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General Discussion

Posted by Clara Nelson
Clara Nelson
1,350 Points

Good inexpensive laptop

What would be a good inexpensive laptop for front end web development? I know that macs are the go,d standard but my budget won't really allow for one right now. Can anyone suggest any cheaper alternatives?

3 Answers

Jesus Mendoza
Jesus Mendoza
23,289 Points
Jesus Mendoza
Jesus Mendoza
23,289 Points

What's your budget? What languages are you going to code?

Clara Nelson
Clara Nelson
1,350 Points

I'm starting with html, css and Java. I'd like something under $500 but I'm not sure that's realistic

Jesus Mendoza
Jesus Mendoza
23,289 Points

Do you know about tech or know someone who does? You can buy any 500$ with easy access to the components and in a future when you have 100$ you can buy an SSD which will be an awesome upgrade and will improve your programming experience a lot

Jesus Mendoza
Jesus Mendoza
23,289 Points

You will probably get something with an i5 or maybe an i7 processor and 8Gb of memory. That would be great... And then add swap the hard drive with an SSD in the future

Clara Nelson
Clara Nelson
1,350 Points
Clara Nelson
Clara Nelson
1,350 Points

That is for the suggestion

Michael Afanasiev
PLUS
Michael Afanasiev
Courses Plus Student 15,597 Points
Michael Afanasiev
Michael Afanasiev
Courses Plus Student 15,597 Points

Hi Clara,

Don't get in the hype of brands and different PC components. A 500$ (and under) laptop will serve you good!!! especially that you are just starting out.

If you end up buying a PC running Windows OS, what I do recommend is to make sure you "clean-install" it before doing any work on it. One of many reasons your PC may run slow and sluggish is a bloated operating system with OEM "bloatware".

If the purchase of your PC will include Windows 10, here's a really useful link by Microsoft to get you started fresh: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10startfresh

I hope this helps, and if you need more advice/information feel free to post it below!

Clara Nelson
Clara Nelson
1,350 Points

A friend mentioned getting a chromebook, would that serve my purposes at least initially?

Michael Afanasiev
Michael Afanasiev
Courses Plus Student 15,597 Points

Hi Clara,

A Chromebook will actually be a really bad choice.

Chromebooks do not offer any applications or programs except the ones that are in the Google ecosystem/Google Play (Store). Of course you can do a lot of coding in online IDE's (Integrated Development Environments) such as Cloud9 - but, if you are serious about coding, I would suggest getting a laptop that has one of the following operating systems:

  1. MacOS,
  2. Linux,
  3. Windows.

The best thing for you do right now (in my opinion) is to go and buy any kind of laptop that you fancy (within your budget) start learning more Front End Development, progress in your coding abilities and I guarantee you will know exactly what will be your next laptop purchase that will serve everything you will need!

There is really no need to put that much thought into it.