Ask HN: What are the lowest price laptop for programming?

2 points·exiv··4 comments

I do not have a big budget. I am looking for a laptop that can run most of the programming languages.

Maybe have a look at some second hand business laptops.

For example the Thinkpad series [0] is quite nice and you always can add a SSD or more RAM.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_Series

Great suggestion. Most of the lowest priced laptops have Celeron processors and 1366 x 768 screens. Whilst they are Ok for some people, I'd prefer 1920x1080 14" screen, i5, 16GB RAM and SSD. Whilst such spec laptops are not from the bargains bin, they are more pleasant to work with in the long term.

Languages/compilers do not need machines that are very fast, because you only compile your code before you run it, you use a text editor to write the code most of the time.

However, it’s common to use an IDE such as JetBrains or VisualStudio, and these require a lot more speed to use effectively.

If you’re planning to use an IDE, I’d try to find a machine with 4GB of RAM at least, ideally 8GB, and a Core i5 generation processor if you can, although an i3 or a Core 2 generation processor might be ok.

If you don’t need windows, I’d suggest installing Linux (probably Ubuntu) on the computer, it will get a bit more speed out of it.

You can use literally any laptop.

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