I do all of my development on my laptop. I call it my "mobile development server". Scott Swanson published his Screen Resolution Survey results a couple weeks ago, and I thought I'd get around to chiming in with my thoughts.
My laptop is running an Intel® Pentium 4 Mobile 3.06 GHz hyper-threaded processor, 2GB DDR memory, a 100 GB 7200 RPM drive, and a 16" 1400 x 1050 screen. I also use a second monitor; 1280x1024 at home and 1024x768 at work. Let me say right off, this is not enough. Ok, so maybe I can get by with the hard drive, but I absolutely need more memory and processing power and a higher resolution.
Don't believe me? Here is what I run on my system (usually not ALL at the same time):
- Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition
- Sql Server 2000 – 7 databases
- Sql Server 2005 (Express and Enterprise) – 2 and 24 databases respectively
- Visual Studio 2003 and 2005
- Microsoft Office 2007
- Adobe Creative Suite and Flash 8
- Virtual PC 2005
- IIS6, DNS, POP3, MSMQ
- Symantec Antivirus and Windows Defender
- Desktop Rover
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Other tools, such as:
Sometimes, when I am churning away at SQL and checking email and have half a dozen utilities open, my machine seriously crawls.
So here's what I am looking at buying (if I could afford it):
- Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200 2.0GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB
- 17" 1920 x 1200 screen.
- 4GB DDR2 memory
- Dual 160GB 7,200 RPM drives in RAID 1
If you have any suggestions on a good laptop, let me know.