I have a number of machines I worked on over the last few years. For FCC basically anything will cut it if you only need codepen/codesandbox. I recommend a beefier machine if you plan to develop anything significant locally.
I also will only recommend laptops. For the most part any desktop with 8gb+ ram is fine. Laptop choices are more interesting IMO, and the mobility is always nice. I think the idea of developing on a tablet is too limiting due to the lack of software even more-so than a chromebook, so I don’t recommend using a tablet unless your desperate. Something as simple as typing effectively is hard on a tablet.
These are my primary “development” laptops I’ve used, these are not direct recommendations rather these should be used more as a reference as to what you can do, from my experience with these machines.
-
- I got thru college on this machine, and used it for a number of work projects. 6gb stopped cutting it once I started to work on larger projects. I had to upgrade this to 16gb ram which is definitely enough for web development.
I wont recommend this exact laptop, similar specs, with at least 8gb or more ram should be enough for a long while for development work. I also want to mention I’m a Linux user and had a really bad experience with some hardware issues with this laptop.
- I got thru college on this machine, and used it for a number of work projects. 6gb stopped cutting it once I started to work on larger projects. I had to upgrade this to 16gb ram which is definitely enough for web development.
-
- This is a tank. Chromebooks are naturally pretty durable software wise, but this little guy is built for kids. If your more sensible this thing will get you thru learning most of FCC, while being able to take a ton of punishment haha. I threw a plastic cover on this laptop, dropped it multiple times, thrown it around and its no worse for wear. Obviously being a chromebook means developing locally is difficult (I document a number of options for development approaches in this post on FCC)
-
- A 1k+ Chromebook? This is what I use right now for basic development, and general use. Being another chromebook (but a pretty powerful one) means I can develop locally using approaches mentioned in the link above, but being a super-thin laptop means there are limitations. This laptop is roughly on par or slightly worse than my HP, but since its running chromeOS, it’s blazing fast, super secure, and performs more reliably day to day than my Linux laptop. If your spending this much money, buy a Macbook pro, or another brand laptop, only buy this if your crazy like me and like Chromebooks and don’t mind jumping thru hoops to develop. I only point this laptop out mainly to prove the point you can develop on a Chromebook, but it ain’t cheap to get an even decent machine
I’d suggest some basic specs to keep an eye out for when buying a desktop or laptop. I develop some heavier web applications (Full-stack typescript+Java apps) so computers with the following stats probably can handle anything web development wise, since these specs are roughly in line with that I use on a few desktops I’ve developed on here and there.
-
Ram: 8gb - 16gb
- don’t get anything less than 8gb, unless you only need light development needs, and or its a chromebook. Less than 4gb is basically worthless for local development.
-
CPU: Intel (for better Linux support if you ever go that route) i5+, 1.7ghz+, or comparable AMD (I don’t know much about AMD, since I never get it as I’m a Linux guy)
- My original laptop has an i5 with 1.7ghz. It was able to do most things without any problems. Better processors would increase computation speeds, so build times are shorter, and page loads are slightly faster, but this is generally a minor thing. Slightly weaker CPU’s probably can get by if your not doing anything heavy.
-
HD: 256GB+
- If your just developing, 256gbs is enough. Unless your dealing with large amounts of images, and or software IDE’s, 256gbs is good enough. Get 500gb to basically never think about it. HD memory is cheap now-a-days so splurge here if you want to do more stuff outside of development.
-
Graphics: Anything
- Unless your building web-games or doing photo editing, or playing games, you don’t really need to care about GPU’s. Laptops with graphics cards are usually gaming oriented and are pretty expensive. Desktops with dedicated GPU’s are cheaper, but again you don’t need to worry much about it. Integrated graphics is usually enough, and they get better if you buy a better computer most of the time.
Final thoughts
Focus on the CPU and Ram first, as if the CPU is super slow, or you run out of ram you basically can’t develop on the machine. Everything else can be worked around.