Go on let’s have em, what laptops are you all running and do you recommend for SP 2013 development ? The MBP a contender (surely not)!… Is anyone surviving on 16gb ?
UPDATE! Can you also add your laptop and configuration to this list : (User “Add to List”). http://list.ly/list/73V-sharepoint-2013-laptops. If someone has the same one, just vote it up.
Hey guys, i am sort of a laptop enthusiast so i will post what i have found.
For 2013 I am currently using a lenovo w530 with 20 gb of ram and 2 HDs, 1 is ssd for os, and the other is a Hyrbrid SSD (seagate momentus xt 500gb).
I don’t use Hyper v. Instead i have found virtual box to be very useful as i can host it all on the 2nd hd.
I give the 2013 vm 16 gb of ram and it works flawlessly until i try to do search lol. But i have compiled a list of laptop manufacturers laptops that i would recommend for Dev Machines.Â
1. Lenovo – the w530 is a work horse. Core i7, 4 ram slots, expansion slots for hds, usb,. My # choice for development laptops. I have not had any problems with this laptop. Upgraded to 8.1 with no problems. If you do get this box i recommend you remove all the IBM bloatware first and only download the ibm solution center app. I am very happy with Lenovo. I used to be a dell/apple guy, but i gotta tell you that lenovo has stepped up their game. Quality is great. No blue screens. I hammer this machine a lot. Hell i even do Diablo 3 and lightroom on it and it hums like a beast. Hands down, will always recommend. OH by the way 6 hour battery life, yeah, that just happened.
2. Apple – Macbook pro 15 inch, 16 gb ram, hybrid ssd 1tb, non retina. Craftmanship is second to non. I love the feel of it. It is thin and light. Screen is amazing. The reason i have it as #2 is twofold. First, MAC OSx, lets face it people, we are all microsoft homers here. We get paid by the mothership and unfortunately SharePoint wasn’t made for the NON Microsoft OSs. Its getting closer, but not all there. I say this because, for some odd reason i just can’t take the OS seriously. Every time i log into Mac os i just want to play, not work. Yes i use VMware fusion and i do have a sp2013 image on there, but the temptation to shut it down and do photoshop work, is too great, lol. The second reason it is #2, is the lack of second drive option. I can only use usb and/or firewire/thunderbolt drives. The slot loading DVD is cool, but who uses a dvd drive these days. 2 ram slots, limits the amount of memory i can add and it is quite an expensive machine. But for SharePoint, I just can’t take it seriously.
3. Dell – Covet. If you haven’t checked out the dell covet system you should google it. It is basically an M6700 with ferrari red. That just makes it go that much faster. It is the monster system of monster systems. Why is it number 3? It is too much machine for its own good. It is plagued by system crashes, probably because the CPU runs hotter than anything out there. Dell’s quality in my humble opinion has gone down in the last couple of years. I like style on my boxes, but dell has opted for some funky designs lately. Unfortunately i will always pick lenovo over dell now based on quality and craftsmanship.
4- Alienware – Granted they are dell products, but the look sooo cool. All the power of m6700 with cool lighting. If you can play games on it, you can develop on it. They run very hot and battery life is dismal. Still very expensive.
5- everything else. HP, Sager, NW Falcon, they all make good stuff, but they don’t tickle my fancy like the top 4 i have posted. You can get the same specs with the same ram and HD configurations. It all comes down to quality and personal preference.Â
For SharePoint 2013, the sweetspot VM configuration seems to be 16gb quad core cpu with atleast 200 gb. Remember, the os takes up 2-4 SP and Sql hog the rest. The reason MS says 24 min, is because of Visual Studio. That things is a resource hog as well.Â
Hope this helps.
Nando
Wow … what a lot of responses!