I know there are a few developers here so was wanting recommendations for a new laptop for dotnet development. Budget about £400.

I use a dell studio 1550 (was £500 but I had a couple of extra options added on and there are cheaper ones in the range too) coupled with a monitor. Good amount of power and plenty of screen space with a monitor, laptop screen is a touch small on its own but it’s a good size for carrying round and fine for knocking out code on.

Only complaint I have with mine is that it runs a bit hot but I suspect that the graphics card upgrade I got doesn’t help with that. Solved this by getting a stand with a fan built in which also happens to put the screen at a nice height next to my monitor!

£400 is a pretty tight budget for a dev laptop IMHO.

You need plenty of memory (4GB if you’re still on 32-bit, otherwise more), decent size hard drive and/or SSD and reasonable CPU.

You can skimp of course, but depending on the length of the project any saving could be eaten up by the accumulated time of highly-paid devs sitting around while stuff compiles.

biggest screen

most .net projects have a fairly light dev environment UNLESS you have some C++ hanging around, need a big local sql database, or are doing Azure.

In order of importance (for me)

1) screen size
2) RAM

CPU not much of an issue ime but I don’t do dot net.

I’d say it’s even worth skimping on hard drive, extraneous features and CPU to get as big a screen as you can.

biggest screen

Or just buy some separate screens. I’m currently developing on a laptop (Dell E6400), but I have it hooked up to a big screen, with a proper keyboard and mouse. The laptop just acts as a second screen which I use to display one of my VMs on.

Or just buy some separate screens. I’m currently developing on a laptop (Dell E6400), but I have it hooked up to a big screen, with a proper keyboard and mouse. The laptop just acts as a second screen which I use to display one of my VMs on.

Pretty much the same for me too. I find a proper keyboard and mouse much nicer to use too.

Cheers for the info. Could prob nab a monitor from work for an additional screen.

Any brands to avoid? Currently got a HP Compaq that’s about 4 years old and it has always been rubbish.

If you ar getting separate screens you might as well get a desktop

If you ar getting separate screens you might as well get a desktop

Except you then have to buy 2 screens to have dual (which I find invaluable for doing dev) and you can’t unplug it and walk to the other end of the office with it or work on the train etc…

Does it have to be laptops? Could solve screen and budget issue by going for a mini tower?

Laptop wise I’d buy Lenovo, Dell or HP. Toshiba used to be good, but I haven’t had one for around 10 years.
Definitely avoid Packard Bell anything.

My fave brand is Toshiba followed by HP. Do carefully go through the installed crap though and weed out what you don’t want – but that goes for all laptops 🙂

This one

or this one

or maybe this even cheaper one

UNLESS you have some C++ hanging around

what has C++ got to do with it? That’s just crazy talk…

How much dev do you need to do on the lappy ? I have a fast desktop at work and a small Dell D430 for when I want to write some code on the train, for when I don’t really need to run the main system, just maybe runs some nunit tests as I develop. Then at home I dock it into the 24″ screen and RDC back into work.

Except you then have to buy 2 screens to have dual (which I find invaluable for doing dev) and you can’t unplug it and walk to the other end of the office with it or work on the train etc…

+1

My laptop basically serves as a desktop while I’m at my desk, but I can easily take it home and do any extra work there.

You want a 64 bit processor minimum and as much ram as possible. If you go for 32bit the max windows on 32 bit can handle is 3GB, no more. This is if you are going to run a VM anyhoo. if not, 3GB of RAM is more then enough.

Get a big hard drive and at least a 15″ monitor. I’ve been doing iOS dev on my 13″ macbook pro and it is a tight squeeze.

If you are doing any sort of serious development you should be asking yourself why you would do it on a lap top? Given the choice I wouldn’t. When I get down to writing something serious I want 2 big monitors and a keyboard and mouse – sat at a desk… with a big mug of coffee and a doughnut! 😉

what has C++ got to do with it? That’s just crazy talk…

If you use visual studio in windows, which I assume you would if you were doing .net, then you do find that if there are some ‘legacy’ C++ projects they have a tendancy to be a bit bloated thats all. Its not about the C++ its about the MFC, COM, wierdness etc etc on top of it.

I’ve done loads of Java devlopemnt on laptops. I used to run eclipse, MySQL and JBoss or weblogic on my 1GHz celeron with 2Gb ram in 2003…

If you go for 32bit the max windows on 32 bit can handle is 3GB, no more.

Actually it can handle 4GB – but any memory-mapped devices like a graphics card will eat into that and probably leave you with around 3.5GB or less.

Ok, basically I’ve got my work pc running Win7 16gb ram all singing and dancing but as I’m still doing ONLY VB6 development in work I want a laptop to learn dotnet at home. I could rdp into work and do dotnet on my work pc from home but that wouldn’t be ideal.

If you use visual studio in windows, which I assume you would if you were doing .net, then you do find that if there are some ‘legacy’ C++ projects they have a tendancy to be a bit bloated thats all. Its not about the C++ its about the MFC, COM, wierdness etc etc on top of it.

Hmmmm.. current project: mix of C#, C, C++ and VB with Windows Embedded in one VM and LynxOS pbooting off that into a second VM. With a third CentOS VM for development.

Memory is good!

From the linked article:

Here’s one parting bit of advice: if, like me, you’re planning to stick with a 32-bit operating system for the next few years, don’t waste your money on 4 GB of RAM. You won’t be able to use it all. Buy 3 GB instead. Every motherboard I’m aware of will happily accept 2 x 1 GB and 2 x 512 MB DIMMs.

Either way, I’d be looking at a 64bit machine.

Either way, I’d be looking at a 64bit machine.

Yeah that article is pretty old now, but I don’t think you’ll find many new 32-bit CPU machines out there these days.

As a proper geek I’ve had a 64-bit CPU with 64-bit Windows at home since 2005 😀

It depends. I happily develop on the X100e I’m typing on – 11.6″ screen, fairly low power processor, 2GB ram, 32bit Win7. Can’t say I have any particular issues – IME time spent waiting for stuff to compile (which still isn’t huge) gives me a chance to think about stuff.

To be fair, the desktop I develop professional stuff on in work is probably lower power than this!

If you’re using lots of VMs though, I agree with others about the need for resources – this doesn’t like me running more than 2, and in work I have a VM server, so no local load.

It depends.

Agreed.

I happily develop on the X100e I’m typing on – 11.6″ screen, fairly low power processor, 2GB ram, 32bit Win7. Can’t say I have any particular issues

Would be no good for me – multiple VMs means memory, Rhapsody means big screen required, 2 hour build time means fast CPU/drive required 😀

Why d’you lot use lots of VMs?

Why d’you lot use lots of VMs?

In my case because it lets me run three different OSes (WinES, LynxOS and CentOS) which I need to simulate the target system.

If you’re learning then it’s not such a big deal. Basically you’ll be running Visual Studio and probably SQL compact or something. Get the most RAM, best CPU you can afford, and make sure the hard disk is 7200rpm. I’d go 64 bit for the reasons above.

If you’re carrying the laptop around a lot, get 14″ otherwise get one with a massive screen.

Try the Dell Vostros – I’ve been looking for some i7 Dell desktops, but I was surprised to see that the laptop prices weren’t much higher.

If you’re learning web development, check out MVC ASP.NET, it’s brilliant.

MVC in ASP.NET

It should be good – MS have had 32 years to think about that pattern since it was first used in smalltalk.

Why d’you lot use lots of VMs?

All sorts of reasons – most of them not relevant to people learning stuff. Personally so I can run servers and clients (multiples of both testing cross-platform compatibility) or for testing stuff on a different OS to the one I’m developing on, or sometimes because I’m doing things which breaks the OS and it’s handy to be able to revert!