Lots of companies make PCs today. And this article is written specifically for the thousands of developers who use a Windows Development Environment for working. Many of you may not have the $$$$ to spend on the best experience, so I am trying to provide the best guidelines on what to get based on years of my own research on this topic.
Let us make somethings clear at the very beginning:
- I know the new generation loves to use thin and light laptops for coding, but note that I have definitively found that even very old desktops are much, much faster than the latest and greatest, super expensive $7K workstation laptops.
I do get that you can get better flow in thin and light laptops. The way to do that would be RDP into a more powerful desktop from a thin and light laptop.
- Because a lot of the experience revolves around Windows 10 which usually sucks, to deal with hardware issues, it is best to build your own desktop “by hand” so that you can easily replace or upgrade hardware. This article does not deal with this scenario.
As a note, I have never in my life got an Intel CPU for a build. I have never been able to agree with a business model which forces consumers to buy a new motherboard just to upgrade the CPU. I have only ever had AMD CPUs. I think one of the newer Ryzen Chips with a large number of CPU cores as well as GHz would make a great CPU for a custom build.
Apple vs. Microsoft
Apple makes the best laptops period. This article is not about comparing the Apple and Windows ecosystem.
Apple wins hands down on stability and “laptop” use cases. The best version of Windows was Windows XP. Everything which has come later has been worse. I have used more Windows PCs than Apple PCs in my life. Apple wins in every way when compared to Windows PCs because:
- Backup just works & you never, ever lose data — no matter what.
- Restore just works from any Mac to any other Mac — it does not matter whether it is a Mac “Desktop” or Laptop.
- Sleep and resume from Sleep works flawlessly.
- Safari is the best browser to use.
