Good laptop for mobile development.

nukes · Aug 2014

Hey everyone,
Can you recommend the best price/performance laptop
For using 3dsmax and unity.(low poly work,mobile).
Budget max 1000 $
I know that most of them could work, but maybe you come
Across something nice for ergonomics, performance and price.

Thanks

Chimp · Aug 2014

Unless there is a very specific requirement for portability, i'd never suggest a laptop really. especially not a 600 quid (1000 usd) laptop. Getting a desktop will always be many times more powerful for the price.

Even for mobile though? Won't a low-end laptop do? That might sound outragous but there are unexpected annoyances that come with lower end machines and games development that aren't all about whether it can run the game.

- Compile times can be a nightmare. Waiting 5 minutes each time you make a change and compile is hell for getting good work done.

- Baking lightmaps is another one that wants more than most low priced laptops want to offer.

to name a couple.

BUT if you really must be portable, prioritise processor and RAM along with SSD. Graphics don't matter at all, you're doing a mobile title - it'll run fine and you can test on device.

Oh, and don't get a big screened laptop in this price range. its a waste of money for what will invariably be a sub-par display at that price. Use that money to bump up the specs instead. If you really need the realestate, just plug into a monitor wherever you're going. Keep one at the office and at home or something. Or wherever you go.

Recommendation wise, I can't really recommend much, I've not bought a sub-2k laptop in years sadly for the above reasons.

TLDR: I'd build a really powerful desktop for that price over getting a sub-par laptop, but if you really must - prioritise cpu, ram and SSD over graphics and display.

Edit: I like your work

nukes · Aug 2014

thanks man (good indie stuff you got there),
currently i work mostly freelance/short contracts and can't carry around a big desktop. I just need something to work on.(maybe do a bit of rendering too).
So here's the cheapest laptop I found with I7,8GB ram,8GB SSD.
I hope will do

Laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Z5070 cu procesor Intel® CoreTM i7-4510U 2.00GHz, Haswell, 8GB, 1TB + 8GB SSD, nVidia GeForce 840M 4GB, FreeDOS, Silver
965$

Chimp · Aug 2014

Looks alright, I did use a Lenovo (not the same model) for a while, it's build quality was surprisingly good and performance was decent - it was the Yoga 13 (top spec.) was a bit out of your price range at the time, but that was a year or more ago so it might have dropped since

cookedpeanut · Aug 2014

A Clevo or Eurocom laptop - I personally use an SLI Clevo P370SM.
That said a Lenova is a good choice too, they're built well...

Good laptop for mobile development.

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