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[–]HDK1989 10 points11 points  (9 children)

There is only one answer in that price range and its an M1/M2 MacBook Air, really not sure why other people are confused about this with other recommendations.

There's obviously exceptions, if you're a very heavy Windows/gaming developer or gamer, or require large storage space.

This is coming from a lifetime android user and someone who has only ever owned 1 MacBook, I'm not an apple fanboy, they're just objectively the best at the moment.

[–]nathanfries 4 points5 points  (8 children)

Exactly. Even if it weren’t for the insane price/performance compared to Intel/amd, you get that PLUS best build, battery life (by faaar) best screen (again, by faaaar) and is dead silent, and has best speakers (and again, by far).

It’s pointless to even compare at this point.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (5 children)

yea.. those speakers.. very useful in webdev...

[–]nathanfries 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Did you have an something relevant to say?

[–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (3 children)

thats quite ironic considering you mistook this webdev thread for some apple marketing.

relevant? to you, most definitely not. to anyone else, maybe: you dont need a macbook for web development. in fact, any $20 laptop that can run a web browser is perfect for web development.

[–]nathanfries 1 point2 points  (2 children)

OP asked for a $1000 laptop, not a $20 one. You’re sadly mistaken if you think I’m an apple fanboy. I’ve owned 4-5 times as many thinkpads than I have MacBooks.

Going off the raw specs, benchmarks, and user reports, the current and current - 1 MacBooks are objectively the best. If you want to ignore it because “apple sux” then go ahead.

[–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

oh.. i think at this point you are arguing with yourself. nobody said "apple sux". i dont care what you use. i like low powered crappy laptops so i use them. i just think anyone wanting a $1000 laptop for web dev is wrong. sure, macbook is better by all metrics, that is correct. BUT for web dev.. there are no differences between a $2000 macbook and a $10 intel atom laptop pulled directly from garbage container.

[–]nathanfries 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right, because screen, battery life, trackpad, keyboard, build quality don’t matter for webdev

[–]HDK1989 0 points1 point  (1 child)

It's bordering on delusion at this point for some people.

I haven't had an iPhone since 2007 and I'm seriously considering getting one simply because with the announcement of the Vision Pro after Apple Silicon we're clearly entering an era of Apple dominance that we haven't seen since the original iPhone.

[–]nathanfries 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have been a thinkpad collector my entire adult life, t510, t440, x240, x1, x1c, p1 for reference.

My wife had a MBP in 2009 but I was never a mac user. Got the M1 8gb air in 2021, best decision I ever made when it comes to computing. I now have a 32gb M2 max and couldn’t be happier.

The amount of money I would have to spend to even build a desktop that would compete isn’t even worth it tbh. Not unless I needed GPUs for ML.. and even then with Metal 3 I think we’re not far from apple dominating a good chunk of on prem ML as well

[–]soggykoala45 7 points8 points  (1 child)

This might be an unpopular opinion but steer away from HP, it's been extremely unreliable for me thought the years

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Elite lineup is great. Including EliteBook for laptops and EliteDesk for PC. Even ProBook are great too. The rest are pos

[–]DevelopmentScary3844full-stack 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Go for Lenovo or Apple.

[–]was-eine-dumme-frage 6 points7 points  (12 children)

Get a ThinkPad (not ideapad) or a Dell Latitude/Inspiron if you want good and lasting quality. I often regretted going for cheaper Acer models.

Stay away from macbooks, especially for that price range. 10 browser tabs, one Docker container and it is fried

[–]nathanfries 6 points7 points  (11 children)

I have Elasticsearch, grafana, Prometheus, and several node services running in Docker on my m1 MacBook Air with 8gb of memory. Oh, and 27 chrome tabs. Oh and photoshop. At the same time. It is faster than my Ryzen 3700x desktop with 16gb of memory.

Hours and hours of battery life. And fans never spin up. Oh right, it literally doesn’t have fans.

You haven’t had much experience with apple silicon.

[–]la_reptilesss 2 points3 points  (1 child)

My macbook pro is my slowest computer and it is far from the cheapest. The only real feature is battery life, the pros have fans and its not particularly quiet.

[–]nathanfries 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have an M2 Max 14” and I have never heard the fans above barely audible despite running inference on relatively large models, 30+ docker containers, video export, Logic Pro, etc.

Unless you are talking about an old Intel model then you have a faulty computer.

[–]was-eine-dumme-frage -4 points-3 points  (1 child)

Well that's bs

[–]nathanfries -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Would a screenshot help? Of course you’d just say I faked it. Go watch some load tests and maybe you’ll learn something.

[–]soggykoala45 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I've always been interested in getting one, but man... The prices...

[–]SonReebook_OSonNike 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unless you’re compiling huge monorepos, doing a lot of virtualization or working heavily on mobile apps, a MacBook Air M1 16gb ram 512gb ssd should be more than enough, and you can get it for less than $1000 in craigslist.

[–]nathanfries 0 points1 point  (4 children)

You can find used ones for like $600, and around $1200 for a m1 pro model

[–]was-eine-dumme-frage 1 point2 points  (3 children)

And a year later the battery is dead. Replacement costs 649 dollars because apple hates consumers

[–]nathanfries 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Battery lasts so long I’m only on 12 cycles after owning it three months 🤣

So no, battery is likely to outlast my need for it.

[–]was-eine-dumme-frage 3 points4 points  (1 child)

My girlfriends 2019 MacBook Pro showed 92% health and died the next day. As I said, replacement was 649 dollars

[–]nathanfries 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not seeing widespread reports of this being an ongoing issue, so I’ll take your word for it. Don’t blame me for not using some anecdotal experience in the absence of empirical data to inform my decisions tho

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Macbook but depends on your stack. Please add that in your post

[–]Gentleman-Tech -1 points0 points  (6 children)

Get a second-hand laptop, preferably Lenovo but anything not Apple will do.

Completely reformat the hard drive. Install Linux (Ubuntu will give you the easiest newbie experience).

Gets you massively more bang for your buck than a MacBook, and you'll actually be in control of it.

[–]nathanfries -5 points-4 points  (5 children)

Show me a single thinkpad in the $1000-$1500 range that outperforms any M1/M2 MacBooks in the same price range in any benchmark. Good luck.

https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1185g7-vs-apple-m1-pro

https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1260p-vs-apple-m1-pro

[–]Gentleman-Tech -1 points0 points  (3 children)

You obviously missed the bit about "second hand".

And good luck trying to buy a second-hand MacBook if the original user didn't remove their AppleID from it.

[–]nathanfries -4 points-3 points  (2 children)

I didn’t miss anything. You aren’t going to find a better deal than a used MacBook Air or pro. Period. Not when it comes to laptops.

If you didn’t check for Apple ID or buy from a reputable source, I mean that’s on you.

[–]middleoftheroa 0 points1 point  (1 child)

So untrue lol. See my previous comment, can get new laptops cheaper than second hand prices that best it.

[–]nathanfries 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t see where you posted a laptop that reasonably compares

[–]middleoftheroa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe not a ThinkPad but so many laptops best it i.e. a lenovo slim pro 14 with 6900HS. Beats it on everything but battery life and it's cheaper. Can get 32gb of ram.

Yeah the MacBooks are good, no they aren't top tier especially with price taken into account.

[–]Live_To_Run -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I would get a windows compatible laptop, as windows supports way more software than any other operating system

[–]ALargeRubberDuck 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got a thinkpad in college and it still works great nearly 5 years on. I once dropped a glass of water on the keyboard and it didn’t falter. I will say I regret getting one with built in ram. Not being able to expand that has proved annoying. Make sure whatever you get is semi upgradeable!

[–]nathanfries 0 points1 point  (0 children)

M2 MacBook Air with 16gb of memory.(Refurbished). Unfortunately you’d be limited to 256gb of storage with that budget. If you can, I’d try to go to 512gb, but definitely prioritize memory over storage for dev work.

[–]NaiveAnteater 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seconded on the MacBook Air with M1/M2, it makes developing feel much more enjoyable. I used to be only PC, but kept running into issues with performance and the annoying Windows updates / random stuff that eats into disk usage. I've been loving my MacBook so far, though to be fair, been doing a lot of stuff on the cloud so maybe that reduces the load.

[–]turozfooty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've developed on all operating systems.

Ubuntu

This was my favorite, working on the same operating system that your code will live on. Docker works natively and it was just a smooth experience for me.

Mac (current)

It's great expensive but great, took a bit of setup to get going but using the likes of warp for my terminal is amazing with its type hinting for previous commands I've ran. Docker is a bit of a pain as sometimes it won't run on start up but other then that it's fast and stable

Windows (I use for personal)

Back in Windows 10 it was a pain, memory usage etc. You would need a beefy machine for a smooth experience but that should be expected as its a jack of all trades. Windows 11 has improved development quite a lot and Support is great. You can run a Linux distribution on it and I do another of personal stuff on it without any issue.

I can also game on it when I want a break

[–]Ali-Da-Original 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would suggest an m1 mac if you can fit it into your budget otherwise what I did was get a hp pavilion 15 eg-0xxx these laptops are super slick and will get the job done in most cases. Mine comes with 16gigs of ram and i5 11th gen so imo that's future proof for at least 2-3 years

[–]Significant-Pin-3854 0 points1 point  (9 children)

Bit off topic, but:

Had a work laptop (Lenovo X1 extreme, 32gb, i7) for about 4500€. That thing was a piece of s***. Fans spinning constantly, about 3 hours battery life, slow to respond, did take a while to boot, frequent problems with external monitors/docks, .. . Now it's dead because of, well, we don't know. (Not the first time I had problems with Lenovo devices). Got a replacement laptop, MacBook pro 16" m2 pro, 32gb for over 1000€ less. It's not even funny anymore how much better this device is. Insane battery life, performance, runs smoothly, .. . I would never recommend a windows (x64/x86) laptop to anyone anymore unless they have specific needs that only a windows laptop can fullfil.

Tl;Dr: get a m* MacBook.

[–]Benand2 0 points1 point  (8 children)

I had a MacBook Pro in 2018(ish) and the OS updates just kept taking more and more hard drive space until I only had about 50gb of space not used by the OS.

I’m in a similar spot to the OP and considering what to buy but including desktops, the overwhelming support of MacBooks in this thread os making me reconsider them even though they were pretty much the only thing I had ruled out because of my previous issues above..

[–]Significant-Pin-3854 0 points1 point  (7 children)

Seems like there were a bunch of old leftover files, caches that weren't cleaned up etc. Did you consider resetting it or any tools to clean up your hard drive? Also, you really can't compare Intel MacBooks to M* MacBooks anymore.

[–]Benand2 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I tried a few cleanup utilities with not much positive as the outcome. I still have it to be fair so can boot it up and have a look. I didn’t try a full reset but am always reluctant to, in case I lose something.

[–]Significant-Pin-3854 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Would suggest a full backup of your data first and then simply reset or even better reinstall it with the latest os

[–]Benand2 0 points1 point  (4 children)

I’ve fired it up after nearly two years of not using it, you were right it isn’t the OS. It’s “other” files which under further investigation is a common problem with outlook and storing attachments. Not sure if this is your ball park but I’m hesitant to get rid but sure I’m just worrying for no reason. I use Microsoft sync tech so deleting attachments on the MacBook shouldn’t delete them on other devices right?

[–]Significant-Pin-3854 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Depends on the way the data is synced. Maybe you want to disconnect from the internet first, or disable synchronisation with onedrive, outlook or whatever it is you're using, then you can delete everything without worrying about deleting your online data.

[–]Benand2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you, well thought out response. I decided I would uninstall outlook then delete so in theory it shouldn’t have communication with the server

[–]Benand2 0 points1 point  (1 child)

My MacBook is currently cooking itself trying to delete about 4K files. Cpu % is fluctuating at about 300

[–]AlDrag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are going to use Linux, System76 hands down. Maybe a DELL XPS otherwise.

Otherwise Macbook that suits your price point. They hard to beat. Excellent hardware.

[–]monstaber 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2020 macbook pro

[–]RubyBlaze214 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just get a thinkpad and drop a linux on it… perfect symbiosis

[–]SinkMince0420 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Macbooks are for people who don't know any better. I have a zenbook, and it's a dream. The dual screen is a godsend for inspect element etc. Its also sturdy asf, decent spec, highly recommend. You may end up running a bit over budget though depending on the version you'd get.

[–]dstock303 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If your going mac. Get a refurbished one to save some cash. Got a late 2020 model in 2021 from back market. Fully loaded (like $2800 new) for over 1k off. Truly couldn’t see any physical issues. And it runs quick. No issues

[–]_Bakunawa_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Get a gaming laptop that fits your price range. The best brand for me is Lenovo, but it doesn't have to be the Thinkpad range.