What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

LG1815 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:05:55 GMT

I use a Dell M4400 with 8GB and Quad QX9300

Pro:

Fast

Runs Windows Server 2008

Allows some major data crunching

Con:

Heat--Never cold using this

Noise--Varies, but somewhat noisy

Power/Battery. Even with Battery Slice only get 5-6 hours of use.

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

Keith Combs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:29:00 GMT

Yea, the Dell Covet definitely has the drool factor. I would like a Quad Core 16GB of RAM machine, too.

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

Jon Davis — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:12:45 GMT

What's a developer, really? I'm starting to get irritated by the word "developer", because to the guy who does PHP development on Linux, you only need a $299 cheapie that will let you use vi and Firefox. I for one see myself as a technologist and I love taking advantage of all the wonderful bloatware that Microsoft and the like put out, I play the occasional graphics-heavy games, and I fire up the occasional HD movie. I want it all.

On the other hand, when I'm given a laptop that's exclusively for business use, to work with, say, Visual Studio, in a typical business environment, my best experiences with laptops for such uses have been with company-issued Dell Latitude laptops. The current line of Latitudes have batteries that last all day long, and Latitudes have always have notoriously very high resolution and very decent performance and stability--on the other hand, the current selection of mostly 14.1 inches seems small.

I'll tell you what, I slobber all over the VERY EXPENSIVE Dell Precision notebooks. The Dell Precision M6400 Covet is quite appropriately named. Expensive, yes. Best workhorse laptop, though, .. yes, yes, YES!! Especially with the option of a whopping 16 GB of RAM?!! HOLY COW.

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

John Obeto — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:06:51 GMT

@Ben O: how would you get work done in some out-of-way area, or if there isn't a connection to the 'beefy Server 2008' rig?

Personally, since I tend to travel a lot, being able to run VMs at near native speeds is a must.

I would probably run R2 and mount VMs natively.

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

Keith Combs — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:13:43 GMT

Kashif, I never received a comment until now. Any particular reason you think the ThinkPad W500 is superior?

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

Kashif — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:38:24 GMT

Why my message never get posted????

I said, Thinkpad W500 :(

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

Ben O — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:10:32 GMT

A Wyse Thin Terminal running Wyse Thin OS (WTOS) connected to a BEEFY Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server. Beat that!

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

Rich L — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:25:31 GMT

For my development needs the best laptop is anything with 2GB or more of ram and a lot of hard drive space for all my VPC's

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

Bryce White — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:01:05 GMT

HP EliteBook 8530w with Intel x9100, 8GB... I run Vista x64, VS2008, Virtual Server 2005 R2 and WSS on Vista from Bamboo Nation to support local MOSS. The machine is very fast, very solid and very portable. Docks for dual monitors at home and office, plenty of battery life for the train ride in between, etc...

The best laptop I have ever used - and I've used a lot of 'em.

re: What is the best developer laptop on the planet, and why?

John Obeto — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:28:15 GMT

I will take the HP EliteBook 8730w any day!

The specs:

-> Quad core or Intel Core 2 Extreme processor

->8gb of RAM

->Nvidia Quadro FX3700 w/ 1GB video RAM

->17" HP Dreamcolor display offering up to 16 million colors

->Upgrade bay allowing replacement of optical drive w/ second 250 or 320GB hard disk

That is one dev rig I can relate to!