Cheap laptop

[EnjoiiEgg]

So far, i've been using Visual Studio, I attend college right now and I think that I will probably buy a new laptop once in uni because I don't really know what I want to do later in uni and what will be required. Reason why I don't want to invest more than 600$.

[Vy]

So far, i've been using Visual Studio, I attend college right now and I think that I will probably buy a new laptop once in uni because I don't really know what I want to do later in uni and what will be required. Reason why I don't want to invest more than 600$.

Well to be fair, most modern ultrabooks are going to handle anything your colleague throws at you. The only issue being is whether the applications are going to be primarily written for Windows, OS X or Linux.

 

I am currently sitting on a Macbook Pro and it's been doing very nicely regarding anything the university throws at it. Frankly I've learned quite more than just using the applications that they "require" you to use.

 

For example, most of the past course required us to use Visual Studio. Quite obviously, as Visual Studio is written by Microsoft for their own implementation of C#, I wasn't really able to use it. However, Jet Brains Rider worked rather nicely and I skirted around using purely stuff from .NET that wouldn't work without Microsofts implementation of it.

 

There were also cases when I had to use legacy software that was written for Windows. Like an emulator for x86 8086 Intel for Assembly. I used GAS (first tried NASM) and compiled by binaries and used Vim as an editor for it. It was slightly harder to debug, but in the end I learned more about the syntax.

 

Now, even so, you can very easily virtualize a copy of Windows or Linux or even OS X on practically any device, if it has the sufficient memory and CPU requirements.

 

I'd really suggest that you get some sort of Dell Ultrabook that doesn't really have a graphics card unless you're going to do a lot of stuff related to graphic design or video editing, because it'll be quite tough for them to be able to run that. (they will, though it'll lag a little) But if you're not studying that, there's no reason for you to buy a laptop for a single course or two. You can always get around it.

 

If you want good performance and a very high quality laptop. Go for an older Macbook Pro 13" or the newer one without the touch display for the function keys. It'll cost you a lot, but it'll last you a good 9h+ if you're programming or just browsing stuff around. It's very light, powerful and quick. It's also OS X, so the terminal is something that you're going to get in love with very quickly.

 

That said, if you do not want to pay somewhere around 1500-1700$ for a machine. You can go the Dell route, get an ultrabook with around 256-512 SSD, scrap Windows altogether and use Linux as your primary OS. You can virtualize Windows if there's a great need to do so. It also has shell and it'll help you along quite nicely, being able to install stuff with a single line of code.

 

Before that, do go to a store and try out how the keyboard and touchpad feels. I don't carry around any peripherals with me, because that'd be quite annoying and I personally do not advise that you use a mouse when programming (that impedes your code writing really) and a good touchpad is all the difference.

 

Frankly, as I've said, you want something that can last you a good portion of the day so you don't have to carry bulky chargers around with you and preferably you don't want something very big and heavy. It'll be annoying to carry that thing around.

 

 

By the way, I very much advise against using Visual Studio. When you're a programmer that will work in a .NET environment. Go for it! Best tool for that. Though when you're learning how to develop stuff, using an IDE that has so many features and makes you program in a specific way is going to give you bad habits that you'll later have trouble getting rid of.

 

Jet Brains products are also something magical. They support a lot of stuff and they all have IntelliSense. It's something that you should be using from now until there's a better product out. End of discussion. If a lecturer tells you it does too much of your work for you. Tell him to sod off and remind him that most IDE's have a autistic broken counterpart of it and writing stuff like Getters and Setters and getting a hundred out of context methods being throw at you, when most of them don't even return what you need, isn't going to make a better programmer.

 

I know this is getting out of the scope of what you've asked. But if you want to become a good programmer. Either buy "Clean Code" by Uncle Bob (it's a book) or buy the video versions of it by the guy. It's something that my employer forced me to watch (I would have anyways, he even paid for all of them) and I cannot be ever more grateful to him. Some of it might be beyond you right now, but giving an hour of your time everyday and going through his videos is going to make you a much better programmer that's mindful of the way he writes code.