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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern

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How many computers do you use?

Do you do everything on one laptop you carry around with you? Or do you have a laptop and a desktop? Can you describe your various setups? Do you have flex devices like tablets? How do you divide your time between your phone and bigger screens?

Just want to chat on this subject.

Top comments (83)

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d1p profile image
Debashis Dip

Primarily I have 3 computers to be exact.
1) An Intel i7 gaming rig running windows 10.
I can not lie about this one. The core reason I built this workstation is mostly out of love for gaming. This one has two 22inch displays for working purpose and it usually runs windows 10 + Debian for windows for the lite working purpose, and I have a backup HDD with Linux mint installed so that I can use it in any kind of emergency.

2) Macbook pro-2017
I mostly use it because I am balancing my life between university and job where I need to work every possible hour that I can, And this machine lets me work from university library very easily.
The reason I picked MBP was that sometimes I need to use Xcode.

3) Acer potato laptop
I bought this at a time when I had less money and I needed to work outside of my home. Bought the cheapest laptop that I could find and upgraded its ram. Currently, it does nothing except for being a media server.

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

The reason I picked MBP was that sometimes I need to use Xcode.

Apple really handcuffs developers with this.

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paveltrufi profile image
Pavel Razgovorov

Unless you build a Hackintosh 😉

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d1p profile image
Debashis Dip

my previous pc had a unsupported cpu. tried to build one with the current pc, and failed.. seems to be some kind of problem with graphics driver 😶

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paveltrufi profile image
Pavel Razgovorov

Which GPU do you have? Or is it integrated?

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d1p profile image
Debashis Dip

I have a GTX950 2gb as my gpu.
This one is from my old pc.

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paveltrufi profile image
Pavel Razgovorov

Maybe you're missing some setting from the BIOS. Find your model on the Internet and set the recommended settings. Plus, try to boot it with the integrated GPU, then install the Nvidia Webdrivers, and then boot it up with the GTX. Installing a Hackintosh is not easy, but it is worth it 💪🏻

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d1p profile image
Debashis Dip

i will definitely try it in future 😁

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jrtibbetts profile image
Jason R Tibbetts

Apple really handcuffs developers with this.

Some of us like handcuffs. 😉

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d1p profile image
Debashis Dip

worse keyboard ever. Mine failed after 3 months.

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Martin Himmel

I do pretty much everything on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro with a 13" screen. I like versatility and not being tied to a desk. I work from home 4 days a week, of which I spend a lot of time working in coffee shops. 😁

I have a desktop PC (Windows 10), but it's mostly for gaming. Although, since starting to learn Unity and C#, I've included the desktop for that, mostly because it's more powerful/faster.

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Jason R Tibbetts

I do pretty much everything on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro with a 13" screen. I like versatility and not being tied to a desk. I work from home 4 days a week, of which I spend a lot of time working in coffee shops. 😁

Preach!

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adrienpoly profile image
Adrien Poly

I work also mostly out of a mid-2012 15" MBP and with a MacBook Air when I travel. Love both machines they are so robust.

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link2twenty profile image
Andrew Bone • Edited

My Devices are, bare in mind I work support:

1) Work Desktop

  • Core i7, GTX560, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD
  • I use this 4 days a week 08:00 - 16:30

2) Home Laptop (for offsite working)

  • A6-4400M, Radeon HD 7450M, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD (15.6")
  • I work from home a day a week and use this

3) Gaming PC

  • Core i7, GTX1070, 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD
  • I rarely get to use this anymore, shamefully it only gets turned on to be my Minecraft server

4) Nexus 10

  • This is my watch content in bed device, it's ageing a bit now but works

5) Nexus 7

  • This is my morning reading device, I read the news and, more and more often, this blog

6) Work Laptop

  • Core i7, Intel graphic, 16RAM, 120GB SSD (15.6")
  • I rarely use this just if I need to work offsite

I ordered them by how often they're used.

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codevault profile image
Sergiu Mureşan

I am 99% sure GTX 870 for desktops doesn't exist. Maybe a GTX 970?

I used an Eee PC once to run a Minecraft server

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link2twenty profile image
Andrew Bone

I don't know why I wrote 870, I knew it was a 560 😕
I've fixed the comment now.

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jackharner profile image
Jack Harner 🚀

A shitty windows vista era (currently running win10) laptop that can run Illustrator or Photoshop, but not at the same time, choked to death trying to load Atom so I had to switch to Sublime.

A slightly less shitty Ubuntu Desktop that I use for most of my development work at home. It also runs Plex for my growing collection of movies.

At work I have a slightly shitty windows desktop that had the same struggles with Adobe products as my laptop, and a slightly better windows desktop that opens illustrator in like 7 seconds and it's magical.

Plus several different DigitalOcean droplets.

😭 I need a better computer 😭

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jrtibbetts profile image
Jason R Tibbetts

I like how all three are on the shitty spectrum.

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Sergio Daniel Xalambrí

Only one, a 15' MBP 2016 (the first with a touchbar), I bought it because my previous 13' MBP 2015 didn't have enough space to run Docker for a week, it consumed a lot of disk space in logs in the past.

And switched to a MBP due Sketch for doing Frontend development, I spent almost 3 years without never using Sketch but I was told I will use it on a previous job so 🤷‍♂️

I want to now switch back to the previous MBP since the keyboard of this one is terrible 😕and maybe get an iPad to do some non-dev work (like support) without opening a laptop.

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John Hotterbeekx

I usually use my phone for reading small articles, browsing dev.to and watching videos. This transitions over to my tablet laptop (Transformer windows tablet with keyboard dock) which I use for basic browsing, reading and also watching videos.

When developing I mainly use my laptop. For my actual work at the office, I'm using a desktop.

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patrick profile image
Patrick Ziegler • Edited

I have a custom built desktop, a Lenovo laptop, an iPad Mini, and an LG G6.

My desktop runs Linux and I use for everything from playing the occasional game to programming to doing my taxes.

The laptop runs the exact same setup as my desktop and also shares all config and project files with the desktop, either via git or Dropbox. This makes it really easy to seamlessly switch between the two machines without having to setup my dev environment again for a certain project. I mainly use it for coding.

I originally bought the iPad exclusively for university, but it's rather handy to browse code and quickly answer smaller issues when you don't have the laptop around.

The phone's main use is for reading the occasional article and twitter, it's basically a distraction in pocket format. I don't really use it for productivity anymore.

At home I only use the desktop and when I'm at the university, I use the latop or the iPad depending on what I'm working on.

EDIT: I also have a Raspberry PI which for now only runs an IRC bouncer.

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Martin G. Brown • Edited

I have a personal Surface Pro 3. I plug this into my LG 27" 4k via USB and Display port and use the Surface as a second screen. Keyboard and mouse plug in the monitor. If I'm just doing something quick I use the Surface without type cover in Tablet mode.

I also have a Work Dell Precision laptop which plugs into the same LG Monitor when I work at home. When at work it plugs into a dock with a 24"and 22" monitors. It is used as a regular laptop in meetings.

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terceranexus6 profile image
Paula

1- My Lenovo linux laptop
2- The easy-to-carry linux hp mini laptop
3- My even-easier-to-carry RPI 3 with mini screen and raspbian

I use my phone a lot when going out, But I do need to rest from both laptop and mobile phone from time to time!

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Drew Knab

Three of them at the moment.

Work Desktop, Windows 10 where I do a lot of work in C#

Lenovo Thinkpad X220, Linux box where I do a majority of my remote and personal work. 8GB/i5 is fine for web dev, tbph.

2014 MBP 15inch, mostly adopted by my partner. She's using it to learn how to write code at the moment.

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mihaisturza profile image
Mihai-George Sturza

I use 2 computers:

  1. Desktop Setup:
    • Specs: i5 4K, GTX 960 2 GB, 16GB RAM .
    • Purpose: Development and sometimes gaming.
  2. 2018 MacBook Pro 13'':
    • Specs: Base specs.
    • Purpose: Development.

Before the MBP upgrade I had an ASUS laptop with a pretty bad setup that made developing bigger project not possible.

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stacy profile image
Stacy Montemayor

I moved to Mexico earlier this year, and only have what fits into a 50L bag and a small backpack. I move to a new city every 3-4 months, so I keep things sparse.

So, I have my MacBook Air (13" 2017) and my terrible phone: a Moto Z2 Play (my phone broke here, and because of really high import taxes on electronics, a good phone was just too much to stomach), so I have a super high-end mediocre phone.

My big dream addition - if I ever find a place I want to stay at for a serious amount of time - is an external monitor. My kingdom for some screen space!

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

It seems like there's money to be made in a monitor rental service for digital nomads :D

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stacy profile image
Stacy Montemayor

Dare to dream!

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codemouse92 profile image
Jason C. McDonald

Hah, this is a surprisingly difficult number for me to calculate! Most of my computer usage is on my reliable li'l Thinkpad. I also make regular use of the shared tower for more CPU-heavy tasks.

Meanwhile, I've got my family's Windows XP tower from my childhood (the first computer I ever coded on) under my desk, running like brand new. That's mostly for games and such.

Other than that, I've got a bunch of renovated laptops of different sorts, which I use for different testing scenarios. And, I've got an old Macbook for recording, and an old iMac G4 for, basically, randomness.

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dieguito151 profile image
Luis Diego Hernandez

So nice to see so many people using many computers. I was feeling kinda bad about thinking I'm forcing myself to "need" more computers.

Currently I'm using 3 computers but looking to extend the family. But in terms of all devices, as others have shared, I use:

  1. MacBook Pro from work, which now I use solely for work - before I used to use it for both work and sometimes personal stuff after work, like checking social media and stuff. Now I prefer to use another device for that.

  2. Personal MBP that I used to use for work and I use for personal/freelancing work. I do all work outside my job on this one, and I do most browsing and video calls (over Zoom, for example).

  3. Gaming laptop that I rarely use. I sometimes have a big urge of playing WoW or some other thing. I think I use it once a month recently. I was trying some streaming and podcasting setup, which I found to be able to do it more easily on this laptop than on the MBP.

  4. I use an iPad for most of my video consumption. Most of my YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, etc., use is done on the iPad. Also, I use this device for recording instruments on GarageBand (I'm not professional :P) and photo editing on Lightroom.

  5. I also use my phone a lot for voice-only calls, social media, browsing and reading short articles, and also a bit of YouTube, some games, and email.

I guess that I could live without the gaming laptop and the iPad, as I don't play so often and I could do mostly everything I do there on the laptop. Now I'm thinking of getting a Chromebook to do most of my browsing and some social media instead of the personal MBP so I can leave that only for work. I'm finding it really hard to justify, though. I've also thought about getting a Raspberry Pi, but I'd have to get a new monitor probably and all.

Anyway, just wanted to share. I think with the current situation there must be so many interesting setups now!

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Now I feel weird having only one computer and one phone :D

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