelmate seems to do everything i need besides the loud fan noise :P
 
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