Good PC or laptop?

[thunderlizard]

(with apologies for the boring nature of this question)

My poor 2004-vintage development laptop is chugging slowly, what with Vista + Visual Studio 2008 + Oracle 10g Express (amongst other things - no games though). What's a good spec PC these days? I really just want to be able to launch an ASP.NET app in debug, in less time than it takes me to forget what I was trying to debug in the first place.


I am thinking Fujitsu Siemens P5625 Tower PC (2.1 GHz; 4GB RAM; 500GB HD)

or maybe for a laptop option, Sony VAIO NS11J/S (2GHz; 4GB RAM; 320GB HD)

-both come in around £500 - these things have got much better and cheaper over the past few years!

[d000hg]

Laptop has a smaller screen and probably not as good keyboard... I wouldn't ever use a Laptop as my primary machine unless I was always moving around.

[Durbs]

I have a good laptop with a 17" widescreen + a couple of fast desktop PC's with big monitors (1 with dual monitor setup).

Which one do i find myself doing most of my development work on - the laptop for some reason.

Laptops these days are way more than capable of running a full dev environment and i find it really nice to use plus its got the bonus that i can code whilst prone in front of the telly.

[scooterscot]

Have you have thought of renting?

I rent one of my Mac's from PC world of all places. My old viao was showing it's age and rather and shell out for a new machine I rent. This was largely because I did not want to get stuck with a glossy screen on the new Mac book pro, so I got the previous model.

Every 2 years the machine is replaced with the latest and greatest, unless I wish to keep it then I'm free to do so. + it's repaired if anything goes wrong and insured.

[TykeMerc]

I have a 17" Dell Vostro, widescreen, just about full sized keyboard with a numpad, I haven't used my desktop in months.

If you're planning to run Vista then 3-4 Gb of RAM would be sensible as it's a resource hog. A Core2 Duo processor 2+ Ghz would be sensible, a bit of shopping about should net you a decent 17" luggable within the budget you suggested.

I admit that I'm not a big fan of Sony Laptops.

[DimPrawn]

I have a 17" Dell Vostro, widescreen, just about full sized keyboard with a numpad, I haven't used my desktop in months.

If you're planning to run Vista then 3-4 Gb of RAM would be sensible as it's a resource hog. A Core2 Duo processor 2+ Ghz would be sensible, a bit of shopping about should net you a decent 17" luggable within the budget you suggested.

I admit that I'm not a big fan of Sony Laptops.

I have a 17" Vostro same as you. 4GB RAM and 2GHZ Dual Core Intel CPU. DVD R/W, bluetooth, wireless the full monty.

Runs VS.NET 2008, SQL Server, BizTalk 2006 R2 and lots of other associated dev things no problem and screen and keyboard are big enough to use all day.

Plus being a laptop, if you get a power glitch, you don't lose your work and you can take it to meetings and work in the office or at home easily.

Recommend and only about £500 notes. Much cheapness, plenty quickness.

[thunderlizard]

sounds nice. Do you reckon this Vostro would hook up nicely to dual monitors?

[DimPrawn]

sounds nice. Do you reckon this Vostro would hook up nicely to dual monitors?

No idea. I use the 17" screen only.

[dang65]

Have you have thought of renting?

I rent one of my Mac's from PC world of all places.

Got any links to that service? I can't see anything on their website?

[d000hg]

I have a 17" Dell Vostro, widescreen, just about full sized keyboard with a numpad, I haven't used my desktop in months.

If you're planning to run Vista then 3-4 Gb of RAM would be sensible as it's a resource hog. A Core2 Duo processor 2+ Ghz would be sensible, a bit of shopping about should net you a decent 17" luggable within the budget you suggested.

I admit that I'm not a big fan of Sony Laptops.

Isn't a 17" Vostro about as heavy as a desktop?