Help?

[letumvenator]

Im going to college soon, and looking for a laptop. A LOT of coding is going to be done on it. Here are some specs I'd like.

Durable
i5 or i7 processor.
500GB up HDD. Mainly just a large capacity drive, more then 200GB.
4-8GB of RAM
15.6 inch or so. This may or may not be carried around campus. I have yet to decide on that.
At least 3 USB ports. I'm also going sometimes be running Linux (possibly dual boot as well).
Wi-Fi.
Good keyboard, etc.
Budget is $1500+
Optical drive is either or. I don't care.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for any help I may receive.

 

[TheStu]

1: Find out if your school has a partner deal with anyone for reduced rates.
2: What kind of coding, I mean are you going to school to do app development, write VB, web dev?
3: SSD.
4: Any beef with Apple? The rMBPs are quite nice. And are Unix based which means Linux may be unnecessary.
5: Why 3 USB ports?

 

[DaveSimmons]

6. Why not a desktop? Does your college do coding during classes, or recommend a laptop for some other reason?

With a desktop you can get a cheaper quad-core 3.x GHz i5, or hyperthreading i7, have plenty of bays for storage, put in a decent graphics card for gaming and/or GPU coding, 16 GB RAM if you plan to run virtual machines, . . . .

It might also make sense to have a good desktop + $300 laptop for classes if you really need a laptop for in-class use.

 

[letumvenator]

1. they don't.
2.C++, Java, Python, anything I can get my hands on.
3. ok, reason I said large drive was because I have 100GB+ of music already.
4 kind of. I don't like OSX (or Windows 8 for that matter. well I'd like to just run a live Linux system just to learn it.
5. one for the flashdrive (to transfer notes/ things from computers in classroom back to laptop), one for external hard drive (to back things up) and the third as an external optical drive if the laptop doesn't already have one.
6. because the first two years its just basic classes and those rooms aren't outfitted with computers. I asked them what they recommended and they said it depends on what I want..some have a desktop, but some have a laptop and some external m.monitorsmonitorsmonitormonitormonitomonitmonimonmomo

 

[TheStu]

1. they don't.
2.C++, Java, Python, anything I can get my hands on.
3. ok, reason I said large drive was because I have 100GB+ of music already.
4 kind of. I don't like OSX (or Windows 8 for that matter. well I'd like to just run a live Linux system just to learn it.
5. one for the flashdrive (to transfer notes/ things from computers in classroom back to laptop), one for external hard drive (to back things up) and the third as an external optical drive if the laptop doesn't already have one.
6. because the first two years its just basic classes and those rooms aren't outfitted with computers. I asked them what they recommended and they said it depends on what I want..some have a desktop, but some have a laptop and some external m.monitorsmonitorsmonitormonitormonitomonitmonimonmomo

USB Ports: You're almost never going to have all three devices connected at once, and there's always USB hubs.

Dell's new XPS15 has a super hiDPI display. And there's the Asus ZenBook Infinity that's well regarded.

If you intend to have it for a while, look into business class machines. Don't get tempted by $400 machines, spend real money. Also, try to get your hands onto the system that you're looking at. If you're in school, especially coding... put your hands on the keyboard.

 

[letumvenator]

Yeah, I'd like for the laptop to last as long as possible. wow, that Zen book though..wow. I also looked at the dell you suggested.. now I just need to find some time to go to best buy or something and get a hold of some machines..