This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission. Thanks.
So, I often get asked what the best computer for doing software development is and I kind of hate that question because the answer is it depends. Are you only going to use it for software development? What else do you want to do on it? What operating system do you want? What kind of development are you going to be doing? So ya. It depends and arguably you could do development from just your phone. Nothing special needed. However, I will do my best to make a top 5 list of best laptop choices for software development (in no particular order).
1. MacBook Pro 13”
Okay so this is a hot topic but I love using a MacBook for development. I’ve been using them for years and never had issues. It’s also a must-have if you are doing ruby development as you may run into issues with it on a PC. The reason I say a 13” MacBook Pro is because the 16” versions don’t have the M1 chip yet. It is on its way but not out yet. When that comes out I will be updating this for that instead. You can never have too much real estate when developing especially for web developers. If you are looking to do App development and want to support apple devices an iMac or MacBook Pro will be a must-have as you need them to compile your apps and release them to the store. If you are a game engineer the screens on the MacBooks are incredible and with the new M1 chips you shouldn’t have any issue with processing power although they may run a little hot. I also get the higher RAM and storage because I would rather have more and not need it than need it but not have it.
2. Razer Blade 15
If you are leaning more towards a pc the razer blade 15 with a RTX 3070 is a great choice. I love this laptop because is a beast and super portable. I used to have this laptop for traveling because I liked that I could do work and gaming on the laptop. If you want a lot of power in a small laptop this is a great choice. The screen is also amazing. It also has plenty of processing power for the game developers and a great screen for them to work on. If you are doing .NET development (not core but anything other than core) you will want to opt for a PC as you won’t be able to do it on a mac. Again I opt for the higher ram and if possible get more storage. I also opt for the 3070 instead of the 3060 because I use it for gaming and would rather have the power than not. The extra power is also a must if you are going to be doing game development or video processing.
3. Asus ROG Zephyrus
This is actually the current laptop that I have as my travel laptop. It is such a beast of a computer for a great price. It isn’t too heavy and has enough power for gaming as well as web development. If you want the best screen around this isn’t the best choice you get a lot for your money with this laptop. You get a great amount of storage and RAM in a small laptop for around $2000. I have last years’ version and since then they have unfortunately raised the prices I think due to the expense of the new graphics cards but I still think this years’ is a great choice for a great price. They do have a cheaper option with a 3060 instead of a 3070 personally I think it’s worth the extra for the better graphics card but I also play some graphics-intensive games. Again if you are doing .NET development (not core but anything other than core) you will want to opt for a PC as you won’t be able to do it on a mac.
4. Surface Pro
I have always found surface pros really interesting. At this point, they are a great very portable option. However, they are more like tablets which bother some people. They do run the full Windows OS and can definitely handle web development. I wouldn’t choose this if you are a game developer as I don’t think it would have enough processing power. But if you are looking for a lightweight very portable option for development definitely check one of these out! One these I actually opt for the cheaper options because you won’t be using this for much more than web development or basic web browsing and I don’t think it’s worth the extra cost for the upgraded version with more RAM and storage as the lower version can handle everything you’d be doing on it. Again if you are doing .NET development (not core but anything other than core) you will want to opt for a PC as you won’t be able to do it on a mac although visual studio (the full IDE) does take a good amount of processing power usually so if you will be doing this I would consider the upgraded version of the surface
5. Dell XPS 15
If you are a .Net developer or work in a PC shop you will most likely have used this before or may currently be using it. Say what you will about dell but I never had issues developing on an XPS. They are a super solid option if you are doing web development as they are plenty powerful but don’t have all the bells and whistles that you pay extra for in other computers. I don’t think they are the best option for gaming devs or people who want to also use their laptops for gaming but if you just want to use your computer for development this is a very solid and cheap option.
*Bonus MSI Stealth
I have always been a huge MSI fan. My first laptop was an MSI and lasted over 5 years. They are a little more pricey but they have great customer service and are built really well. This MSI laptop will be able to handle anything and everything and is definitely a great investment especially if you are a game developer or would like to play games on this laptop as well. They do have cheaper versions of this laptop with similar specs. But, these are the specs I would go for especially if you are doing any gaming. If you don’t care a lot about refresh rate or playing a lot of processor-heavy games you can definitely go with the cheaper version though and they are still a great choice.
I hope this helps you when deciding on your next laptop you really can’t go wrong with any of the options just keep in mind the type of development you want to do and what else you may want to do on the laptop.
Latest comments (49)
Just add the M1 MacBook Air to that list. That's my current device and it's awesome!
The Thinkpad T14 (amd) is a beast, and it's very useful for CPU-intensive development.
Thinkpads for Windows environment because of - quality, durability, customisation and ECC memory.
If you are on a budget buy refurbished t530 or t430.
If you want light small stuff, x1 carbon.
Dont care about the monies, want portability and casual gaming, x1 extreme with undervolting and repasting is the best choice.
Cons for other:
What about System76 I have never used them but they seem like descent laptops.
i have also never used them but a few people mentioned them going to have to do some more research and get one to try it out lol
I want to buy a new laptop, above described laptops are super amazing BUT they're out of mu budget.
So please can you suggest me a laptop about 60k price? My work includes Coding and Web development(React,Node) only(no gaming, editing or etc)
ya for sure! not really sure what your budget is but this macbook air i think would be more than fine for just development and web browsing: amzn.to/3vluoHS
you could prob get away with this one but may need an external hard drive: amzn.to/3gxNIwd
same with this one amzn.to/3cGU2jC
I am not a huge fan of lenovo but plenty of people love them and this is a pretty good deal as well: amzn.to/2Tz3E9o
hope this helps!
Surprised no ThinkPads came up in this list - you can get ex-corporate ones for super cheap. I'm using an e470 with upgraded RAM and new battery, total cost ~£170? Compiling things takes a while, but it's never felt slow. Battery life is amazing, and Linux support is great.
I'm using a Lenovo Legion with Arch Linux running on it, and can only recommend. Linux runs pretty well on Lenovo machines to begin with (I even once heard that most Linux distros are tested/developed on Lenovos, no guarantee on that, though...), the gaming specs allow for several VMs, IDEs and othe resource hogs to run smoothly at the same time and it boots up in a matter of seconds. I know a lot of people running on Lenovo Yogas as well, Manjaro or Ubuntu are also possible options. Only "downside": getting the RGB keyboard backlight running is a bit painful :D
I feel like you shouldn't recommend laptops for others. What's important is explaining what specs are good and why that is.
I wouldn't consider Win vs Mac vs Nix much of a critical choice nowadays. My primary desktop OS is Windows, and has been that way for 99% of the time. I am very familiar with it, I like PC gaming very much, and I don't want to move from it. But I develop software, specifically for the web, and it's just so much more convenient to do this under Nix: the tools are amazing, and this is likely going to be the environment where my software will be run. There being many others like me, Microsoft did us all a nice, and added WSL. Suddenly, this is no longer a choice I have to make: WSL2 allows me to have Linux natively, and that brings LXC which enables Docker. And if you can Docker, you can whatever. As a result, I have 0 tools installed in my Win10 desktop OS (apart from the IDE, which of course runs and looks much better in the native OS); and yet all the tools I need are available to me at least as conventiently as before. The WSL environment is the perfect place to contain things like Git, which is usable for every project, and which is required for the tooling I use (like PHPStorm). Every project I start gets a Docker environment configuration which contains all of the pre-requisites for that program, and I can deploy an app atomically and with extreme ease and reliability. Modern tooling like IntelliJ software integrates with WSL (such as to run Git), and allows for remote interpreters (including inside Docker containers), which it connects to in order to run PHP and tools built with PHP (like Composer). Because all of the configuration in the Docker environment is known (you configure it, and simply commit it to the project), it becomes possible to also ship the IntelliJ project configuration with the source (like on Github), and any contributors immediately get the same environment like myself, which allows them to gets started without delay, and without having to re-configure their environment every time they switch to a different project. Here's an example of a template for such a project:
github.com/Dhii/php-project
As for the laptop itself, I have Razer Blade Pro 17, and it's very good for both gaming and development (and I guess for everything else too, therefore). The only complaints I have:
That said, I guess at least some of those issues are due to the somewhat esoteric setup I have (WSL, Docker, Discord, etc). I use 3 virtual desktops, and each one typically has quite a few Chrome tabs open, not to mention the IDE, entertainment stuff like Spotify and Youtube, various messengers, steam, time tracking and project management software, etc etc. Also, as I research and understand the problems deeper, I am able to circumvent them much more easily - like shutting down WSL when I'm not using it in order to save power (this also sometimes remedies its insomnia), or manually selecting the sound i/o channels when they get mixed up by the OS or specific applications. As soon as it is plugged in, though, everythin works lightning fast. Overall, this is an excellent product, and IMO is the most powerful portable PC solution that doesn't look like a toy (yes, I'm looking at you, Alienware). It is very expensive, but not as expensive as the top range Macs (sometimes considerably cheaper). Highly recommended despite the problems I listed. In fact, since it is apparently impossible to ship anything with a LiIo (or any other volatile) battery to my country, I had to order it 3 times, waited 10 months, and paid out of my butt for all that stuff, but even despite the fact that a newer model came out a couple of months after I got mine, making it instantly obsolete and thus causing a price drop, it was totally worth the wait.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Microsoft, IntelliJ, Razer, or any of the other brands, companies, or organisations that I have listed, in any way whatsoever.
For ops and terminal guys who crazy about cli and tui workflows, cheap netbook or Chromebook is more than enough.