Reference: Some Ideas for Best Laptop for Development and Graphics

[DevTech]

Lenovo Yoga 900

 

6560U CPU, QHD Touch Screen, Intel Iris 540 GPU, 16 gig RAM, 512 gig SSD

 

Comes in Gold, Orange and Silver versions but really, a "Real GPU" would have been a nicer color

 

Folds into a tablet mode.

 

About 3 lbs

 

About $2,000

 

Slightly weak CPU, very weak GPU, price seems like a good value.

 

[DevTech]

Dell Inspiron 15 7000

 

6700HQ CPU, QHD Touch Screen, 16 gig RAM, 960 GPU 4 gig, 128 gig SSD + 1 Tb HD

 

About 6 lbs

 

About $1800

 

A low price point for a very reasonable conformance to modern development requirements.

 

[DevTech]

10 hours ago, T3X4S said:

Sorry - I didnt fully read your OP where this was more of a pondering of what it would take.  My answer was based on what is out there that is closest to what you are asking for.

A fully loaded MBP will do the stuff faster than a similarly outfitted PC - thats all I was basing my post on

Yeah, based on our previous interactions, I thought your post was humor and attempted to construct a humorous reply.

 

There is a scenario for using a Macbook Pro for development and it is almost impossible to engage a sensible discussion on the subject due to the hordes of Apple Zombies patrolling the internet. Neowin might be one of a handful of places it could happen.

 

Over time, Tim Cook is gradually breaking the various "rules" set out by Steve Jobs but a Touch Screen on a Mac might be the last of them to fall. Clearly, touch interfaces have been fundmental to Apple's sucess and they seriously disadvantaged their developers by not including touch on a Mac. It has only been tolerable to this point due to the low degree of fragmentation in Apple's mobile market but at this point the number of test devices an IOS developer would need to throw into his backpack is getting larger. And if he wants to do Android, emulation is the only practical solution due to high fragmentation.

 

The negatives of not having a Touch Screen are obvious, and the single positive of owning a Mac is an annoying arbitrary marketing restriction from Apple. Legally, you must own a Mac to submit an App to their store. Buying a used Mac Mini and shoving in a desk drawer would meet the requirements, but that becomes a dollar value that enters any price comparison between laptops. Any Windows laptop plus the cost of a Mac Mini equals more expensive than a Macbook. Hence the unusual percentage of developers who own Macs compared to the general population.

 

Once developers are extorted into buying a Mac to access the attractive IOS App market, they seem to fall into two categories. Most just accept it as the cost of doing business and then there is a vocal bunch that pollute the blogosphere with the hardware tail wagging the software dog. This crazy retrograde influence has led to the ASP.NET team adopting Mac-like command line driven interfaces which the Mac crowd refers to as "Modern Web development" (finally development has become mainstream enough that propoganda and cults can sweep through the community like a virus)

 

In this context it becomes a difficult task to look at the plain metal and silicon parts inside Mac device and ignore the glowing white Apple logo. (btw as a blackish humor sidenote, that glowing logo actually leaves a kind of "Burn-in" type mark on the LCD screen caused by pressure over time passed through the softer plastic when the device is in a carry bag but the marketing value to Apple beats out the consumer every time)

 

So a current Macbook Pro with Retina display is a very decent assembly of hardware that carries so much insanely annoying marketing baggage and arbitrary impairments that I couldn't see a rational developer being comfortable with allocating real money to be annoyed on a daily basis. It is hard to know if the device will get a Skylake refresh or if the insane quest to achieve the mathematical impossibility of "less is more" will kill off the "Pro" line. Apple is finally price competative with the industry and so the Macbook Pro is a reasonably priced option for developers considering IOS development. You can run Windows in a VM or even replace OSX with a native Windows to get a better O/S (subjective depending on "better") and still meet IOS requirments.

 

Still, it is such a giant ball of awkward compromises that one should examine all of Heaven and Earth before settling on this pact with the Devil.

 

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

Read the service manual of what ever device you are thinking about getting and see how easy it is to replace the hard drive.

[DevTech]

26 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Read the service manual of what ever device you are thinking about getting and see how easy it is to replace the hard drive.

Ah, the modern era of disposable laptops...

 

Replaceable Parts in order of difficulty:

 

CPU: Some Clevo units.

 

Video Card: There is a standard plug in card format used by some Clevos, Alienware and others in full thickness models. Upgrading is sometimes limited by the laptops BIOS.

 

Hard Drives: Access panels to a 2.5" drive used to be common. Often the entire bottom panel or top panel now needs to be removed. Some laptops only have a M.2 type connector now. Ultra thin units can be filled with a glue-like compound making upgrades almost impossible.

 

Battery: It used be simple to carry a spare battery and swap it in to double battery life. Increasingly batteries are glued in place as a structural component. When the batteries die, the laptop is thrown out. And batteries are the least rapidly improving technology.

 

RAM: DIMM sockets are still common but there is an increasing trend to permanently solder RAM to the motherboard. With Skylake, even work station laptops might only have two sockets since each module can be 16 gig. Skylake laptops with 4 sockets of DDR4 can be 64 gigs of RAM for VM heaven or sequencing your own DNA perhaps...

 

When purchasing Ultra-Thin laptops, start with the assumption that those little boxes you click to select RAM and SSD space are permanent and NOT upgradable...

[DevTech]

Based on this thread:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1295038-ramdisk-how-large-to-use-it-as-boot/

 

There is a suggestion that two M.2 Samsung 950 Pros in RAID-0 are very effective.

 

This would essentially mean that a laptop could have the disk performance of the very best desktops.

 

So I will review the laptops in this thread to see if any of them have two M.2 slots to make the Ultimate Development Laptop...

 

[DevTech]

RAID-0 M.2

 

Dell Precision 15 7510

 

(unclear if QHD is touch or not)

 

512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe High Performance Solid State Drive [Included in Price]

512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe High Performance Solid State Drive with Interposer [Included in Price]

RAID 0 [Included in Price]

 

Adds about $1500 to the price, not sure which drive they use

 

[DevTech]

 

http://laptopmedia.com/review/alienware-15-r2-late-2015-review-pushing-the-boundaries-of-the-15-inch-form-factor/

 

 

The Dell Alienware 15 R2 with QHD Touch Screen and two Samsung 950 Pro NVMe drives might be the ultimate development work station at the lowest possible price of about $2,500 plus about $1,000 to add the speed demon Samsungs

 

If 7 lbs seems a bit much, just cancel your gym subscription and lift this over your head 15 times a day until your muscles can lift 7 lbs.

 

 

 

[Draconian Guppy]

suprised no one here mentiond asus ROG, they get good rep and awesome double warranty  + good bang per buck

 

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

Have you looked into any of the mobile workstations from Boxx?  They are geared towards content creation, but might be good for development.  Not sure about touchscreen UHD options, though.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[DevTech]

1 minute ago, Draconian Guppy said:

suprised no one here mentiond asus ROG, they get good rep and awesome double warranty  + good bang per buck

 

Probably because I have placed a strong emphasis on QHD Touch Screens which ASUS is strangely ignoring. You might think at least one premium model would include that.

 

SInce we are considering someone making a purchase of a new development laptop in 2016, it is reasonable to assume that somewhere during the projected lifetime of the device, the owner will consider some sort of touch device mobile development and having a QHD Touch Screen, so many device resolutions can be nicely emulated.

 

So, to not specify a touch screen, some sort of compensating advantage should be present and given the decent models I have found here with QHD Touch, only a Macbook Pro has a specific compelling argument to bypass touch in order to enable Apple iTunes Store submission. The Macbook Pro is so annoying to me in so many ways that for me, I'd rather buy a Mac Mini if I had to for that purpose.

 

If you are convinced you will never need Mobile Emulation, then ASUS ROG, MSI GS60, MSI WS60 and Gigabyte P35W are interesting budget alternatives to work station laptops.

 

 

 

 

[DevTech]

14 minutes ago, goretsky said:

Hello,

 

Have you looked into any of the mobile workstations from Boxx?  They are geared towards content creation, but might be good for development.  Not sure about touchscreen UHD options, though.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

OK, Only this model has a QHD screen:

 

http://www.boxxtech.com/guru/goboxx-15-slm-performance-edition-skylake?GuruSessionId=8dc962b9-68fc-4b7e-8f1e-9c2e77e5a495&ModelNumber=G2080_HUHD&ConfigName=GoBOXX-15-SLM-Performance-Edition-Skylake-1&referrer=/products/mobile-workstations

 

But it does not seem touch enabled.

 

Also most of these third party laptops are built on Clevo hardware and I have yet to find one with proper attention to battery life, so that would require close examination.

 

Aside from those 2 rather serious concerns, the config is decent:

 

6920HQ CPU, QHD 15", 32 gig RAM, NVIDIA Quadro M2000M, 512 NVMe

 

About $3500

 

[zhangm Supervisor]

1 hour ago, DevTech said:

RAID-0 M.2

 

Dell Precision 15 7510

 

(unclear if QHD is touch or not)

 

If the word Touch is not in the display name or description, then it is not.

[DevTech]

1 minute ago, zhangm said:

If the word Touch is not in the display name or description, then it is not.

Thanks.

 

Oh Dell, wither has thou gone with Precision?

 

[bluesman86]

On 4/15/2016 at 9:48 AM, DevTech said:

Just pondering a bit on the intersection of technology and the unique requirements of modern development in a portable device.

 

Must have items for Development:

 

• Minimum 16 gig RAM, preferrably 32 or 64  for Various VMs
• Touch screen for testing mobile apps in various emulators
• Ideally, 2 hours of battery at full CPU and GPU load but I suspect that is not yet possible in 2016 unless the CPU and GPU are under powered
• 4K type screen - 3xxx by 2xxx for readability
• CPU 6700HQ or better, 6600U possibly in special cases
• GPU NVIDIA 960M or equivilent Quadro
• 512 gig SSD plus ideally 1 Tb 2nd drive
• I/O connector such as Thunderbolt to drive 2 external 4K Monitors
• Weight should not be important for a healthy human but lighter is better provided there is enough weight to leave a stable working surface.
• Large enough power supply to handle full load without draining battery

 

A Surface Book with larger (but still detachable) screen, and a base with 970 instead of 940 along with a second CPU and more RAM slots would be very nice and there is a lot of empty space in the keyboard unit to do that. That would feel very 2016ish advanced!

 

Until then, the sad technology situation is what it is and compromises need to be made.

 

 

Look into the Lenovo P-series.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/

 

You can customize them into absolute monsters. 

 

They make a yoga-style model, but you're probably looking at the P50 or P70. 

 

Avoid the P50s, since that one is compromised for power to make it lighter.

Edited April 17, 2016 by bluesman86

[DevTech]

3 minutes ago, bluesman86 said:

 

Look into the Lenovo P-series.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/

I investigated that here:

 

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1295020-some-ideas-for-best-laptop-for-development-and-graphics/?do=findComment&comment=597369022

 

Only the P-40 Yoga had QHD Touch Screen, but given the bizarre video card in that model, the Microsoft Surface Book seems like a better value and that's saying a lot with Microsoft's nose bleeding prices at the top end of their line...

 

[DevTech]

Summary of Suitable Development Laptops That Meet Requirements

 

The list so far. Please add to it if you can but try to verify QHD Touch screen beforehand. I have looked up too many laptops!

 

There is something to like about every device on this list and I would like to have every one of them humming away on my desk! A Surface Book with an extra 6700HQ CPU, NVIDIA 970 and two M.2 slots in the base unit even if it added 2 lbs would be my choice but such a marvel does not exist. I have to pick one of these compromises or decide to hold off another year to see what 2017 brings...

 

All Laptops Listed Here Have:

 

1. i7 6500U, 6600U or 6560U Dual Core Skylake OR i7 6700HQ Quad Core Skylake

 

2. QHD+ Touch Screen

 

3. 512 gig SSD

 

4. 16 gig DDR4 RAM

 

5. Thunderbolt or DisplayPort to drive 2 4K external monitors

 

6. NVIDIA 940, 960 or 970 GPU OR Intel Iris 540 (6560) Iris 520 (6600)

 

 

Full List of All Laptops That Come Close to Meeting Full 2016 Development Requirements

 

("come close" is in the title because I think all laptops on Planet Earth currently fail the 2 hour battery runtime requirement)

 

 

1. Dell Alienware 15 R2 - Currently leads the pack. - 7 lbs

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-15-R2-Notebook-Review.153808.0.html

http://laptopmedia.com/review/alienware-15-r2-late-2015-review-pushing-the-boundaries-of-the-15-inch-form-factor/

 

2. Dell XPS 15 - trades away very little for a weight in the ultra-light ballpark - 4.5 lbs

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-15-9550-i7-512GB-UHD-InfinityEdge-Notebook-Review.156462.0.html

 

3. Dell Inspiron 15 7000 - 6 lbs

 

4. Lenovo Ideapad Y700 Touch - 5.7 lbs

 

http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/yoga-series/yoga-460/

 

 

 

Note - not a single traditional work station laptop (which are common for development usage) makes the list due to the lack of a QHD Touch Screen. I suspect Dell Precision, Lenovo P series and HP Z will catch up to their consumer counterparts somewhere in the next 6 months.

 

 

 

Special Case Laptops That Trade Computing Power for Weight

 

1. Dell XPS 13 - 3 lbs - a smaller version of the XPS 15  without a quad core CPU or NVIDIA GPU.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9350-i7-6560U-QHD-Ultrabook-Review.159487.0.html

 

2. Dell Alienware 13 - 4.5 lbs - CPU similar to XPS 13, but has a real and powerful GPU, NVIDIA 965

 

 

 

Special Case Laptops with  Tablet Mode

 

The ULV CPUs in these laptops (Intel U series) are dual core Skylakes that are about 1/2 the performance of the i7-6700HQ quad core but still fast enough for most development and graphics tasks. Video editing and 3D rendering will be largest sacrifice.

 

The GPUs are weak as well but unlike previous generations cannot be classified as horrible. The new Iris 540 in the 6560U is on par with a NVIDIA 940 (the 6560U is a new SKU, the 6600U has a weaker GPU)

 

The rest of the specs are QHD Touch, 16 gig RAM, and 512 gig SSD.

 

 

 

1. Microsoft Surface Book - 3.5 lbs

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Microsoft-Surface-Book-Core-i7-940M-Convertible-Review.160679.0.html

 

2. Microsoft Surface Pro 4 - 2 lbs

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Face-Off-Microsoft-Surface-Pro-4-Core-i7-vs-Surface-Pro-4-Core-i5-vs-Surface-Pro-4-Core-m3.156031.0.html

 

3. Lenovo Yoga 900 - 3 lbs

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Yoga-900-13ISK-Convertible-Review.154217.0.html

 

4. HP Spectre x360 15

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Spectre-x360-15-ap012dx-Convertible-Review.160615.0.html

http://store.hp.com/us/en/PDPStdView?storeId=10151&urlLangId=-1&productId=1179654&urlRequestType=Base&categoryId=&langId=-1&catalogId=10051

 

5. Lenovo ThinkPad P40 Yoga - 4 lbs

 

http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p40-yoga/

 

6. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga - 2.8 lbs

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Yoga-20FQ-000QUS-Convertible-Review.163271.0.html

http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-yoga/

 

 

 

Remaining QHD Touch Screen Laptops that might not be suitable

 

For odd reasons perhaps most of the  new laptops with QHD Touch are showing up in the ultralight 12" and 13" range. There are a few laptops that I am not (yet) confident in listing as suitable for development:

 

1. HP Spectre x360 13

 

Seems to only be available as max 8 gig, otherwise has QHD Touch and 512 gig SSD, Intel 520 GPU

Copper color looks interesting

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Spectre-x360-13-i5-6200U-Convertible-Review.153933.0.html

http://store.hp.com/us/en/PDPStdView?storeId=10151&urlLangId=-1&productId=1126670&urlRequestType=Base&categoryId=&langId=-1&catalogId=10051

 

2. Asus Zenbook UX303

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-UX303UB-DH74T-Notebook-Review.156912.0.html

 

3. Vaio Z Flip VJZ13BA11L

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Vaio-Z-Flip-VJZ13BA11L-Convertible-Review.161637.0.html

 

 

4. Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 460

 

Max SSD is 256 gig

 

http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/yoga-series/yoga-460/

 

 

 

 

[DevTech]

Remaining QHD Touch Screen Laptops that might not be suitable

 

For odd reasons perhaps most of the  new laptops with QHD Touch are showing up in the ultralight 12" and 13" range. There are a few laptops that I am not (yet) confident in listing as suitable for development:

 

1. HP Spectre x360 13

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Spectre-x360-13-i5-6200U-Convertible-Review.153933.0.html

 

2. Asus Zenbook UX303

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-UX303UB-DH74T-Notebook-Review.156912.0.html

 

3. Vaio Z Flip VJZ13BA11L

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Vaio-Z-Flip-VJZ13BA11L-Convertible-Review.161637.0.html

 

4. Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Yoga-20FQ-000QUS-Convertible-Review.163271.0.html

 

[DevTech]

Pascal:

 

Looking at the design of the NVIDIA Pascal architecture which is an update to Maxwell, it seems reasonable to expect a large improvement in GPU processing ability with latency reductions between CPU and GPU so that there might be an unusually large improvement in Video Editing Acceleration and 3D Rendering.

 

Laptops that can upgrade their video are becoming increasingly scarce and none of the laptops on the list above have this ability in order to leverage Pascal when it arrives later in 2016 and 2017.

 

Dell Alienwares and Dell Precisions amoung others have long used the MXM laptop video card standard to permit upgrades. Starting in 2015, the CPU and GPU are now soldered on the motherboard like most laptops.

 

Special Case Exception

 

The Alienware 15 R2 has a special PCIe 3.0 external connector to a box that can hold a large variety of dsektop graphics cards branded as a "Graphics Amplifier"

 

So a Pascal upgrage is possible while the laptop is docked at a fixed location. Or with the purchase of two Graphics Amplifiers and two graphics cards a work/home scenario is possible.

 

As a possible compensation for this expense and inconvenience, an NVIDIA Titan works with this system and the Pascal upgrade for that card will as well.

 

I don't know if NVIDIA Quadro is compatable...

 

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/alienware-graphics-amplifier?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&sku=452-BBRG

 

 

[DevTech]

Found another suitable laptop - law of diminishing returns is making laptops hard to find at this point...

 

Alienware 13

 

6500U CPU, QHD Touch screen, 16 gig RAM, 512 gig SSD, NVIDIA GTX965M

 

About $2600

 

About 4.5 lbs

 

Somewhat weak CPU (1/2 of a 6700HQ) - RAM maxes at 16 gig, but GPU is good and has M.2 slot and Thunderbolt expansion along with the Graphics Amplifier port which is faster than Thunderbolt.

 

 

 

 

[DevTech]

I would love to own every laptop on this list:

 

 

But everyone of them also has something not quite right.

 

Can anyone add a laptop not listed? It has to have QHD Touch Screen, 16 gig RAM, a Skylake CPU and ideally NVIDIA 960 or greater GPU

 

[bluesman86]

On 4/17/2016 at 0:33 PM, DevTech said:

I investigated that here:

 

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1295020-some-ideas-for-best-laptop-for-development-and-graphics/?do=findComment&comment=597369022

 

Only the P-40 Yoga had QHD Touch Screen, but given the bizarre video card in that model, the Microsoft Surface Book seems like a better value and that's saying a lot with Microsoft's nose bleeding prices at the top end of their line...

 

What's wrong with the video card? Nvidia Quadro cards are nothing to scoff at.

[DevTech]

 

15 hours ago, bluesman86 said:

What's wrong with the video card? Nvidia Quadro cards are nothing to scoff at.

Quadro is just a brand that spans a large range of capability. Most of the time laptop manufacturers will match up a Quadro chip that is in the range of a consumer version of the laptop. With the P-40, Lenovo selected an extremely weak Quadro which of course might pull ahead in some specific tasks but is across the board weaker than a 940. And the 940 is almost a useless improvement itself over the new Intel Iris 540 in the new i7 6560U Skylake SKU. So the days of enhancing the U series Skylakes with low end NVIDIAs appear to be numbered. In terms of the P-40 considering the excellent product line it is slotted into, it should have had a stronger Quadro. I'm sure the engineering problem was battery life, and they have the marketing branding power of Quadro in their spec sheet. But the trade-off results in an almost useless apendage for marketing reasons (I am guessing here of course) - The Lenovo Yoga 900 seems to have the balance just right for a laptop being used sometimes in tablet mode. It uses the new 6560U to get slightly less CPU power and 940-ish GPU power in a single chip. I am totally cool with the idea of trading battery life for a significant processing boost and the P-40 needs a stronger Quadro to acheive that in my opinion.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

Edited April 24, 2016 by DevTech
added link to GPU list

[DevTech]

15 hours ago, bluesman86 said:

What's wrong with the video card? Nvidia Quadro cards are nothing to scoff at.

Addendum:

 

 Thanks for posting this. I hate to be inaccurate and in the process of rechecking the P-40, I realized it belongs on my list of qualifying development/creativity laptops!

 

I will fix that right away.

 

[DevTech]

Lenovo ThinkPad P-40 Yoga

 

6600U CPU

 

QHD Touch Screen 14"

 

16 gig RAM

 

512 gig SSD

 

NVIDIA Quadro M500M 2GB

 

About $3,200

 

About 4 lbs

 

http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p40-yoga/

 

Edited April 25, 2016 by DevTech
Thanks to goretsky for spec update!