Suggest a laptop for a programmer

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gentletouch

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I am a programmer and looking for a new laptop, I would be using it for daily programming tasks and occasionally gaming. But I am not a hard core gamer.

please suggest


1. What is your budget?

upto $900

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

15 to 16

3. What screen resolution do you want?

- vertical resolution of 900 would be great

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

Not exactly desktop replacement, But I dont need ultra thin too. In between

5. How much battery life do you need?

As much as possible, atleast 4 hours !

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?

Yes, but not every day, but i would like my laptop to support decent games if ever i want to play it.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Programming mainly

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500 gb would suffice

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
No

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
Untill it dies ;)

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD r+w

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Like: Dell, HP, Sony

13. What country do you live in?
India, But i will be buying from USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I mainly want it for programming, however I will do occasional gaming. I think having around 6GB of RAM will be great. Should have good wifi.

I will mainly use Ubuntu linux and may dual boot with windows.
 
How much battery life do you need?
As much as possible, more then 5 to 6 hours
How important is this requirement?
You're going to find it hard to get a laptop that can game AND run 6 hours on battery.
You'll have to look at getting a high capacity battery or even getting a 2nd battery to meet that goal.
 

gentletouch

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It's, when I am programing and not for gaming.
If battery could last atleast four hours while programming than also it would work.


 
Four hours is something you can probably manage with a Core i7 2520M / Geforce GT 540M (Optimus) notebook like the Sager NP5160 Maziar suggests above.
With Optimus the GT 540M will be shut down when not required and the notebook will be using the i7 2520M integrated HD 3000 graphics.
 
Most of your other options involve 'buying' a copy of Win7 you might not need.
But if you're OK (especially if you plan to dual boot Linux and Win) you have more options.

What is warranty and service like over there for mainstream laptops like Dell/HP/Lenovo? Any problem with buying out of the country and getting in country service?
 

randomstar

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Just my two cents, but I would look for a system with at least a vertical resolution of 900, as you are not going to get many lines of code on the 768 . been there, done that.. --> assume that you will be using it without the monitor if you are concerned about battery life-
 

gentletouch

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I don't mind if a win-7 copy comes with it and they charge for it. I will bring the laptop back to india, so I guess i won't get the warranty, However For HP/Dell, the service would be available in my city if there are any issues.

I guess, I would go either with Dell/HP/Sony, not have more idea about lenovo, can any one share their reviews !
 

gentletouch

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Which brand is do you guyz think more reliable ? Dell/Sony/HP/Lenovo ?
We have good service for all four brands in my city. Does brand makes any difference, or I should just look for a best configuration within my prize, given that I choose from above four brands. And I would specificlly like to know about sony vaio reviews.
 

gentletouch

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Friends, I have updated the budget upto 900$, more suggestions please. And let me know whom to go with, Dell/HP/Lenovo/Sony !

Quite confused, its a big deal for me, help me choose
 

gentletouch

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From below three, which one will you recommend

1. HP DV6T Quad core I7 - FREE 8GB memory upgrade, FREE 750GB hard drive upgrade, 1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6490M Graphics - $999.99


2. Lenovo Ideapas y560p, Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 8 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz, AMD Radeon HD 6570M 1GB - $1,099.00

3. Dell XPS 15 I7 series, CoreTM i7 2820QM (2.3GHz/8MB cache), 4GB2 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz, 024MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT525M Dell Price $1529

Or any other recommendation within $1000 !

The prices are without deals, I may be able to get some deals on selected one.

Which one would be more durable and batter battery life

Again, I don't see most of laptops supporting more then 767 verticle native resolution, so is it graphics card installed which can give me more resolution ? or if I go with 1366 x 768, this is the max i will get and I will have no option to increase verticle resolution?
 
You'll need to look at 17" laptops to get the 1600x900 resolution.
You can use an external monitor ot get greater resolution out of your laptop graphics.

Ranked in order:
Lenovo Ideapas y560p
HP DV6T
Dell XPS 15 The higher cost of the i7 2820QM gets you no great improvement in performance for the much higher cost.

 

gentletouch

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Thanks for the suggestion,

Dell XPS 15 supports the display customization, I can customize it to Full HD 1920x1080
Will 1920x1080 for a 15" LCD make text/icons too small ? is it advisable to customize for full HD

Here's is a deal http://www.logicbuy.com/deals/dell-xps-15/26283.aspx - $1,109.99
It will get me XPS 15, 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM processor 2.00 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz, NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M 1GB graphics with Optimus, 8GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 Memory and 15.6 FHD B+RGLED TL (1920x1080)

Will you recommend this now ?
 

gentletouch

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Thanks, can you please answer
is (1920x1080) suitable for a 15" screen, I am afraid it would make text/icons too small. Any ideas, I am currently sitting in another country and doesn't have option to check it myself.
 
If you're under 50 and have good eyesight you probably won't have a problem.

You CAN also change icon and text size. Or lower resolution from 1920x1080.

Lowering resolution is easy. Raising resolution above the native (1366x768 for example) is impossible.
 
Then you shouldn't have any major issues with a 15.6" and 1920x1080 resolution that you can't handle with the available configuration options in Windows 7.

If you want to find other configuration options with 1600x900, 1920x1080 (and occasionally 1440x900) look at the 'business class' type notebooks like Dell Vostro/Latitude, Lenovo Thinkpad and HP ProBook.
 
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