Trying to pick a good laptop

[Pizzella]

Hey, I'm a 19 year old young man about to start university. I'm going to be studying Computer Information Systems. I'm looking to get involved with Cyber Security. I'd like to know what type of laptop I'd really need. I don't need to play video games. Any answers help! I don't want to waste my money on some thing that's going to break down and give me problems. I'm not sure how powerful my processor should be. Or how much RAM I should have. Any help's great! I'm looking currently at an ASUS Zenbook Pro UX501VW. Is that a good pick? Should I downgrade? Upgrade?

[fiveworlds]

Graphics card would be an essential especially if you have some modules on game engines etc. Get as good a laptop as you can afford.

 

ASUS Zenbook Pro UX501VW​ would be a good pick the laptop I use has a gtx 940M so it should be slightly better than mine.

[Externet]

With years of experiences, I would suggest to:

 

- Pick the laptop that warms up the least, the cooler it runs the better; and can do what you want, brand not much important.

 

- A removable/swappable hard drive, would be an important convenient bonus. Then you can swap drives with different operative systems.

[Manticore]

Most of the laptops here are Dell, HP or Lenovo. Having spent many years fixing computers, I would say:

 

1) Avoid Lenovo at all costs. Sometimes they break immediately. Sometimes it takes a month or two.

2) Dell is usually a bit more reliable. Some models have no indicator lights other than for power - makes it impossible to know whether or not the Wifi is on - very annoying.

3) HP are generally very tough. I forget which model, but there was one a few years ago with an NVidia graphics chip where they screwed up the cooling bigtime.

 

4) If it's a name you've never heard of - DON"T BUY IT!

[Sensei]

Somebody who would like to run Android SDK, with emulator of mobile phone device, must have 64 bit CPU, which has virtualization feature, and Windows 7+ 64 bit (this is the smallest problem).

It's nearly impossible to write and test any Java application for Android, on 32 bit CPU, because emulator of modern smartphone needs a few GB of memory to be run. With 512 MB or 1 GB it'll be crawling.

Without virtualization emulator won't even start for 2 years IIRC.

Emulator has also some requirements for the gfx card used.

 

Somebody who would like to be good at security must be versatile in programming smartphone, as they're attacked the most these days, and once they're intercepted, they can be used for further attacks in intranet.

CPU should be as fast as possible, to have good emulator speed.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Sensei

[Manticore]

Somebody who would like to run Android SDK, with emulator of mobile phone device, must have 64 bit CPU, which has virtualization feature, and Windows 7+ 64 bit (this is the smallest problem).

It's nearly impossible to write and test any Java application for Android, on 32 bit CPU, because emulator of modern smartphone needs a few GB of memory to be run. With 512 MB or 1 GB it'll be crawling.

Without virtualization emulator won't even start for 2 years IIRC.

Emulator has also some requirements for the gfx card used.

 

Somebody who would like to be good at security must be versatile in programming smartphone, as they're attacked the most these days, and once they're intercepted, they can be used for further attacks in intranet.

CPU should be as fast as possible, to have good emulator speed.

Why Windows 7? Runs fine under Linux - agree about 64 bit & plenty of RAM.

[edit1754]

I would advise against the ASUS Zenbook Pro.

The Zenbook Pro uses a PenTile (RG/BW) not-true-4K display. The RGB in each pixel is replaced with either only RG or only BW. This means you get all the risk for content scaling issues with 4K, without the full sharpness of 4K to "make up for it". ASUS does this on all their current high-res offerings, and it's commonly regarded to be deceptive marketing. You might be interested in the info on this listed on the sidebar at https://www.reddit.com/r/SuggestALaptop/

If your eyes are good, 4K can be nice for software-dev and general productivity, in that you'll be able to turn scaling settings below 200% and get more screen realestate. However if you turn scaling settings below 200% on a not-true-4K display, things might start looking a little weird due to the incomplete matrix. If you're in it for the 4K, true 4K displays can be found in the Dell XPS 15, Lenovo Yoga 720, Lenovo Thinkpad P50, and others I described in this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/videography/comments/657o1r/can_you_beat_this_juiced_up_laptop_asus_zenbook/dg86fn9/

 

If not, a Thinkpad P50 would probably be a great choice even if you're not going for the 4K display option on it. You can bring it to your desired RAM/SSD configs by doing the upgrades yourself.

Edited April 14, 2017 by edit1754

[wtf]

Consider a Mac. Unix under the hood which you'll need to know for cybersecurity. Of course you can always dual-boot your Windows system to Linux but you should look at some Macs anyway. They have some nice laptops and some people much prefer the look and feel of the UI to Windows. Also you can run Windows on Macs too. Just something to consider.

Edited April 16, 2017 by wtf

[Jay Cannobas]

Try to check a laptop that can removed the hard drive for you to just upgrade the hard drive only so you just upgrade the hard drive only in the future and it will be cheaper

[StringJunky]

All the bit's inside are made by the same few manufacturers. Pick the one that does what you want at the best price.

[KipIngram]

Pizella: My employer updates my workstation every four years. This go round I decided to go with an Apple Macbook Air (the 13" model). I was hesitant initially because of my perception that Apple is a "closed" environment, but the other options had very poor battery life and that matters to me, so I took the plunge. It definitely wins the battery life contest - it's better than anything else I've ever used in that regard, though it is important that you pay attention to your setup and make sure you're not running needles power consumers. I can get 12-14 hours of actual work on one charge.

 

As far as the environment being "closed" goes, an online friend brought "Homebrew" (an aftermarket apt-get style package manager) to my attention, and using it I've been able to set the machine up to do everything I could want it to do. I wouldn't say that every single package available on Linux is in Homebrew, but a large number of them are, and particularly the major / popular ones.

 

I'm very, very satisfied, and don't feel that I've given up anything important compared to my personally-owned Linux notebook, which i hardly ever touch anymore.

 

Good luck!

[MigL]

What about the fact that you spent 2.5X more for your MacBook air than a comparable Win10 laptop, Kip ?

And you're getting better battery life because your MB air uses a reduced speed/power i5 processor; don't compare battery life to a full speed/regular power processor which will last less but perform faster.

 

And wait till you have an issue with the battery and need to replace it, or upgrade the m2 SSD.

Edited May 22, 2017 by MigL

[KipIngram]

Well, in my case my employer bought it, so it was a free opportunity to "try out the other side." And I didn't mean to imply that it's a superior machine in all respects - it's just superior to others I've used in the ways that matter to me.

And, most importantly, it turned out not to suffer from what I'd always told myself was Apple's worst problem: limiting, closed ecosystem. I've used an IPad, and I'll never use another because Android tablets / phones provide for so much more flexibility. In the tablet / phone arena I still feel Apple's ecosystem is overly constrictive.

I guess the other thing I'd say about all of this is that I can't overstate my disgust with Windows. If you don't go Apple, then go Linux.

[3blake7]

Just buy whatever you can afford. Macs are less bang for your buck and they aren't very common in the IT world. If you aren't gaming or doing 3D rendering you don't need to worry about the graphics card. 8 GB of RAM should be more than enough for most purposes. The only time I've used more than 8GB is when I was converting 2GB images.

 

The only thing I would recommend is adding a second partition and installing Linux, Ubuntu to be specific. The IT world revolves around Linux so learning it is priceless. If it's not Linux it's Windows but most IT people don't like Windows and only work with it because they have to. I've only run into 1 Apple server, and it's based on Unix so it's similar to Linux on the command line.

 

Some programs you may want to familiarize yourself with:

 

Web servers: Apache, NGINX

Relational Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL

NOSQL Databases: Neo4J, OrientDB

Virtualization: VirtualBox, VMWare

SAN: EMC

Servers: Dell

Load Balancers: F5

HTTP Caching: Varnish

Database Caching: MemcacheD

 

Programming Langauges: PHP, Python, JavaScript, Java

 

Node.js is becoming really popular.

 

Setup an account on OpenShift, it's a free web host. You get 3 free servers. Setup a PHP one, install various PHP web softwares like Drupal or MediaWiki. Setup a Node.js one and install a web framework for it.

 

Have fun tinkering, that's the best advice.

 

If you don't want to do Ubuntu on a second partition, you can also setup VirtualBox and install Ubuntu Server onto a virtual machine. Then use Putty to connect to it (hint: set network to bridged adapter). Then you can install the command line tools for OpenShift onto the Linux server. Once you get comfortable with the Linux command line, you'll come to love it.

 

Since you want to go into cyber security, Cisco is the undisputed reigning champ in the networking world. Their command line is pretty cool. You could check out DD-WRT and try flashing your own router, and tinker with that, might give you some first hand experience.

Edited May 27, 2017 by 3blake7

[StringJunky]

...I guess the other thing I'd say about all of this is that I can't overstate my disgust with Windows. If you don't go Apple, then go Linux.

They are all after your money and data. Some hide it better than others.

[KipIngram]

They are all after your money and data. Some hide it better than others.

 

Yes, that's true. I have also had a very good experience with a Samsun Series 9 unit (Samsung's answer the MacBook Air - very similar form factor, good but not quite as good battery life, etc.) I used it for a while with Windows on it and then for a longer while with Ubuntu. I managed to crack the screen and that made the touch screen misbehave badly enough to make the machine unusable, but I was able to disable the touch screen and it was still perfectly usable.

[Sensei]

 

Yes, that's true. I have also had a very good experience with a Samsun Series 9 unit (Samsung's answer the MacBook Air - very similar form factor, good but not quite as good battery life, etc.) I used it for a while with Windows on it and then for a longer while with Ubuntu. I managed to crack the screen and that made the touch screen misbehave badly enough to make the machine unusable, but I was able to disable the touch screen and it was still perfectly usable.

 

Did you try to get replacement screen?

https://www.google.com/#q=Samsung+Series+9+laptop+display+replacement

[KipIngram]

Yes, they wanted $400+ for it; I decided that I didn't need the touch screen feature that badly. The crack isn't even visible when the screen is on, and is down in one corner.

Edited May 27, 2017 by KipIngram

[pavelcherepan]

Hey, I'm a 19 year old young man about to start university. I'm going to be studying Computer Information Systems. I'm looking to get involved with Cyber Security. I'd like to know what type of laptop I'd really need. I don't need to play video games. Any answers help! I don't want to waste my money on some thing that's going to break down and give me problems. I'm not sure how powerful my processor should be. Or how much RAM I should have. Any help's great! I'm looking currently at an ASUS Zenbook Pro UX501VW. Is that a good pick? Should I downgrade? Upgrade?

 

When choosing a computer/laptop the most important thing is to carefully consider what kind of tasks it will be used for and then go from there. Check what courses you'll be doing and what software you'll be using and use it as a guideline.

 

Personally, I'd be wary of buying an ultrabook, such as the one you're considering. If you'll need to perform very CPU/GPU intensive tasks, temperature will become an issue since ultrabooks, due to their size, have sub-par cooling. Also ultrabooks generally can't have a normal hard drive, only SSD. Which brings a question of whether you'll need to store a large amounts of data on your system. If yes, large SSDs are still very expensive and standard laptop might be a better choice.

 

And personally I'd stay away from Apple, especially as a uni student. It's just not a cost-efficient option.

[Jay Cannobas]

Or you can check this GTX 10-Series Laptops. This one helps me to get my own because of good specs that i need for my work and gaming.