A decent development laptop

[Patty Flowers]

.. for use on the move.

I'm going to be spending a lot of time travelling on trains over the next 6 months. Could anyone recomment to me a versatile dev machine for this purpose? size is important as i'll be crammed up against people .. so don't want(can't use) a large screen ... etc etc.

I'll be running netbeans- Java & C++, tomcat, mysql, nothing too intense.

3 hours a day .. best be doing my own thing.

Cheers!

[Merowech]

I've got a ThinkPad since around 2005 (was old back then already), which was rock solid and I never had any issues here. Not sure how much you want to pay and how they're performing now since they're switched to Lenovo from IBM, but I'd probably would get myself a recent one again.

http://shop.lenovo.com/ieweb/ie/en/l...tops/thinkpad/

[Patty Flowers]

cheers mero .... limit would be 2 grand.

[Merowech]

Well for that you'd surely get a very decent machine, not even for that much.
My problem is mainly that after I buy new technology (not limited to computers), I don't keep up with it so I just can give you an opinion which is most likely outdated

My personal one would be one of those:
http://shop.lenovo.com/ieweb/ie/en/n.../t-series/t430
You'd pay around 1.5k with some configuration like 8GB ram and so.
But for sure anyone else (and especially Smeggle) could point you to cheaper alternatives.

[irishmonkey]

I have no happy stories about lenovo - the ibms were bulletproof but they seem to have gone down hill bigtime.

It might be worth waiting for win 8 in october dual boot with win 7 if ya need to.

id say 2k is far in excess of what you would need to spend.
you should be able to pick upand ultrabook for about hald that.

if you got the bobs invest in ssd and ram

p.s. i would make sure any laptop you get has and easly replacable hard drive

[Merowech]

Originally Posted by irishmonkey

I have no happy stories about lenovo - the ibms were bulletproof but they seem to have gone down hill bigtime.

Bummer... Mine is an IBM one still so it's fine. You probably could get one still used, but with that money at hand you're better off with something else so.

[Smeggle]

some really nice 13/15 Toshiba's around just now - 14" 6gb ram, 32gb ssd/500gb HD (programs on ssd/data to HD) dvd, wifi, bluetooth, cam, brushed aluminum finish...

only thing is they are kinda pricey....

[i_didnt_do_nawtin]

If you're going to do development make sure the max resolution of the screen isn't 1366 x 768. It practically pointless opening an IDE in that resolution.

RAM is cheap as fuck these days, I picked up 8GB for under £40.

[douglas eegit]

Stay away from hp, I was doing dev on nine there last year, and I fried the whole thing. Ram and fans esp and slowed to fuck. Only lasted about 30mins before shutting down.
I was running a Shit load on it though at the time, flash cs5, illustrator cs5, had some local server too for MySQL. And a Shit load if other open source programs.

Have an acer now, 4gb, Intel i5, 500gb and tbh tis the berries. 18monthw old and got it in pcworld for 599. Don't do much local server dev any more but I enjoy light dev and not a bother to the machine.
Batt life is around the 3 hour mark, maybe 2 with dev work.

[Patty Flowers]

I shouldn't be left alone in these matters .... I got the works.