Laptop for "programming"

[PerranOak]

I am looking at getting a new laptop. Its primary role will be to run the software for the programming, etc. of microcontrollers, etc.

My old (12 years!) laptop can just about cope with MPLAB but when I installed Visual Studio it nearly had a mental breakdown.

Problem is that the reviews all talk about laptops for: gaming, business, creativity and so on.

As it will be mainly for this "programming" and maybe some other simple stuff, I don't need one with a mighty GPU or fancy screen. So, what should I look for?

Cheers.

PS
Don't want to spend a fortune just for this!

[AndyC_772]

I bought a new laptop a few months ago for much the same thing.

I particularly need enough USB ports to run a debugger, CAN bus monitor and at least one COM port, and that's a limiting factor. Laptops really don't seem to be as expandable as they used to be.

I ended up with an HP Probook 450 G6, with 8GB RAM, an i5-8265U processor and an SSD. The finish is nasty silvery plastic and it comes with way too much bloatware installed, but otherwise it's a pretty solid piece of kit and I'm happy with it so far.

Cost was £750ish.

[sokoloff]

I'd buy a lease-return enterprise-grade HP, Dell, or Lenovo laptop. Will be a few years old, probably still from the era where upgrades were possible. It'll be 80% of the performance for 33% of the cost.

Be sure it has an SSD (or plan to change over to one before placing it in service). 8GB is OK. 16GB slightly better on RAM. Hard drive space is up to you and depends quite a bit on whether you have an additional network-attached-storage available to you. I wouldn't go under 256GB on the hard drive side.

[bingo600]

I'm using a 2'nd hand  - Lenovo T430s  (s=slim) , w 16GB Ram , + 1TB Samsung EVO 860 SSD
For me this is fully adequate.

Arm + AVR + PADA + "Vbox (Quartus + ISE)"

/Bingo

[0db]

ThinkPad X1 Carbon, 8th gen
€1.589,00

• CPU: 6MB of cache,  Intel Core i5-10210U @1,60 GHz, Turboboost @ 4,20 GHz
• RAM: 8GB LPDDR3 @ 2.133 MHz
• HD: 256GB SSD, M.2 2280, PCIe, Gen3x4, OPAL2.0, TLC
• GFX: builtin
• LCD: FHD @ 1.920x1.080, 14", IPS

It's perfect for my coding!

[rstofer]

If you ever think about working with Xilinx FPGAs, you should probably find something with a 4 core 8 thread CPU.  Xilinx Vivado is pretty grim under the best of circumstances.

Most of the uC and PC programming I have done compiles pretty fast on my modest laptop with an I7-8550U processor (4 core 8 thread).  By all means, get a 1 TB SSD.  Graphics isn't an issue for me but my laptop will support external monitors so I have one attached.  It is on a USB-C connection with an HDMI converter.

[0db]

my modest laptop with an I7-8550U processor (4 core 8 thread)

which model/vendor? 

[RenThraysk]

If buying new in the over £1000-£1500 price range seems to me that an AMD Ryzen 4000 series is the way to go atm.

Read somewhere the Lenovo Thinkpad T14 & T14s ranges are shipping here in the UK.

[andersm]

Are you planning on using it on the go, or chained to a desk? What kind of ports do you need? Will you be using an external display? What operating systems are you planning on running?

I would recommend against anything older than 2018, when even mid-range laptops started coming with 4 cores. The first generation Zen mobile CPUs were also pretty anemic, so if you want an AMD CPU, you probably want one of this year's models.

[brucehoult]

Programs for microcontrollers? So tiny programs, by today's standards. Building a program is going to take seconds, no matter what you get.

You didn't say what you have now.

Absolutely any current mainstream CPU will do. Dual core will do, but it's usually so cheap to get a quad core that you might as well. Eight GB of RAM may be enough but, again, the incremental cost of 16 is so low that you might as well do it -- especially if you're going to run some bloated Eclipse based IDE. The work stuff is unlikely to need more than 64 GB of SSD but, again, the incremental cost of 256 GB or 512 GB is very low now.

To be honest, the necessary specs will depend more on what *else* you want to do with the machine.

Computers aren't getting much faster each year now (other than more cores), so if your old one has lasted you 12 years then your new one easily could do that or more, if you buy something with quality hardware. I'm still running a 2011 Core-i7 11" MacBook Air (4 GB RAM) and a 2011 Core-i7 17" MacBook Pro (16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 750 GB hard disk) with no problems other than the battery in the MBP has died and it's non-trivial to get a new one. The higher end Lenovo and Dell things are well built too.

Probably the amount of I/O is more important, though now with USB-C (or Thunderbolt) it's not as important as before because it's got huge bandwidth and you can get any ports you need via port expanders, including legacy stuff that no one would ever build into the actual laptop now -- centronics, SCSI, serial, it's all available with inexpensive USB-C or USB3 adaptors.

[nigelwright7557]

i prefer the desktop route with decent keyboard and mouse.
trying to type over the touchpad on a laptop is slow and tedius.
at least a coffeelake processor.

[brucehoult]

If you ever think about working with Xilinx FPGAs, you should probably find something with a 4 core 8 thread CPU.  Xilinx Vivado is pretty grim under the best of circumstances.

Does it even use multiple cores?

Anyway, FPGA place&route is a massively different task to compiling a bit of microcontroller C code. A different planet.

Most of the uC and PC programming I have done compiles pretty fast on my modest laptop with an I7-8550U processor (4 core 8 thread).

i7-8550U is a high end CPU for thin&light laptops -- only the 100 MHz faster 8650U is above it, in that two year old generation.

I have an i7-8650U NUC and at my previous job I had an i7-8650U laptop (Lenovo X1 Carbon). Both have 32 GB RAM. The NUC cost maybe half what the laptop did, fits into the palm of my hand, plus on any compile taking more than one or two minutes the NUC is up to 50% faster e.g. taking 40 minutes on an LLVM build that takes the Lenovo 60 minutes. The reason for this is the superior cooling in the NUC.

[brucehoult]

i prefer the desktop route with decent keyboard and mouse.
trying to type over the touchpad on a laptop is slow and tedius.
at least a coffeelake processor.

You can of course plug keyboard and mouse and huge screen into a laptop. If that's all you ever do -- maybe at multiple locations -- but you don't actually need to work away from mains power, then you get a lot more computer for your money in a NUC (or Mac Mini etc) than in a laptop. Plus you can use a good quality kb/mouse/screen with multiple generations of CPU units.

A tower (especially self built, or built for you to order by a local shop) gives even more bang for the buck, at the expense of a lot less portability than a NUC or laptop. My main home work machine is now a 32 core ThreadRipper with 128 GB RAM which I had someone build and test for me, using parts I specified.

[james_s]

Get something with a good keyboard. Lenovo used to be king here but I haven't looked at their most recent offerings. Anything you can buy new today is going to run circles around your 12 year old machine in terms of performance. Corporate grade machines are definitely a big step up from the consumer junk.

[Siwastaja]

The most resource-demanding application for programming embedded (not massive desktop programs, or large simulation engines, etc.) will be the web browser you use to find help, by far.

If the browser runs properly, all is well.

If Visual Studio is not working, the obvious answer is, do not use Visual Studio.

[Warhawk]

I would look for laptops with a 3:2 or 16:10 aspect ratio and check if the backlight uses PWM. I have had Thinkpads last 12 years and the current one (P1gen2) is the least impressive one. I can compare it with the company's Dell Precision 5530. I suggest the new XPS15 with a 16:10 screen. Take the integrated graphics if you ever think about running Linux. Do not necessarily max up the CPU. Many new laptops exhibit thermal throttling so you won't use the full bandwidth anyway. An NVMe SSD is a must-have but you can always buy and add it later (e.g. Samsung 970 Evo plus). 32GB ram is the sweet spot for a new machine. Check the docking options too. Many docking stations are overpriced or lack features (MAC pass through, button to enable the system, etc.). The travel adapter is also important if you're a road warrior. You probably want to have a small USB-C charger. You can't go wrong with business class laptops (Thinkpads, Elitebooks, Latitudes, etc.). They all suck differently and you can read horror stories about them on Reddit. USB-C docking is one of the worst things.

If you're on a budget just take a 2nd hand ThinkPad t480, max it out and call it a day. That laptop is brilliant.

Good luck

[PerranOak]

Wow! Thank you very much everyone.

As usual, I didn't give enough info at the start, sorry. 

I'm going to use it not exactly "chained to a desk" but not roving all over. Space is a problem so it has to be a laptop rather than desktop. I'm hoping to spend no more / little more than a monkey (500 GBP) as it will be 80% for this one purpose. The missus will probably use it for browsing, etc. - that way I can justify using joint funds!

My current machine is an Acer Aspire 5610Z that I bought from Comet for £549.99 on 13 June 2007. To be fair, it does everything I ask but it does it very very slowly. It runs Windows8.1 and when I tried to upgrade to Windows10 it fell over and wouldn't play anymore so I took it back to 8.1.

I'll be running Windows 10, hopefully. BTW will I really need Win10 Pro or is that not necessary? I will need a few USB ports I guess. I do worry about seconhand items as I fret about security. 

[Warhawk]

Wow! Thank you very much everyone.

As usual, I didn't give enough info at the start, sorry. 

I'm going to use it not exactly "chained to a desk" but not roving all over. Space is a problem so it has to be a laptop rather than desktop. I'm hoping to spend no more / little more than a monkey (500 GBP) as it will be 80% for this one purpose. The missus will probably use it for browsing, etc. - that way I can justify using joint funds!

My current machine is an Acer Aspire 5610Z that I bought from Comet for £549.99 on 13 June 2007. To be fair, it does everything I ask but it does it very very slowly. It runs Windows8.1 and when I tried to upgrade to Windows10 it fell over and wouldn't play anymore so I took it back to 8.1.

I'll be running Windows 10, hopefully. BTW will I really need Win10 Pro or is that not necessary? I will need a few USB ports I guess. I do worry about seconhand items as I fret about security. 

In this case seriously consider thinkpad t480 (no S) from eBay. You may be able to find a unit still in warranty.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lenovo-Thinkpad-T480-Business-Class-Laptop-i5-8350U-CPU-8GB-RAM-256GB-NVMe-SSD/143650045384?hash=item217235bdc8:g:R0AAAOSw6gdfAa3D

This will likely make you happy. I wish I decided for the t480 instead of the p1 gen2.
Note that t480 is a one of the last thinkpads with socketed ram, drives etc. You can always extend it if you need to.

You may want to listen to Wolfgang:
https://youtu.be/621WJlMJq98

[brucehoult]

My current machine is an Acer Aspire 5610Z

Omg.  Dual core Pentium T2060 2 GB RAM. 1.6 GHz, no turbo, 1 MB cache.

A Raspberry Pi 4 might outperform it :-)

[0db]

if you buy something with quality hardware. I'm still running a 2011 Core-i9 11" MacBook Air (4 GB RAM) and a 2011 Core-i9 17" MacBook Pro (16 GB RAN, 256 GB SSD, 750 GB hard disk) with no problems

Quality hardware? with Apple 2011 laptops? In the same sentence?
I think I have just missed something ...

Things have improved only after 2018 and they are keep getting a little better (except the "touchbar", but at least the cooling system is now "ok"), thus I would suggest to stay away from everything ever made and sold before two years ago.

[sokoloff]

I think Apple Macbooks were fine up through 2013 and again since fall 2019. There was a window of one disaster after another in between there, but I'm not at all surprised that a 2011 Air is still working well. My wife retired her 2011 Air in favor of my old 2013 Air when I got a 2019 16" Pro.

[james_s]

The fact that it's a 2011 laptop that is still working and in use suggests that it is quality hardware. I agree that 2011 was kind of the sweet spot for those. My work laptop is a 2017 MBP and there are a lot of things I don't like about it. The keyboard is garbage and having lived with the touchbar for 2 years I've concluded that it's a neat but useless gimmick. Mine has been malfunctioning with a flickering white square on one end for some time now, I was going to get it taken care of when the pandemic hit.

[0db]

My work laptop is a 2017 MBP and there are a lot of things I don't like about it.

Between 2011 and 2013 the cooling system was not brilliant (to be polite) with the macbook pro, and as result doing some heavy video editing too often usually ended with toasted (fried gpu) machines that users like me had to send back to Apple for repairing. According to repairing centers, 4 on 10 people (1) suffered this problem, and it's the 40% of the production during those years.

I don't know what happened between 2013 and 2017, but in 2018, they finally understood the cooling system was not so brilliant, and they redesigned it in a decent way. So at least every laptop made between 2019 and 2020 is not affected by any serious thermal problem.

The bookair-2011 didn't suffer this problem, but it was infamous for bad quality batteries that didn't last 2 years before being unable to power the laptop for more than 20 min, and this was the major issue, because it's an ultra light portable and replacing the battery has never been a piece of cake. And (according to what Apple Centers said) 3 on 10 people (1) suffered problems with the magnetic plug of the power supply, which if bent it was too prone to break.

(1) this data is interesting, but ... rather "gossip". About durability and security, they only way to have a quality measure is to see how many MIL-STD-810G durability tests a laptop has passed, including those for extreme temperatures, shocks and vibrations.

[brucehoult]

if you buy something with quality hardware. I'm still running a 2011 Core-i7 11" MacBook Air (4 GB RAM) and a 2011 Core-i7 17" MacBook Pro (16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 750 GB hard disk) with no problems

Quality hardware? with Apple 2011 laptops? In the same sentence?
I think I have just missed something ...

What you've missed is that they are still working without problems after nine years?

That's the definition of "quality".

Sandy Bridge i7s turboing to 3.3 GHz (17") and 2.9 GHz (11" Air) are slower than current machines but not *that* much slower as to be unusable. On big demanding tasks such as place&route or building LLVM, sure. On web browsing and building programs for microcontrollers -- no problems at all.

[0db]

What you've missed is that they are still working without problems after nine years?

That's the definition of "quality".

To me, that's the definition of "you have been just lucky" 

And when you are not lucky, well ...
the same Apple centers don't have any interest in repairing machines older than four years.