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Discussion on: What new hardware to buy ...

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bizzibody profile image
Ian bradbury

MacBook Pro.

Don't be fooled by people who might tell you that 15" is minimum for development. It can be easily done on a 13".

Buy the most RAM and fastest procesor you can affort - but prioritise RAM over processor.

SSD all the way, 256 minimum.

You DO NOT have to buy the latest editions. Even a second hand 2015 MBP will give you good service for many years.

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bousquetn profile image
Nicolas Bousquet

Agree that SSD 256GB is the minimum if you have only 1 HDD. Honestly for the 50€ difference in price when buying the part, you'll want the 480-512GB ones over the 256GB ones.

If your computer can have more than 1HDD, adding something like a 2TB HDD is much more conveniant.

16GB of memory is must. If you can afford it 32GB make sense. As dev you want to be able to run a VM without being slowed down too much.

To be noted that as parts, 256GB SSD is 120€, 16GB mobile ram is 170€. Such things are cheap so if you don't buy a mac (that don't allows that) you can always replace/upgrade the parts.

Ultimately, you have to decide what your laptop characteristics shall be... Mostly static powerfull one just moved from time to time. Can be heavy and connected to several screen/keyboard mouse. Or small/light/thin for ultimate mobility.

13" is nice for mobility but any laptop not connected to a set of screens, a nice keyboard and mouse is just slowing you down when using it. So if your life style means mobility 13" is lighter/smaller. If you have your "docking station", you don't really care i'll you'll not use the embedded screen that often.