Just want to know because i wish to acquire 1 for a programming course.

Need a professional advise Please. Though I have a normal size laptop 15 inch screen but cannot afford to carry it to lectures because of the weight.

why not i have one,with linux on it and works well for me.

Thanks, does the ram and cpu speed matter? Can it be used for any type programming?

pc guru: why not i have one,with linux on it and works well for me.

You had better buy the most powerful laptop your money can stretch to. Nuff said.

iykeG: Thanks, does the ram and cpu speed matter? Can it be used for any type programming?

yes ofcourse, it more than matters. imagine opening fireworks, dreamweaver, google chrome, opera, firefox, opera mobile emulator, notepad++, 3 explorer folders, 2 reference ebooks, ..etc etc and other services like modem dashboard, anti virus and others running



My advice, get a gaming laptop, something like dell alienware if you can afford it . but as beaf said, get the best your money can afford.

spikes C:

yes ofcourse, it more than matters. imagine opening fireworks, dreamweaver, google chrome, opera, firefox, opera mobile emulator, notepad++, 3 explorer folders, 2 reference ebooks, ..etc etc and other services like modem dashboard, anti virus and others running



My advice, get a gaming laptop, something like dell alienware if you can afford it . but as beaf said, get the best your money can afford.

Will 120K get me a good gaming laptop i can use for for complex stuffs like 3d animation , programming and co...

iykeG: Just want to know because i wish to acquire 1 for a programming course.

A hundred and twenty thousand will get you a decent laptop with minimum of 4gb of RAM which is what matters most.As some pointed out,if you have an application server,a dbms,your favorite IDE,a browser and other tools you use open in a system,you will need a lot of memory so that the computer can run smoothly or you will not like it.

naija_swag:

A hundred and twenty thousand will get you a decent laptop with minimum of 4gb of RAM which is what matters most.As some pointed out,if you have an application server,a dbms,your favorite IDE,a browser and other tools you use open in a system,you will need a lot of memory so that the computer can run smoothly or you will not like it.

Don't you think 4gig RAM is perfect..

Kslib:
Don't you think 4gig RAM is perfect..

naija_swag:

A hundred and twenty thousand will get you a decent laptop with minimum of 4gb of RAM which is what matters most.As some pointed out,if you have an application server,a dbms,your favorite IDE,a browser and other tools you use open in a system,you will need a lot of memory so that the computer can run smoothly or you will not like it.

Most of the decent laptops you will find around here,that is if you live in Nigeria have 4gb of ram,although not all the 4gb are usable but thats okay even if you have memory intensive softwares like visual studio or oracle rdbms installed

Get at least 4gb of RAM and a real processor (e.g. Core 2 Duo and above). A high resolution screen is tremendously helpful too.

The Higher the ram the better, i use 3 but out of all the 3 laptops the one that runs emulator fine is the 6GB QuadCore laptop, because if you enter more demanding areas you will need a lot of ram.

iykeG: Just want to know because i wish to acquire 1 for a programming course.

Just use your normal laptop & it will serve you perfectly. though it's possible to manage a mini-laptop for programming, but you'd need to be more technically savy to do that. I have both a full 15-inch laptop and a net-book but i rarely touch the full laptop, i use the netbook for everyday programming because i know how to maximize it's use. eg: I replaced it's original 1-gig ram with 2-gig, i don't use any fancy IDE on it, just notepad++ and it serves me for all the programming i ever want. I browse with google chrome or opera(don't touch IE & safari. occasionally firefox ) So using a netbook will mean using very light loads on it.

okeyxyz:

Just use your normal laptop & it will serve you perfectly. though it's possible to manage a mini-laptop for programming, but you'd need to be more technically savy to do that. I have both a full 15-inch laptop and a net-book but i rarely touch the full laptop, i use the netbook for everyday programming because i know how to maximize it's use. eg: I replaced it's original 1-gig ram with 2-gig, i don't use any fancy IDE on it, just notepad++ and it serves me for all the programming i ever want. I browse with google chrome or opera(don't touch IE & safari. occasionally firefox ) So using a netbook will mean using very light loads on it.

Bruv, this isn't practical. I doubt that he will be using notepad++ for his course or have much leeway in choice of IDE to instal. His school will most likely impose super heavyweight stuff like eclipse and Visual Studio.

Question now is, can you get a mini laptop with that much RAM? Just asking because i would`t mind getting one myself. I face the same challenge as OP because the regular laptops are damn too heavy for me.

Yes, they are but what kind of programming? If you are taking a programming course, a netbook will surely be enough, being that you need it just for the course and consider also if you will like to continue software development and move to advanced areas and budget.

A lot of people asking you to buy some high end gaming laptop may not have had an experience of what resources is really needed to do what, just get the biggest sledge hammer to kill the smallest ant (a programming course). This is obviously bad advice especially if you are on a tight budget. For a course, you will never have to worry about the kind of issues real life applications need to do, so you should get a tool that gets your job done. Just FYI, I have actual development experience on commercial software on Windows, Linux and Mac and actively dev on Mac and Linux projects every week. My work Mac and AMD laptop are high end machines and you will not need either for a university course, especially if you are on a budget.

For the last poster ^, I have used an HP Mini with 1 GB and and Intel Atom processor running Linux and it was decent, will surely work for dev work on a budget or not so large. Now, if you work on a project where you will have to kick off build on Mozilla Firefox, you will need much more than a netbook. Or, if you will like to kick off multiple compilations on several cores to make the build process faster, then you will also need a higher specs but definitely not for a university programming course.

Neva knew NL serious minded peeps? Thot it was al abt gals,how 2 Bleep,wizkid drops new joint feat 2pac,Jayz comes 2 naija etc... Sha me get my own,I no like laptop,how do u tell if its true

I wanna be a programmer

MrOldskool (JP):
Neva knew NL serious minded peeps? Thot it was al abt gals,how 2 Bleep,wizkid drops new joint feat 2pac,Jayz comes 2 naija etc... Sha me get my own,I no like laptop,how do u tell if its true

A lot serious people are here that will give good advice when you need them.

I find laptops heavy and prefer mini. So what i did was to get the two - my main laptop is more or less like a desktop, while i prefer the mini for taking out anywhere else. . . . . . . .

cigie: I wanna be a programmer

Yes you can bro. Just make Google your best friend.

Like a lot of people have advised, don't stretch your budget. However, there is nothing wrong in planning for future computing requirements. A netbook might be ok for your programming work now but what about your computing needs? will it also suffice? Sometimes you will need to write programs that require running and accessing a database, in that case would you be buying another pc to run your database when you'd be better off running that on your machine (atleast for the duration of the development). I'd advise you go for something higher, definitely not a gaming laptop as they are always very expensive, u actually pay for some computing resources (e.g huge Video memory, separate GPU etc) which you don't need. But go for something a little modest, a core i3 with 4G RAM (2G) and 250G HDD would do the magic.

By all means avoid anything less than this specs.

getting a mini-laptop when you could have gotten a better one is a bad decision... Just know that Most SDKs are more than 700mb..

pls can i use hp pavillon 6000

iykeG: Just want to know because i wish to acquire 1 for a programming course.

From a programmers view, I'll say get a better laptop coz the processor speed for a mini is very small and this could make the system very slow. Just imagine u̶̲̥̅̊ have netbeans, oracle, .Netframe work and other normal software, before you'll be able to open any thing on the mini, I go cook beans and e go done before e open; in rare cases it might crash the OS.Most times the screen resolution matters coz most programming sofftwares won't open on a mini because of the screen resolution. I ƌ̲̣̣̣̥ợ̣̣̇̇̇ lots of programming and web design so I know this stuffs. Try to get an HP laptop, if possible a core i3 or core i7 (they have large ram size and processor speed and are cheap)

CyberG: Yes, they are but what kind of programming? If you are taking a programming course, a netbook will surely be enough, being that you need it just for the course and consider also if you will like to continue software development and move to advanced areas and budget.

A lot of people asking you to buy some high end gaming laptop may not have had an experience of what resources is really needed to do what, just get the biggest sledge hammer to kill the smallest ant (a programming course). This is obviously bad advice especially if you are on a tight budget. For a course, you will never have to worry about the kind of issues real life applications need to do, so you should get a tool that gets your job done. Just FYI, I have actual development experience on commercial software on Windows, Linux and Mac and actively dev on Mac and Linux projects every week. My work Mac and AMD laptop are high end machines and you will not need either for a university course, especially if you are on a budget.

For the last poster ^, I have used an HP Mini with 1 GB and and Intel Atom processor running Linux and it was decent, will surely work for dev work on a budget or not so large. Now, if you work on a project where you will have to kick off build on Mozilla Firefox, you will need much more than a netbook. Or, if you will like to kick off multiple compilations on several cores to make the build process faster, then you will also need a higher specs but definitely not for a university programming course.

Guy, you know what you're talking about- Best advice.

nope

They are just too small and not good for multitasking

*dhtml:
I find laptops heavy and prefer mini. So what i did was to get the two - my main laptop is more or less like a desktop, while i prefer the mini for taking out anywhere else. . . . . . . .

Just what am planning on doing. . .my Pavillion-DV7 dey fall my hand; I've had to pay excess luggage charge because of it on a few occasions!

Much appreciated

cigie: I wanna be a programmer

Well cry NL an ocean, you will wake-up tomorrow no closer to your goal if all you do is cry. So, what are you gonna do to move towards your objective? I know in Nigeria, except web dev, it might be really hard to get a place where you can get some exposure or development experience but you just have to start somewhere.

DammyFx: They are just too small and not good for multitasking

true. I could never depend on a mini. Try multi tasking and you could be stuck with a freezed screen!