Best laptop for a Prospective Computer Science Major?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I'll be a freshman next year and since I plan on majoring in CS, my aunt and parents have offered to buy me any laptop I want for a combined birthday and college present. I currently have no preference, though my parents are looking at the macbooks - the 13" MBA with 250 gb ssd, the 15" MBP without the ssd (unlikely at it is rather heavy to drag around) or the highest end 15" MBP currently available. Price isn't really an issue, but I would set the upper limit to USD 2600 since that the price for the MBP. </p>

<p>I do play games occasionally, so while it does factor into my decision making process it's not that big of a deal. The MBP of course is appealing, but I'm not certain I would require such high end equipment for CS, since I've heard of people getting away with rather lackluster computers. But still, since for one time in my life I don't have an upper price budget, I'd like to get the best laptop I can...</p>

<p>The requirements I'd like for my laptop include the following:
-Portable around the campus. I move around a lot everyday.
-Enough processing power for the degree of programming necessary in a CS course. (Compiling is a major pain even for relatively small programs on the AcerOne netbook I've been using since my other laptop crashed)
-enough storage space for a years worth of programs such that I do not need external drives, which kinda defeats the purpose of portability.
- optional - good enough graphics card to run games like Starcraft II, DDO, Minecraft etc.</p>

<p>I am definitely open to suggestions from other brands other than Mac as well, through a SSD is much faster and less damageable than a regular HD. Macbooks usually have larger SSD storage in my impression than ultrabooks...</p>

<p>Thanks for the help, I'm looking for something that could last me all 4 years of college.</p>

2

<p>Since you have such a large budget and you need something fast that’s good for gaming, I’d recommend almost any Asus (use the search feature on their site to find one that has an i7 processor and a minimum of 6 GB RAM) or even the Razer Blade RZ09.</p>

3

<p>Try Lenovo. Extremely cheap for high quality, high performance computers that will exceed beyond any of your gaming needs. </p>

<p>Right now, they beat out Asus in price to performance. Heck, they beat out just about every brand, to be honest. One of their best deals right now is $750 for an i7 w/ GT750M + 2GB DDR5 dedicated.</p>

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<p>To me my main concern would be portability over gaming. I don’t really game much and am perfectly playing everything on the lowest setting as long as fps doesn’t drop below 15 and the game don’t lag because of hardware issues. I reckon even the mac air should be able to run Lotro, a pretty non resource intensive game right? Basically I’m looking for portability and decent processing power (enough for a CS workload). Are there anything out there better than the macbook airs?</p>

5

<p>Alright, thanks for the extra info. Here’s what I think:</p>

<p>As a CS major, you will need the extra RAM (One of the few people that actually do!). I’d look for a setup around 6GB to 8GB - nothing more, nothing less. </p>

<p>For processing, you will want extra power - an i3 probably won’t suit you, but an i5 should do it. An i7 has far too much processing power. There are VERY few people who could actually claim they would need the processing power of an i7. Go with an i5 setup.</p>

<p>For gaming, the graphics card is by far the most important part of the setup. However, as it is not your priority, you shouldn’t put too much emphasis on it. An Intel HD 4000 should be able to get you some casual gaming; don’t expect it to keep up with the current market for long though, as it is an integrated graphics card that can only run games at medium right now. I would normally advocate finding a discrete graphics card (600m/660x series from Nvidia or its AMD equivalent), but the price jump between integrated and discrete can be quite a big gap, and will most certainly not be found for retail at any store except at ludicrous prices. Your call on that. </p>

<p>As for your question regarding Macbook Airs, I can completely, 100%, without any shade of a doubt reaffirm to you that there are MANY computers better than a Macbook Air that could be found at a fraction of the price. As someone going into CS, I would find it hard that a Mac OS would even be recommended; a great deal of the software you will run will often be Windows Exclusive. </p>

<p>A few quality (AND CHEAPER!!!) brands I can offer would be as follows; Lenovo, Asus (both have exceptionally high quality at exceptionally low prices), Sony (decent in both respects), Samsung (iffy) and Acer (very cheap, but its build quality is impaired as a result).</p>

<p>You may also want to look into an Ultrabook, as they offer the price, the portability, and exceptional performance/build quality (in general this holds true, although I promise you it will vary based on brand) that you suggested you might be looking for. The brands mentioned above also make good Ultrabooks, but as the Ultrabook is considered as the “vanguard” in mobile computing by many firms, they tend (notice I say tend, but not are) to be of relatively good quality for most brands (even Dell and HP). </p>

<p>Hope I helped!</p>

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<p>Thank you GenApo for yourvery informative reply. Since 4GB ram seems not to be enough, that rules out most ultrabooks from what I can see. Since price is not a issue and this is a one time going to college gift, I simply want to get the best laptop I could that will last me for the next four year and will not kill me to carry around on campus since I live rather far from the university. Some variation of the Asus Zenbook prime seem to be the best in terms of performance right now, but I wonder is getting familiar with the mac operating system might be good for CS? Thanks for your help :)</p>

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<p>I actually disagree with GenApo wrt to RAM: You want to buy the computer with the least amount of RAM but the highest amount of RAM capacity, because RAM is a) bloody cheap (the 16GB I want and probably will get myself for as a birthday present is $100) unless it comes with your computer, where it’s bloody expensive and b) really easy to replace in most computers.</p>

<p>Although some ultrabooks are less easy to open up…</p>

8

<p>Whatever you get, make sure it runs Unix, the CS OS.</p>

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<p>I don’t seem to encounter real software engineers who carry Mac around. Maybe a lenovo thinkpad x1 carbon would do? They even have a screen touch version and it’s still lower than your budget.</p>

10

<p>Silicon Valley is full of Linux, Unix, Mac and Win folks.</p>

11

<p>Do not buy a mac for CS. Check with the department at your college for system requirements.</p>

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<p>I picked a CS school at random, CMU:

This is typical, all three supported. I assume the list is alphabetical, not by preference.</p>

<p>While supporting all three, some schools use one platform for their own infrastructure; ask them if you want to match it.</p>

13

<p>So Macs can run Linux stuff but it doesn’t work in the other way*</p>

<p>*I heard of people successfully installing AFS on Macs. Um. Not something I’d like to do, but it’s possible. Usually involves compiling by source [which of course involves playing package wack-a-mole and takes about twenty times as long as “sudo apt-get install” but it’s possible]</p>

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<p>Get a Lenovo ThinkPad. One of the tech schools I applied to provides computers for their students based on their major, and they provide CS majors with Lenovo ThinkPads. Macs are not good for coding. My brother knows lots of coding languages and is constantly writing scripts. He says the best operating system for coding is Linux, while the worst is Mac. But PC is still a good option. My brother uses PC for all of his coding, even though Linux is better. Just don’t go with Mac. Mac is not good for Computer Science.</p>

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<p>“Macs are not good for coding.”</p>

<p>That’s why 800,000 apps in the iPhone/iPad app store were written on PCs. ;)</p>

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<p>Macs are highly compatible with CS majors, especially considering OSX is based on a variant of BSD unix accessible under terminal. </p>

<p>Something which shouldn’t phase CS majors…especially after the first semester/year when a bulk of one’s programming assignments will be done under the unix command-line environment. </p>

<p>If you want to run Windows and/or Linux, simply use bootcamp or install them as virtual machines using virtualization software like parallels. </p>

<p>All of the above have been done successfully by engineering/CS major friends or by undergrads they TAed in the undergrad CS courses. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Most of the hardcore engineering/CS folks I knew preferred to compile from source…sometimes fanatically. This is precisely the reason why the ones I know prefer Gentoo over Ubuntu, Mint, or other more mainstream distros. </p>

<p>To them, finding packages/sources and compiling them is half the fun.</p>

17

<p>I think GenApo pretty much covered everything.</p>

<p>One more thing I would add is any of these Alienware or Razer or any laptop that is specialized for gaming I would completely avoid due to the price. If you really desire this a good gaming computer, go for a custom built desktop. Its the best option and the most cost efficient option.</p>