Affordable Laptop for programming

Welcome to Treehouse, KRISHAN PAUL :)

It depends - are you are planning on programming Apps for the iPhone/iPad? Then you'll better use a Mac with Mac OS. Also most of the guys programming for the web are more comfortable using a Unix/Linux like OS like Mac OS. But that's just my two cents (I'm writing this on a MBPr 15 at this very moment).

However whatever choice you take - Happy Programming, Krishan!

It's probably impossibly to say Krishan.

Each laptop has its own nuances which distinguish it from the next model or brand.

Bear in mind that when you are coding, you'll be at your laptop for, potentially, extended periods of time so consider things like:

• Screen quality / viewing comfort • Battery life • Keyboard comfort

The keyboard is a massive one for me. I despise laptops with poor keyboards. If you are trying to complete a project quickly, there is nothing worse that hitting multiple keys at once when you are touch typing. It's also personal preference - I like keyboards that feel robust - I still plug in an old Dell keyboard when I've got to work super-fast.

These days, every laptop will run notepadd++ or Sublime Text to allow you to code, so on a simplistic level any laptop is suitable for programming. However as Holger Liesegang has mentioned, it depends on what ends you are coding for.

If you are rendering simple websites or Java then I would expect to be able to buy a very cheap laptop and have it work. However, if you are coding for a large project or doing something highly RAM and processor intensive like VFX then you'll have to look a little closer.

I have just looked at the model you mentioned. That seems a perfectly good machine to begin with - i5 processor and 4gb of DDR 3 ram will run programmes like Photoshop (although it will begin to struggle when you are working with CPU intensive actions or very large files).

Best thing is to go to your local dealer and try a couple out - or if buying over the net, make sure who you buy it from has a fair returns policy.

Good luck!

I don't know what kind of coding you plan to do but I bought a Dell Inspiron 15R for front-end coding and working with Photoshop/Illustrator.

It has an i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, a 1TB hard-drive and switchable graphics for £529. It does the job perfectly. No issues with performance, apart from the hard-drive which is the bottleneck, and I plan to upgrade to a SSD soon. I often have Chrome/Canary open with a zillion tabs, both Photoshop and Illustrator open with ST3, Prepros, and GitHub for Windows, and the laptop doesn't break a sweat.

Hope that helps put things into perspective for you.

While at the moment i'm doing HTML and C# only, but i plan to make my own apps for Android & iOS pretty soon.. Thanks for the feedback as well!

> As for now, i will be using it for languages like C# and HTML..But i plan to start making my own apps for Android and iOS pretty soon

Well C# and iOS are mutually exclusive. Since iOS requires a Mac and C# requires Windows.

Oh, I see.. Then I guess this laptop will do alright for me for the time being..Appreciate the feedback James!!