pouët.net

I've been in need of a decent laptop for a while...
The main things holding me back are:
laptop keyboards usually suck
laptop battery life usually sucks
laptop screen real estate usually sucks

...and of course, laptops of a sane price usually offer hardware that has been significantly docked speed and feature-wise compared to their desktop counterparts.

So...can anyone recommend a laptop of dev use that doesn't suck?

i have a dell latitude e4300 that I use everyday at work for dev. really nice keyboard (i'm using it right now), the display is great (not glossy) and it last very long (up to 4h if you manage it)... its a great value (and its resistant (survived one crash one the floor, with no damage at all)
but :
its a bit pricey (i paid it 1400€ or something if i remember) and there is no real 3d support (of course you can watch 3d stuff but it wont compete with laptops having real nvidia/ati card).

I have a Dell Studio 1555 17-inch and it has NO BREAK KEY so I had to alter the registry to assign break to some other key (I chose f11). I did not know this before purchasing and really regretted it. So make sure you can see the keyboard you'll be typing on before you buy.

Well, I used Stargazer (just after its release) to benchmark my current notebook, an HP Pavilion dv5 with a GF 9600m GT.
I paid it around 950€ at the time VAT included, I'm very happy with it.

Except for:
- The keyboard and mousepad suck. Hard.
- the (NOT) "smart" no-mechanics-optical buttons, which tend to get crazy after a while, especially volume (the fix was to uninstall the "smart" drivers)
- Battery autonomy tended to suck (about 1.5 hrs). Then the original battery died after two years). Now I have a newer 9800 mAh battery, with this one I can reach 3-4hrs autonomy if not doing heavy things
- the screen is not glossy (as it is the trend in these latter years for cheap laptops).

But again, 950€ and Stargazer running smooth (not uber smooth) while other laptops of the same price tag died at 10 or less fps.
Very effective for me when working with (not so high-end) interactive graphics. And (nearly) mobile.

mousepad = touchpad, actually.
see? perfectly smooth... hi friction! -__-
The same goes for the keys, no nice grip and coarse plastic feeling at the touch :(

I'm using a MacBook Air 2.13GHz with 4Go of RAM.

I know it far to be the cheapest and powerfull computer, but I think the "gigahertz race" has no interest here, except for gamers.

Since I don't play on PC or Computer I prefer a fast a light computer (mine boot in 5 seconds and weight is something like 1.3kg), also the keyboard and mousepad are really great :)

I'm using it to code my intros under a virtualized Windows under Parallels 6 and that works really fine :)

Panasonic Roughbook, so you can throw it to a wall and jump over it, and then resume working.

toughbook not roughbook

Got a MacBook running OSX/XP (an old one though, 833mhz bus, 2 gigs ram, 2.4ghz cpu, GMA x3100) and except for the fillrate (which will improve soon as I'm buying a new one within the year) i'm very pleased so far. Also with the screen, battery power and keyb.

If you want something small and powerful and can live without an optical drive, a friend of mine has the Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820G-5464G75Nks and is pretty happy with it.
There are also versions that have 3G and a 14" version with a DVD drive and the price is pretty good for the hardware you get...

Has a sucky glare-screen though...

lenovo t61 :)

The mac laptops basically meet all the requirements, except maybe the keyboard (which is a great keyboard, but the key layout isn't to everyone's taste ;)

Other than that, I think screen size is critical for coding. Either a big laptop, or a small one with a second monitor attached.

go for a lenovo thinkpad.

got a dell precision M6500 17" at work... great notebook for development (4 gb, i7, 1920*1200) but not one you want to carry around every day. especially the power supply is bigger than the one of my xbox360, and weighs more than 1kg. (that's why i have one at home and one in the office) - especially flying is really a pain.

i think there's always a tradeoff between power and size of the notebook. that's why i'm also thinking about getting a light/smaller but less powerful notebook when i'm on a trip or on site, and a real powerful workstation. right now i'm mainly using this one now, as the work station is like 5 yrs old.

I've got a TP. But the price is incredible ofcourse.. 14" ~3hours battery (with powersaving settings ofcourse) non glare display.

Before I gave it to my daughter I used an Acer Aspire 5720z.
Which ran a roll-your-own Debian server easily, could play Half-Life thru wine & comfortably play openarena despite only having an intel graphics chipset so there!
It still plays Frozen Bubble wicked cool, man.

Acer Aspire 8943G-724G64Mn (LX.PWC02.012)
18.4"
1920x1080
Mobility Radeon HD 5650 (Dx11)
Weight: 4,6 kg

The missus uses a Toshiba Satellite A200 with xp (getting all the drivers was TRULY a labour of love) but that cranks out Farcry pretty smoothly.

Dell Precision M6400 here and I can recommend it full-heartedly. Only women can't carry it inside a back pack so it's great to bring at the party. Full sized-keyboard with well placed pg up/dn home and end buttons and it has a numpad also. And more power than enough (M6500 is updated version of this with even more umph).

Not too cheap though but luckily this is my work laptop so 0e for me.

pommak: yeah, the M6500 is great and everything, but it is simply impossible to use it on an airplane (i travel a lot) - but yeah, got myself a backpack, so carrying is fine...

but i'm still amazed about the size of the external power supply :)

Samsung N510
Compaq Mini 311c
Eee PC 1201N

... aka the good ion LE models. Cheap: With GL3. drivers even for linux. HD/HDMI capable. Really powerfull demoscene-wise. 12'' screens instead of 11'' on other notebooks. 6 hours autonomous... Just plug real keyboard/mouse/screen to that makes it a real good nvidia-capable computer for sceners. The best 3d for the less watts.
To good to be true...

Unfortunately, have all ceased to exist due to intel forcing their ugly GMA on their new notebook cpus.. Replaced by the GMA+Ion2 horror. :( :( :(

i really like my macbook pro 13 - 4gb, geforce 320. i code a lot on the train so i needed something portable that you can actually use on your lap. naturally i put windows on it because im not a big girly mac loving cream puff. the hardware's really nice and solid and it's pretty quick. the only downside to it is the keyboard's a bit strange after being used to pc ones, but you get over it. gets a bit warm too, and the battery life varies hugely - at best in macos it'll do something like 6-8 hours, but if you use it in windows and actually run graphics on it it'll be 2-3 max.

I happen to sell computers. For coding, I'd recommend:

• HP Pavilion dv7-4171us 17.3" Laptop
  
• Specs:
  
• Battery Life: 4.5 hours
  
• HDSPACE: 500 Gigabytes
  
• RAM: 4 Gigabytes of DDR3 ram
  
• PROCESSOR: AMD Phenom II 3-core clocked at 2.2 Gigahertz
  
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (x64)
  
• OTHER NICE THINGS: Blu-Ray drive, Fingerprint reader, Full sized keyboard with built-in number pad :)
  
• WHY I RECOMMEND THIS LAPTOP: Powerful processor, Good battery life, large screen, roomy keyboard, plenty of memory.
  
• Retail price: $930 US Dollars, though some places are running it on sale for much lower than that.
  

Lenovo Thinkpad. And you can replace the optical drive with an extra battery if 4 hours isn't enough :)
Mine also survived a ground crash and moving around everyday in my backpack, without any problem so far. The keyboard has all the keys you need and I now miss the trackpoint on any other computer that don't have it.