- I'm not much of a gamer
- I do want to do some programming
- I'd prefer the storage to be in SSDs
- I have never had a laptop beyond straight off the shelf
Well, given that I'd focus on the following:
- Memory, get minimum 16GB
- 4 core processor, with programming you're going to be running several apps at once, and the compiler can make use of the cores
- Screen resolution, With programming you really do want more pixels, again you'll have several programs running at once
- SSD, Yes, definitely.
Beyond that you need to figure out how often you plan on moving or carrying it. If you're carrying it everywhere with you and pulling it out in a variety of places, do NOT get a 17" laptop. Not unless you already know that you cannot live with a 15" screen.
Gaming laptops suck way too much power. It's not worth it unless you're a heavy gamer, so don't get high end stuff, and in fact the latest Intel HD mobile graphics stuff is perfectly fine for the average gamer, but is much nicer on battery life.
If you're already considering an expensive laptop (and anything over $1,200 is "expensive" for the purposes of my post) and you believe you'll be using it on battery power a lot, then you should seriously consider a Macbook Pro. It'll cost twice as much as similar hardware outside apple, but the battery charger/controller is years ahead of any other laptop maker. The batteries last longer (charge/discharge cycles), and they last longer (use time between charging). Now, you're going to be running windows on it, so it simply won't be as good as if you're running OSX in terms of power usage, but it'll still be significantly better than windows on any other off the shelf laptop. My 2011 17" macbook pro with AMD graphics and a 4 core processor five years later still gives me 3-4 hours of general usage, and when new it gave me 8 hours. Today they're chasing the thin/light dragon, but they still try to give you 8 hours of wifi/internet/video usage, which is a step above most off the shelf laptops.
While the apple screens and keyboards are very, very good, unless you're really interested in battery life then they probably don't justify the additional cost, and, again, battery life shouldn't be a concern unless you plan on using it away from a plug several times a week for extended periods. Any laptop you get now will do just about any kind of work for 2 hours at a time without being plugged in, and will charge quickly when plugged in.
Try to get a laptop with an
M.2 or soldered on SSD. It'll be faster and more efficient than a SATA SSD, in both performance and energy cost, and the cost difference isn't significant.
[DOUBLEPOST=1480394258,1480394235][/DOUBLEPOST]Fucking Amazon links.
