Sony Z series? The screen might be a bit small though (13") FWIW, when working at my desk at home, I have two monitors connected (one via HDMI, and one via a USB video card), so I don't really use the laptop panel at all.
I wouldn't be too hung up about the >8GB of RAM. 8GB SoDIMMS are only just starting to come out now. So you might find that a machine rated at 8GB max (2 x 4GBs) can actually support 16GB (2 x 8GBs) provided the chipset has this support. You just need to upgrade the RAM internally down the track. I'd also get an SSD for the best improvement to performance IMHO. Cheers Ken From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Craig van Nieuwkerk Sent: Tuesday, 30 November 2010 8:25 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: Re: [OT] Developer Laptop VMs use a lot of ram but also it is not a single program. Currently I have 8 applications running that I am using, not including things like services in the tray. Craig. On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Wallace Turner <w.tur...@fex.com.au<mailto:w.tur...@fex.com.au>> wrote: out of curiosity, what programs are you running that use up 8 GB ram ? VMs? Or future proofing? (to a degree) On 30/11/2010 8:13 AM, James Chapman-Smith wrote: Hi folks, I've been using a Dell XPS M1710 laptop now for the nearly the last 4 years. It's been a good little beast and it still performs better than many of the newer machines that I get lumbered with on some client sites. It is now time for me to upgrade. Being a development machine I want good graphics, lots of screen real estate (1920x1200 preferred) and memory (12GB+). I've initially looked at the latest Dell offering - the XPS 17<http://www1.ap.dell.com/au/en/home/notebooks/xps-17/pd.aspx?refid=xps-17&s=dhs&cs=audhs1&%7Eck=mn> - it looks good, it can be configured with 16GB of RAM, but it only has 1680x900 resolution. The XPS 15<http://www1.ap.dell.com/au/en/home/notebooks/xps-15/pd.aspx?refid=xps-15&s=dhs&cs=audhs1&%7Eck=mn> offers 1920x1080 but has an 8GB RAM limit. The other Dell offerings are getting old so I'd like to avoid them. So it might be time to jump ship from Dell. I'm looking for advice from my fellow devs on which laptop brands and/or models are highly regarded. I'm happy to pay for quality. What laptop can anyone recommend for my next dev machine? Cheers. James.
