In truth, you can write code on anything. Even an iPad will work. So regardless of which Mac laptop you get, you'll have a superb machine for writing code to your heart's content.
Compiling code is a bit of a different story. You'll benefit from having a faster, more capable CPU, but whether going quad-core or i7 is worth the extra money is more a matter of your budget than it is a pure function of usability.
I'm planning to buy a new Mac laptop for writing Xcode, browsing the web, text editing and using other IDE's (Integrated Development Environments). Is the MacBook Air a good pick or should I go for a Pro or Air with upgraded RAM? Mac OS X is a great operating system for developers, but many of the features important to us are turned off to make the OS more easy to use for everyday tasks, and more secure. Many of the configuration files we need to edit are hidden away in directories that do not show up in the Finder by default.
The bottom line is that even a 13-inch MacBook Air is a good machine to use for development. I'd make sure you have at least 8 GB RAM installed on any Mac you buy. More RAM is better if you can afford it. I imagine you'd prefer to have as much storage capacity as you can afford. 128 GB is scant for a machine that will be used for development and general purpose use, so think about paying a bit more for 256 GB if you can. Just make sure you budget enough money for a.
Regardless of which Mac laptop you buy, I'd consider having an external display (or two) to be an essential. You're probably going to have many apps and windows open simultaneously.
It's really helpful to be able to spread out across a lot of desktop real estate rather than the cramped confines of a 13-inch or even a 15-inch display. Even the Retina displays found on today's MacBook Pros run out of space quickly when you start popping up text editors and tool palettes and so on. Switching between different Spaces in OS X is an option — it can help you organize yourself a bit. It's so much more convenient just to be able to see what you're working on at a glance just by using more screens.
We all know that good web designers are only as good as their equipment permits them to be. If you have an old, slow laptop that hangs every time you load PhotoshopHouston, we have a problem. Below is a list of the 5 best laptops for web design.
With excellent performance, a long battery life and a completely flawless design, Apple’s MacBook Pro is the ultimate blend of user-friendliness and power laptop for web designers, or just about anyone. It’s available with either a 15.4-inch 2880×1800 screen or a 13-inch 2560×1600 screen, both of which use an amazing retina display. With the Mac OS X Mountain Lion, 7 Hour Battery Life, lightning fast 256 GB Flash Storage, 8 GB DDR3 ram and some amazing processing power, you get a laptop that can rival or surpass most desktop computers. Technical Details. 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 Processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz.
8 GB 1600MHz DDR3L Memory. 256 GB Flash Storage.
15.4-inch Retina Display; 2880×1800 Resolution; NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M Graphics. Mac OS X Mountain Lion, 7 Hour Battery Life. Although generally on the costly side, Sony makes very good laptops. While the Vaio wasn’t our top choice, it’s still a very solid machine, especially considering it’s under $1000 price tag. Check out the specs below: Technical Details.
Intel Core i7-3632QM Processor (2.2 GHz). 8 GB DDR3 RAM. 1 TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive. 17.3-Inch Screen, AMD Radeon HD 7650M. Windows 8.
2-hour battery life This is a very solid laptop that gets you many features for the price. HP Envy 17 is last on our list, but it’s still a worthy contender with its i7-3610 QM processor, 17.3 inch screen and 8 GB ram. Technical Details. Intel® Core i7-6700HQ Quad Core Processor.
16GB DDR3 System Memory. 750GB 7200rpm Hard Drive. 4GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M Graphics. Windows 10 Home 64.
Go with an HP, Jass. I have an HP-G7 from a few years ago, running Win 8 (not 8.1) and it pretty much works just fine. For whatever machine you buy, max out the memory to the most it can handle, and buy one or two backup drives. I have two 2TB Western Digital MyBook drives set up in a pseudo-RAID config (i.e. I run a backup job once a week to both my drives.) I don’t know a whole lot about Macs, so I won’t comment, other than to say I’ve been a PC/Windows user since the MSDOS days. In other words, a long, long time: ). I have been a loyal HP user for 10 years, and I have to say that the last few I’ve had have been nothing but trouble.
I got one for my little girl and it didn’t work right from the start, after a year of them trying to fix it and failing they gave me a refurbished replacement. That one doesn’t work either, it has some kind of hardware problem and won’t stay connected to the internet. Now the HP Support assistant won’t work on it. I have had a terrible time trying to get HP to help me with it, they wanted to try and blame me for the problem.
They do not want to help me. The laptop it had replaced started out having a similar problem disconnecting to the internet, then it finally wouldn’t turn on anymore. This is my concern with the laptop they gave me to replace it. The laptop I’m on now is only two years old (HP) and the fan went on it. It will be shutting off soon because it will overheat. I will never buy another HP laptop.
Not sure about Republic of gamers, but I would say beware of ASUS these days. I was very excited when I researched and purchased my Asus Zen book ultra book a couple years ago. It’s been an absolute nightmare, as it has for many people.
Has been back for servicing three times Under warranty resulting in almost 3 months of having no computer. One of these times they returned it without even doing anything because the “service tech” didnt both to read the order. There is literally no customer service, just one person at the end of the phone trying to field thousands of calls. I would say run, don’t walk away from this brand name. Those are the models that I had been looking into, a long time ago already So in the beginning of January 2014, to replace my current laptop, I revisited some of thme to see where their newer version stand today In the end, I picked up a new MSI GT70, it deosnt have the mighty GTX780 card, but I’ve got zero complaints on the GTX770 anyways! It came with 12Gb RAM and can go up to 32Gb. With a 17.3″ full HD (1920 x 1080) matte display, no glare whatsoever.
It’s performance was terrific out of the box, but had a lot of software issues because of Win8, reverted back to my Win7 and this thing became a beast! Boot time is alone insane fast, my buddy still waits for win8 on his HP to load, then I’m already back in and working, from pushing the start buttons on the notebooks at the same time Supports multiple monitors excellently, I use 3 x 27″ Samsung 3D monitors at the moment.
Has a solid state drive and normal HDD, SSD is 128Gb and the HDD is 1Tb. Came with some bundled extras, of which one was an MSI gaming mouse that I’ve been enjoying! Many other cool features too!
If you’re looking for something new and relevant, excellent performance, but without an alien pricetag I’d suggest taking a look into any of the MSI notebooks. Picked it up for just under $900 in total and shipping and everything! Just my two cents from some designing experts and buying notebooks!
Anybody else own an MSI maybe? Why are you people obsessed with Macs – they’ve got nice screens that’s all. Why do you need to spend your money on them just because they are famous and stylish? If you need a laptop for work than save your efforts and a lot of money and buy something better – for the price of a mac you can buy a laptop with almost double RAM, Hard drive, speed, that is just as reliable. Yes you are not going to have to overcome the difference in keyboards, OS and so on, and you won’t be accepted in the apple community, and you won’t support the trend of creating high-priced looking – good range, but you will be effective in your work and you don’t need to think that mac users are better than you just because they could afford this.
I still prefer desktops for web design. I have an Asus with two monitors (28-inch and 24-inch) and I wouldn’t swap it for any laptop on the market. I use my laptops for quick WordPress edits, but that’s about it. As for Macs, not as big a fan as I used to be.Two of my last 3 were troublesome. Maybe no more so than Windows machines, but I expect a lot more stability – and I can buy quite a few better equipped Windows machines – for the money I put into a Mac Pro desktop. My last Mac was handed back to me by a “genius” with an apology for the fact that he couldn’t recommend repairing it. It was only 4 years old.
Hmmm.my Dell XPS 15, may have a bit smaller screen than some of these, but I have a great Quad Core i7 processor, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, 2 GB dedicated Video memory I love my XPS 15. More than enough video processing power to power a 2nd larger monitor when I need it – AND – I always have my desktop computer when I want a REALLY big screen. I opted for a 15.6 inch screen on my laptop this time, because I actually DO have to carry my laptop around more now – and I realized this is more representative of the screen size that most people are using to look at a website these days. Can’t say enough about how happy I am with this machine. A lot of bang for the buck.
The Apple Mac is an overly hyped and bloody expensive no-better piece of hardware. I have worked professionally as a graphic designer since 1996, which of course included the Mac as it USED TO BE superior. Well, its price tag have always been peppered, but now that is all that is to say about it.
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I’ve recently purchased an HP Pavilion dv6 with i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, both Intel and ATI graphics and Beats audio — a high performance gaming computer just around $1,000. I have additionally installed Mac OS X Lion running on Oracle VM Virtualbox. The performance is outstanding and $1,800 less the price of a similar equipped Macbook Pro. Only a moron would pay $1,800 extra for an Apple logo glued onto basically the same hardware, but then again “Against stupidity even the gods themselves labor in vain.”. I have to agree with Duzi. I used Macs for years when that was the only option for using Adobe products, but they are not more stable than a PC that is properly set up. I have never had my HP crash in 2 years with this model (dv7) or the previous 2 years with a dv9.
I have used Macs at client sites and in classrooms and there was often a problem. The power of the graphics processor, stability of the OS, and size of the screen make the most difference to me, and HP has performed above and beyond. It’s also less than half the price. That makes a big difference, too.
That is the difference between getting other hardware or software to expand what I can offer clients. I also find the Windows interface more suited to work – organizing documents, finding documents, working with 3rd party software for jQuery widgets, and a lot of the technical aspects of building a website beyond the design.