I'm about to start a PhD program in CS (programming languagues) and the consumer grade Dell laptop I bought for undergrad is starting to fall apart after 3.5 years. I'm looking for a business grade laptop that'll last through the 6+ years it'll probably take to finish my degree.
Specs aren't such a big concern for me so long as it's durable as hell and works relatively well with linux (the most intensive resource intensive thing I'll probably be doing with it is compiling large programs). Budget is quite flexible right now, and someone recommended the Dell precision line to me. The main thing is to not have to buy a laptop for the next 6+ years since this is probably the last time I'll have enough money for a while.
Any recommendations? I'd like to avoid buying used since I don't want to take any risks. I'd go with thinkpads since those are traditionally a good bet but I've heard the line has taken a turn for the worse since being acquired by lenovo.
(^: Greetings from Russia! The quality of the new ones isn't as bad as evryones likes to say, so if you want a new laptop, an A485 or A285 might be what you need, as long as you get the high res screen without touch. Otherwise, if you think that modern ones are bad get a T430 or X230 and mod them with 1080p ips kit and classic keyboard (t430/t420 kit is on aliexpress and x230/x220 kit is quite hard to get). The only downside of newer machines that I can think of is the different layout of the keyboard which some people find uncomfortable after getting used to the classic on. The switches feel fine though. Whichever you end up buying, I wish you luck with your new purchase. :^)
Connor Howard
holy shit i thought that dell was a macbook pro painted black, they sure have improved windows laptops in the last 10 years.
Christian Kelly
What about the x1 Carbon?
Ryder Clark
It's really hard to open for servicing purposes, like cleaning the heatsink and if I'm not to be mistaken it has soldered ram. All 'thin and light' laptops come at too many disadvantages that make them only usable for just a few years and carrying just a bit more really isn't that hard.
Caleb Peterson
And X1 can't have an extra battery on the back, unlike the A285 or A485, which is nice to have on long trips.
Jason Adams
Yeah for business grade machines at least I've heard a lot of good stuff about Dell. I worked at my uni's tech help desk for a couple of years and whenever people would bring in latitudes I was always pleasantly surprised.
Lincoln Hall
Thanks, sorry I abandoned the thread for a sec, I had an errand to run.
Both of the A-models you mentioned look good, the only reservation I have after looking at them on lenovo's website are the AMD processors but that's mostly since I only really have experience with Intel stuff. I've had good experience with AMD/Radeon when it comes to graphics cards though.
Angel Davis
macbook pro. you know it to be true. any plastic body shit is going to break down within that time
Henry Taylor
Get a thinkpad T or W series I have a 530W and its amazing durability also have a xps 15 9560 but cant recommend cuz dell support is absolute garbage
Ryder Richardson
>I'm about to start a PhD
You fool.
Tyler Stewart
I've honestly thought about getting a macbook air since the design is a holdover from better days.
Tbh if this were 2005 I could happily just decide on Mac vs literally any Thinkpad but the way Apple builds things now I'm afraid to breath on them.
Gavin Parker
If specs aren't that big of a deal why not buy some consumer grade piece of shit and replace it once or twice, instead of buying the stupidly expensive unserviceable ultrabooks that everybody will invariably recommend? (XPS, x1 carbon, mbp...)
Gabriel Morgan
It's not ideal but it's a better situation than what all my friends are doing, entry-level software jobs near my uni (MA) are literally just elevated wagecuckery.
Plus it opens up the option to teach later on, even if it's just at a community college or a satellite campus of a state school, which I'd much rather do than write Javascript all day and pretend to be enjoying myself in one of these "tech-culture".
Lincoln Kelly
Dell XPS 13 because you need a screen that goes all the way to the edge
Nathan Flores
Fellow CS PhD student here. You are missing a very important advantage we can get. Many tech companies engage in age-based discrimination, so if you do not make enough money to retire early, you are screwed. By contrast, universities give tenure after a certain number of years, so you don't have to worry about being laid off because the company wants young blood.
Ayden Parker
get a dell g5 with the new i7 and 16gb ram, u can add another stick and get 32gb, enough for your compiling
Justin Murphy
That's another good point, a lot of the tech companies chewing up younger people and then tossing them aside.
I don't know if I'd ever be able to get tenure but I wouldn't mind teaching a class or two as an adjunct and working at a non-meme company in the rest of the time.
Honestly so long as I can make enough to comfortably support a family and eventually buy some land to move off the grid and do some permaculture I'll be very happy.
Thomas Cook
Also do you have any grad school advice/tips for someone who's just getting started?
Ryan Sanchez
I fix ThinkPads for work. 5th gens are super easy to open and take apart. 6th gens are the same internally. Screws and bottom are a tiny bit more annoying. Heat sink / fan is easy. But yeah, they have soldered RAM. The high res glossy screens on 6th gen look awful and over saturated to me.
Nolan Torres
You're a fucking idiot. With the "ev3ryone can code XD" meme and general saturation of CS graduates, job security (without a PhD) is going to be nonexistent. Most people are implementing retarded CRUD applications that literally any idiot could do, with the proper training.
The best way to make money is to solve new problems. That means you either start your own business, or pursue a research-oriented career (PhD.)
James Ross
Get the 15 in model. The 15in is the same size as 13 in laptops 5 years ago since the xps has tiny bezels.
Joseph Ross
Study well in-advance for the GRE. The quantitative section should be easy. The verbal section has some challenging vocabulary that you just need to memorize.
If it's not an R1 university, don't go. If they don't offer a stipend + full scholarship, don't go. Other than that, just make sure you're interested in what people in the department are researching.
Nathaniel Davis
im surprised thinkpads aren't spammed here. literally this looks like a bait to start another /tpg/. I'd get a modern thinkpad and be done with it, get the oldest one that can do quad core, to be honest don't just read what people here tell you start looking for temps and how much the battery lasts. I'm going to get a T430 for undergrad, my only concern is that it doesn't work with non official batteries, is probably something in the bios. But whatever, aslong as there are still official new batteries around or I can mod the bios. The advantage over the T420 is that you can put on a Quad Core that benchmarks as well as a i7 7700M both on stock speeds, and with a non crazy TDP of 45W. The stock CPU is 35W so when you increase it you have to expect more heat and a bit less battery, but you can limit the core with cpupower on linux and throttlestop on windows so is not a problem, it will still be better than stock at the same TDP once you underclock it. The bad thing is Lenovo only has official support for 900p screens, you can mod it for a 1080p but I would not count on that as I only see chink sites with tutorial for doing that and there's risks because the pin is in the wrong side, someone correct me if this isn't the case. Also you could buy a T440 but I think the CPU is soldered in this case, and the CPU underscores the T430 stock i7 though. But aslong as you don't care about that you will get your 1080p screen and good battery life. So you can get a nice experience by default on a T450 or T440. They are all used, since they only keep manufacturing the new ones. But you can find them in pretty good state because business ditch them when the new one comes out, and I mean like really good state. So don't worry about getting them used as long as you see pictures and you are sure you can return them easily and reclaim online. I don't know is there is something like mercadolibre there but here works fine as aliexpress but national.
