Laptop for development/design

[antpower26]

Hi everyone, my names Ant I live in the UK and this is my first post. I have been studying the video tutorials from this site on my netbook, and have decided it is time I bought a laptop that will service my needs for dev/design with a view to a career. I need something that will basically work well with various softwares and is fairly futureproof. I envisage it lasting a good 5 years. The software I already have is Expression Studio and Visual Studio, both current versions and both ultimate,these include Silverlight, and I also expect to use Photoshop, as well as Wordpress, and some CMS, like Joomla.

I have had so much advice about what to buy, and I am more than a little confused. So I am requesting some straightforward advice regarding Laptops, what specifications, RAM, processors i3, i5, i7 etc, screensize and especially Graphics cards that can handle Photoshop, Silverlight. Do I really need to spend a lot of money?, and are there are any particular models that really are better than others?

I want something that will do the job well, for both development and design, and will last a good few years.

Much appreciated.

Ant

[LSW]

I asked the same questions more or less in 1999, ended up with an 8GB Win98SE. Times have changed.

 

I am not a fan of model arguments, I know people who love Dell and others who hate it. Those who love Mac and those who hate it and myself who used it and was not so impressed enough to say any one is better than another.

 

Get what you can afford and from who is most prominent in your area. My last two were HP, they were OK, but no way to service them here. So I bought a Dell Notepad or whatever they call the mini ones. Sucks for any type of graphics work or web design though. Here it is best to buy Dell because I can take it to a official Dell repair place downtown. All State PC's are dell and I cannot complain about them at work.

 

I would go with Windows 5 (Hard to get XP now anyways). Company that you can get repaired buy close by. A strong processor for when you have multiple big apps running at the same time, especially graphic, flash or video apps. Definitely 2 GB memory, the more the merrier. 500 GB Minimum I would say, but Terra byte (TB) hard drives are becoming common. You should try to get an external drive as well for back-ups of your system and work.

 

All in all mostly go for a damn good processor and lost of memory. You can always upgrade later.

 

One note: Laptops are harder to upgrade and usually require special memory cards etc., so usually the shop. Towers are better as you can upgrade yourself and usually cheaper I think.

[virtual]

I agree with LSW. Unless you are traveling all the time, a laptop is not the best computer for work purposes. I would go with a desktop, you get way more bang for your buck!

 

Desktops are also more easily upgradeable and will serve you longer for that reason. They are also more comfortable to work on ergonomically, good seating, a larger monitor or 2 are all considerations if you are sitting in front of one 8 hours a day. Keep your netbook to show your work or just to keep in touch when on the go.

 

Get a good processor, lots of memory, a big hard drive, but also get a backup drive. You will understand why if or when the original hard drive crashes and you have lost months/years of work.

 

Futureproof in this field is almost impossible, goodness knows what technology will be invented in the next 2 years. A new version of software comes out every 18 months. The internet is a fast moving field to keep up in.

[LSW]

Not to mention in 5 years we may have Windows 8... or 9. 50 - 250 TB will likely be the normal amount with 5 GB memory. In 10 years we will be up to Petabytes and you machine will not even have an OS as it will be cloud computing and we may be sliding things around like in Sci-Fi movies and folks will laugh at a 250 TB hard drive while the iPhone 5 will have a TB. LOL

 

Remember the 8 GB HD I mentioned? My iPhone has that and it is an older model as well.

[newseed]

I remember my first IBM machine. It was bulky in size which took up half of my desk space and had a whopping 640k physical memory with no ram running on DOS 2 version. Back then they didn't have towers but boy I thought I was something special when I had two 5 1/4" floppy drives. I didn't start using Windows until version 2 which was back in the mid 80's.

 

Here's a interesting version history for DOS.

 

Version history for Windows.

 

In case you didn't know, computers have been around for about 75 years. Of course it was not a house hold item unitl the 80's then it really exploded when Windows 95 came out which support email, fax, etc.

[antpower26]

Thanks for all the replies everyone, ive taken your advice and gone for a desktop, which is going to be built, by a chap who runs a local computer shop.

Spec is i5 core processor, two hard drives, 500gb for OS, and 1tb for files. 8gb of ram, windows 7, probably 22 inch monitor, and igb for graphics card, which is nvidia geforce gt450. Should do the job. Cost=£5/600. This seems really cheap to me in comparison to the laptops I was looking at last night, that had really good components.

Thanks again.

Ant

[LSW]

Sounds good.

 

Just a suggestion: I use multiple partitions:

• C - Sytem,
• D - Software (those that allow you to install where you want),
• E - Files etc,

Reason? Well there are a few:

1. Security: Trojans etc. that get installed with software expect a certain path to work, by installing somewhere else, it can break them so they don't work.
2. Formatting: For whatever reason you need to format, often from the DOS command window and can't save... all you loose are system files and some programs. Or you try to upgrade and it writes over your C drive and you loose everything. It is all safe on another partition.
3. Defrag: Tried defragging a 500GB drive? It can take all bloody night. Having smaller partitions makes it faster and will lessen how often you need to defrag. Usually C is what you have to defrag most.
4. I can format or upgrade the OS on C and then re-point to to software, files etc. Say keep your bookmarks or preferences there so they are not lost.
5. Some folks have suggested a small partition alone for your "Paging file size" which is a form of virtual memory windows usually controls, you can set up a 1GB partition just for this.

Now logical cleanliness is a must for web design, many of us have seen or built sites where everything is in one folder... a mess. I am also semi autistic and need that control, I hate chaos. That is maybe the biggest reason I partition. But I go further:

• A: I direct to my USB stick (You can map a drive for this. A was always the floppy which is gone, so I use for the other external input device, my thumb drive)
• F: LSW - all my web design work, projects and such. E is personal data, F is web business data
• G: Music
• H: Images/Video
• Z: Paging file area

By going into your icons and right clicking, then choose properties, target (at the bottom) - I point my My Photos to my H drive. My Files to my E drive, My Music to my G drive etc. So now the system goes to those partitions and saves there just like it would have on the default C drive settings.

 

But all the partitioning does not replace imaging or at least backing up you drive on the secondary 1TB drive. Best do an image of the original set up (I hope this fellow will remove allot of junk from the OS). You may wish to do this after creating the partitions. Install and redirect your important software and maybe some personal files of import. Run anti virus and maybe inarticulate first with security software, then Image it again. Now if anything happens you just re-image the machine and all is as it was with now installs needed except what may have been added since the last image. The idea is to have a clean untainted image of the base setup you can use rather than have to re-install everything including the OS.

 

Of course my directories are the same way. Drive E has a folder for wallpapers, a library for eBooks etc., a directory for taxes, personal letters, official letters, job hunt documents etc.

 

D Drive has a folder for Security apps, graphic apps like photoshop as well as image viewing apps, Office apps for word and open office, text editors, Multimedia has two sub folders for audio and video - Audio has winamp, and audio editing apps while video has video players, rippers. You get the idea. That may be to picky for you, but an idea.

 

Well I guess I should be working, had not planned on posting so much.