Im using a very old mac laptop for coding and I think it’s time for an upgrade - what should I get? What is everyone else using? What’s most important to look for? I’ve used all the popular os’s and have no trouble adjusting and I’m not loyal to any of them. I’m not interested in a desktop. Is used a bad idea?
What is your budget? It’s a good time to be looking at high end laptops. You should be able to find a slightly used XPS 13 or 15, which is a great machine. HP also has some strong offerings. Macbooks are always a safe option, but a matter of taste. Chromebooks are cheap and some can run Linux instead of Google’s CreepyOS. Ultimately, what’s most important is up to you. I focus on battery life, ease of repair, keyboard, and trackpad quality over raw speed and display resolution.
If you’re buying used, just make sure to protect yourself from fraud. Check the laptop in person, if possible. Make sure none of the keys stick, the display is free of dead pixels, and that the machine actually boots. Even if the machine isn’t that old, warranties run out quickly and protection plans often don’t transfer to new owners. Only buy though reputable companies with buyer protection guarantees if you’re looking online, and double check that the purchase is protected (Amazon doesn’t guarantee every purchase from third parties).
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How old is your Macbook?
Hi,
There is a great article in freeCodeCamp Medium that may be able to answer your question:
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-to-choose-a-laptop-for-programming-a9e36f8b4cfe.
Good luck on your search.
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Personally I’m using a Lenovo T460 series laptop on the job and I’m really satisfied with it. I know these laptops can be a bit expensive but from my experience with it it’s pretty sturdy and heavy-duty. I am able to run it 9-12 hours a day on the fly and get my tasks done on it with ease.
I highly recommend you look into those if you’re thinking about switching to Windows for a change.
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I guess for me is more about how light is the laptop))
Before I used Alienware from dell. It’s really powerful laptop, but it is heavy (also you can customize). I couldn’t bring it with me whatever places I used to go when needed. So I had another one Lenovo ideapad, really light, but weak. One time I downloaded compiler and it’s started burning on the side of the screen every time I used to open and run that complier, the battery was bad as well. So now I’m using MacBook Pro 2017. And I’m glad, it was the right choice for me. It’s powerful, the battery lasts for a long time, charges really fast, it’s light and fast. So I guess just depends on person to person.
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says 2009 on the case - snow leopard is the most recent osx it can handle.
1.7 GiB memory
intel® Core™2 Duo CPU P7550 @ 2.26GHz × 2
thanks for the tips everyone - i dont have a set budget, it’s just a matter of how much i want to spend. the macs are really nice - got my money out of this one, and it’s still working
Very happy with my HP Omen 16GB ram/512 GB SSD/8 core i7 cpu running Ubuntu and outpaces my colleagues Macbook Pro’s easily at 60% of the price.
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that thing does look pretty nice
I’ve been using Linux as my main machine for a while, but I recently picked up a MacBook Pro.
I like Linux better, but the reality is that when I hop on a freelancing job, I want to be able to set up anything quickly and easily and have it work, so I can get right to billable hours. I feel like Mac “just works” more often. Linux is definitely a better system (IMO) but the Mac software is designed to work on the Mac hardware, which means I spend less time tweaking and configuring, and more time coding.
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I took a chance with a chromebook running crouton with xfce and haven’t looked back. I have completed all the fcc backend dev challenges using it. It’s quirky, but I like quirky.
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I am using a Macbook 13 inch, aluminum , late 2008 and have no problems with FCC challenges.
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No way. I got a refurbished Thinkpad T410 a few months ago. It runs surprisingly a lot better than my last laptop, came looking brand new. Update RAM, SSD, etc. Also, it’s worth mentioning that it came preinstalled with Win10, which I removed, and installed Ubuntu.
Also, it was only $130! 
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Hi there, if you are a current mac user and stick with macbook then try with new macbook pro . but if u wanna go with windows 10 then my suggest will must buy XPS 13 . it has a great display which called infinityEdge. also its very thin and lite weight . currently i m using for projecting videos by connecting a projector, giving me good backup and easy to work .
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I’m using budget gaming laptop I just bought. Helios 300.
The battery life is poor, and it has red accents that give it a gaming laptop look but It’s worked great for my at home programming and there is not a single game out there I can’t run on max settings (as far as I know)
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Nice Laptop, but as you say about battery week battery is tension. I have ASUS ZX53VW it works excellent with great design; multitasking performance is commendable, great for graphics intensive games and backlit keys. Thanks to its amazing specs
15.6-Inch wide-view Full-HD Display
Windows 10
NVidia GeForce GTX 960 4GB discrete graphics
Intel i5-6300HQ 2.3 GHz Processor
Fast 512GB SSD
8GB DDR3 RAM
I’m also not interested in a desktop, I was thinking about this Acer E5-576G-5762 recently. I am a student so I can only buy gaming laptop with cheaper prices. Do you not know anyone used it?
Yes, there are many things to consider before you make a decision. You need a plan: budget, configuration, brand, and so on. Check out the Amazon best sellers laptops and you may have a better idea of what you need.
There seems to be enough content here to satisfy the question. Unfortunately, spam and advertising bots feed on these type of questions, so I’m closing this thread.
@moT01 please PM me if you want to keep this thread open.