7 ms·

A laptop targeted to developers should have a TrackPoint to move the cursor without taking the hands off the keyboard, a non-shortscreen monitor to see more lin

A laptop targeted to developers should have a TrackPoint to move the cursor without taking the hands off the keyboard, a non-shortscreen monitor to see more lines of code, a matte screen to read the code better, and a numpad to, well, type numbers. OK, I guess I'm asking too much for today's standards, even if all these things were common ten years ago (sigh...), but when I saw "developer edition" I thought I would see at least two of these four features, and I see none. This is just a standard high-end laptop. Disappointing.

nezza-_- 13y ago
I don't think a numpad is necessary, developers normally don't type that many numbers (except maybe 0 and 1).
- Thrall 13y ago
  I agree that a numpad isn't really necessary. The keys I miss on a laptop keyboard are: - Home, end, pgup, pgdown - Delete - Function keys that are just F-keys, not volume/brightness controls that act as F-keys when you press a 'function' modifier key.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    My work provided Lenovo w530 has all these. The F-keys do have volume and brightness controls on them, but you have to hit the Fn key to do that, pressing just F4 gives you 'F4'. It's not as stylish as a MacBook Pro though.
- astrodust 13y ago
  If you do spreadsheet work based on numbers, a number pad comes in handy. Some developers have to do estimates or accounting where this applies. I only have a full-sized keyboard to get the arrow keys. Being able to smack "Enter" in the corner is a nice bonus.
davidw 13y ago
Agreed about the screen - it's annoying. But pretty much everything has those stupid HD style screens these days. I thought the glossy screen would bother me. It doesn't. Numpad? Never used one. Trackpoint? Not my style - I mostly navigate with the keyboard and the trackpad just launches the pointer into the window I need active, and then focus follows it!
- kbenson 13y ago
  I've never really understood the attraction of focus follow mouse, and it's especially confusing to me when the preference comes from someone who professes to mostly navigate using the keyboard.
  - Thrall 13y ago
    If you're using the mouse, not having focus follows mouse means you have to click twice to activate something in a window without focus, which from my point of view as someone who uses focus-follows-mouse, is pointless and irksome. When I'm not using the mouse, I change the focus with the keyboard (In my setup, focus follows mouse only when the mouse moves).
    - kbenson 13y ago
      That depends entirely on your window manager. I generally run a customized Fvwm2 setup, so that's all easy to tweak. In my setup, focus follows mouse only when the mouse moves That makes much more sense to me.
  - rootbear 13y ago
    Over the years, my work style on Unix style systems had come to depend on focus following the mouse, but also, importantly, the focused window NOT coming to the front. Combined with the ability to "push" a window to the bottom of the stack when I'm done with it allows me to have lots of shell windows I can work with simultaneously. I can move the mouse into a partially hidden window, run a command, and then go back to my main window without a lot of fuss. I am constantly frustrated by the inability to push down windows in Windows and OS X, or to interact with a background window. (Yes, some apps on the Mac allow limited interaction without bring the window to the front, but it's not enough for me.) I feel crippled by the weak window controls on Macs and Windows PCs systems. Getting rid of the top window by iconifying it, or by dragging the window I want to the top is NOT the same. Expose on Mac was nice, until they changed it. I suppose I should figure it out again. I'm sure that if I had learned windowing system on a Mac or Windows PC, I'd find that natural and I'd have developed different work styles. But I've got thirty years of experience with highly flexible window managers and miss these features on less capable systems.
mseebach 13y ago
The operative word is "Linux", not "Developer".
old-gregg 13y ago
Logged in to upvote you. I would also add that a proper keyboard which doesn't resemble typing on mashed potatoes would also be my requirement. Even Thinkpads have degraded to a calculator-quality cheap uniform keyboard without oversized keys copied from Sony/Apple... Ugh...
thirdsight 13y ago
Someone who gets it! I'm doomed to stay with a 2010 vintage Lenovo T-series by the looks.
- angersock 13y ago
  ...using tools from the late 70s/early 80s no doubt (vim, emacs, etc.)
  - kbenson 13y ago
    Unix, DOS/Windows, etc. Just because it was originally conceived and created then, doesn't mean there hasn't been a fair amount of evolution in those products since that time.
  - thirdsight 13y ago
    Yes indeed. Vim+FreeBSD+C Nothing has shown itself as significantly better yet.
  - sigzero 13y ago
    There isn't anything better than Vim or Emacs. Sorry.
    - angersock 13y ago
      For text editing, sure. For an IDE for, say, C/C++, Visual Studio beats it soundly. For Java, Eclipse. All that said, these tools are quite useful despite being old--I don't mean anything pointing out their age other than that a somewhat old laptop is probably still quite sufficient.
      - brianpgordon 13y ago
        Eclipse? Surely you mean IntelliJ IDEA.
- yapcguy 13y ago
  The problem with the new T440p, and the entire Lenovo line in general, is the awful keyboard and trackpad. They moved to a chiclet style keyboard in the previous generation, removed the top row of keys, and have now inverted the function keys so they perform media functions first. In order to get an F4 you have to press Fn+F4. Ridiculous! Also they have removed the physical buttons surrounding the trackpad. Previously, one of the nice things about the trackpoint was the ability to have your finger moving the trackpoint while your thumb took a rest on the middle button. Being able to feel the physical buttons you always knew exactly which button you were going to click. Now with the Apple style trackpad, you get no textual feedback at all.
ytdtty 13y ago
A numpad? Wth?
rayiner 13y ago
I quite disagree. A touchpad doesn't require appreciably more movement off the keyboard than a trackpoint (I used a trackpoint Dell machine for years). Matte screens are bad for reading code, because they create a layer of gritiness that reduces the sharpness of text. Glossy screens with good room lighting are far superior. Finally, a wide-screen 13" display is just about the right size to fit two 80-character Emacs windows side-by-side.
- vadman 13y ago
  The difference between 16:10 and 16:9 (HDTV proportions) screens is appreciable though, the former is better for dev work. Although I cannot imagine doing any work on a laptop without external monitor and ergo KB/mouse, so I'm too fussy I guess.
crazygringo 13y ago
Serious question: aside from data-entry people and accountants, who uses numeric keypads anymore? As a developer, I don't exactly type a lot of numbers. And they're too far away from the home position of the hands to make the numpad efficient to use for numbers in mixed alphanumeric text. It really seems like they are rightly turning into a very niche input product, like Wacom tablets, instead of a general-purpose one.
- batmansbelt 13y ago
  True programmers do everything with alt-codes.
  - SwellJoe 13y ago
    Get off my lawn. Alt codes didn't exist in the days when true programmers roamed the earth.
- Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
  I must say I'm probably quite biased regarding the numpad, because much of my programming is about experiments that give numeric results, which then have to be processed and/or reported... so typing lots of numbers always ends up being a part of the equation in my particular case, but not on the code itself. Numpads are nice for roguelikes as well :)
  - robocaptain 13y ago
    This is why I always need a numpad as well!
- digikata 13y ago
  Yup, I'd rather go without the num pad and avoid the minor space and weight increment. If needed, I can always attach a usb number pad.
- akbar501 13y ago
  I dislike the trend of putting number pads on laptop keyboards. It moves the entire keyboard to the side.
adrusi 13y ago
The problem with numpads on laptops is that it shifts the keyboard to the left, resulting in a non-ergonomic typing position. That's much worse than not being able to type in numbers marginally faster. Also using numpads takes your fingers far from the home row, which is in contrast to your trackpoint argument.
- photex 13y ago
  This is precisely why I haven't purchased several otherwise very nice looking Linux laptops.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    Which Laptops? I always like seeing who's making Linux laptops.
kbenson 13y ago
When I specced out my Dell laptop a couple of years ago, I specifically went for a smaller model so I could get a keyboard without a numeric keypad. When on my lap, why would I want the keyboard shifted to the left? If it's on a desk and not your lap, buy a keyboard.
ebbv 13y ago
Number pads are such a colossal waste of real estate. Let alone on a 13 inch laptop, the keys would have to be so small. With regards to wanting a 4:3 display over a 16:9/10; with 1920x1080 resolution do you really need the 4:3? Are you really going to make your terminal/editing window full screen height? I use my rMBP in 1920x1200 and my terminals rarely need to go full screen height in order to see all the lines of code I need to see.
- Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
  I always make my terminals and windows full screen height in my 1600x1200 monitor and in my old 1920x1200 laptop. And on the desktop, I also have a vertical (1200x1600) monitor, typically used for documentation. Vertical space has always been the most important for reading text, that's why books typically come in portrait form...
  - ebbv 13y ago
    Books can't scroll. Terminal windows can. The question is how much text needs to be on your screen at once. Sometimes you need a lot but I find most of the time I don't need 1200 pixels of height worth of text on my screen at once.
  - apetrovic 13y ago
    So, if you have the same number of rows (say, 1200), you'd rather have 1600x1200 (4:3) than 1920x1200 (16:10) screen? I hate 16:9 screens, just because manufacturers robbed me of 120 pixels on the screen (1920x1200 vs 1920x1080). 4:3 fascination was always strange to me - I never saw 4:3 laptop with more than 1200 pixel rows, and more pixels before my eyes is always better in my book.
macco 13y ago
This is totally shitty naming by Dell. Name it Dell Sputnik and you are fine.
- adricnet 13y ago
  Ah, the eternal "war" between product development and marketing. I like the Sputnik name better as well, even when they called us cosmonauts :D
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  But the XPS 13 is a standard Dell laptop. Sputnik is just the project to get Ubuntu running excellently on them, coupled with some developer tools.
rsync 13y ago
"This is just a standard high-end laptop. Disappointing." Well, a high end laptop with a low resolution screen...
- geminitojanus 13y ago
  It's a strange world where we're saying 1080p is "low res".
  - astrodust 13y ago
    It is pretty garbage by today's standards, and is inferior to CRT screens I had ten years ago. If this is for developers, pixels matter.
  - jamesbritt 13y ago
    For people used to WUXGA it's (somewhat) low res. I thought the newer W-series Thinkpads would have better res then "HD" (AKA "short screen") but last I checked they're still stuck selling "business" machines with entertainment-consumption screens. Plus a numpad that shifts the main keyboard over. On the bright side they still have dedicated trackpoint buttons instead of the clacky thing built in to the trackpad that some of the other other recent models have.
    - davidw 13y ago
      The Dell that I got several years (3-4) ago that this one replaced was WUXGA. This one (an XPS13) is light and has more battery life, and is faster and all, but I do miss that screen a lot. More pixels == better, with a bias for vertical pixels.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    16:9 is a no-deal for me. Horrible aspect ratio for actual work. I require at least 16:10 or preferably 4:3 (I have two monitors in portrait together at my office that effectively give 5:4)
prof_hobart 13y ago
I absolutely detest TrackPoint-type sticks. I find them largely unusable for pointing, and every one I've ever had has got in the way of actually typing. We have them at work and thankfully they are removable. A non-removable one would be a deal-breaker for any laptop for me.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- hackbinary 13y ago
  I absolutely love TrackPoint-type sticks. I find them the best thing for pointing, and each one I have ever had has never got in the way of actually typing. I wish we had them at work.

nezza-_- 13y ago

I don't think a numpad is necessary, developers normally don't type that many numbers (except maybe 0 and 1).

Thrall 13y ago
I agree that a numpad isn't really necessary. The keys I miss on a laptop keyboard are: - Home, end, pgup, pgdown - Delete - Function keys that are just F-keys, not volume/brightness controls that act as F-keys when you press a 'function' modifier key.
- mhurron 13y ago
  My work provided Lenovo w530 has all these. The F-keys do have volume and brightness controls on them, but you have to hit the Fn key to do that, pressing just F4 gives you 'F4'. It's not as stylish as a MacBook Pro though.
astrodust 13y ago
If you do spreadsheet work based on numbers, a number pad comes in handy. Some developers have to do estimates or accounting where this applies. I only have a full-sized keyboard to get the arrow keys. Being able to smack "Enter" in the corner is a nice bonus.

davidw 13y ago

Agreed about the screen - it's annoying. But pretty much everything has those stupid HD style screens these days. I thought the glossy screen would bother me. It doesn't. Numpad? Never used one. Trackpoint? Not my style - I mostly navigate with the keyboard and the trackpad just launches the pointer into the window I need active, and then focus follows it!

kbenson 13y ago
I've never really understood the attraction of focus follow mouse, and it's especially confusing to me when the preference comes from someone who professes to mostly navigate using the keyboard.
- Thrall 13y ago
  If you're using the mouse, not having focus follows mouse means you have to click twice to activate something in a window without focus, which from my point of view as someone who uses focus-follows-mouse, is pointless and irksome. When I'm not using the mouse, I change the focus with the keyboard (In my setup, focus follows mouse only when the mouse moves).
  - kbenson 13y ago
    That depends entirely on your window manager. I generally run a customized Fvwm2 setup, so that's all easy to tweak. In my setup, focus follows mouse only when the mouse moves That makes much more sense to me.
- rootbear 13y ago
  Over the years, my work style on Unix style systems had come to depend on focus following the mouse, but also, importantly, the focused window NOT coming to the front. Combined with the ability to "push" a window to the bottom of the stack when I'm done with it allows me to have lots of shell windows I can work with simultaneously. I can move the mouse into a partially hidden window, run a command, and then go back to my main window without a lot of fuss. I am constantly frustrated by the inability to push down windows in Windows and OS X, or to interact with a background window. (Yes, some apps on the Mac allow limited interaction without bring the window to the front, but it's not enough for me.) I feel crippled by the weak window controls on Macs and Windows PCs systems. Getting rid of the top window by iconifying it, or by dragging the window I want to the top is NOT the same. Expose on Mac was nice, until they changed it. I suppose I should figure it out again. I'm sure that if I had learned windowing system on a Mac or Windows PC, I'd find that natural and I'd have developed different work styles. But I've got thirty years of experience with highly flexible window managers and miss these features on less capable systems.

mseebach 13y ago

The operative word is "Linux", not "Developer".

old-gregg 13y ago

Logged in to upvote you. I would also add that a proper keyboard which doesn't resemble typing on mashed potatoes would also be my requirement. Even Thinkpads have degraded to a calculator-quality cheap uniform keyboard without oversized keys copied from Sony/Apple... Ugh...

thirdsight 13y ago

Someone who gets it! I'm doomed to stay with a 2010 vintage Lenovo T-series by the looks.

angersock 13y ago
...using tools from the late 70s/early 80s no doubt (vim, emacs, etc.)
- kbenson 13y ago
  Unix, DOS/Windows, etc. Just because it was originally conceived and created then, doesn't mean there hasn't been a fair amount of evolution in those products since that time.
- thirdsight 13y ago
  Yes indeed. Vim+FreeBSD+C Nothing has shown itself as significantly better yet.
- sigzero 13y ago
  There isn't anything better than Vim or Emacs. Sorry.
  - angersock 13y ago
    For text editing, sure. For an IDE for, say, C/C++, Visual Studio beats it soundly. For Java, Eclipse. All that said, these tools are quite useful despite being old--I don't mean anything pointing out their age other than that a somewhat old laptop is probably still quite sufficient.
    - brianpgordon 13y ago
      Eclipse? Surely you mean IntelliJ IDEA.
yapcguy 13y ago
The problem with the new T440p, and the entire Lenovo line in general, is the awful keyboard and trackpad. They moved to a chiclet style keyboard in the previous generation, removed the top row of keys, and have now inverted the function keys so they perform media functions first. In order to get an F4 you have to press Fn+F4. Ridiculous! Also they have removed the physical buttons surrounding the trackpad. Previously, one of the nice things about the trackpoint was the ability to have your finger moving the trackpoint while your thumb took a rest on the middle button. Being able to feel the physical buttons you always knew exactly which button you were going to click. Now with the Apple style trackpad, you get no textual feedback at all.

ytdtty 13y ago

A numpad? Wth?

rayiner 13y ago

I quite disagree. A touchpad doesn't require appreciably more movement off the keyboard than a trackpoint (I used a trackpoint Dell machine for years). Matte screens are bad for reading code, because they create a layer of gritiness that reduces the sharpness of text. Glossy screens with good room lighting are far superior. Finally, a wide-screen 13" display is just about the right size to fit two 80-character Emacs windows side-by-side.

vadman 13y ago
The difference between 16:10 and 16:9 (HDTV proportions) screens is appreciable though, the former is better for dev work. Although I cannot imagine doing any work on a laptop without external monitor and ergo KB/mouse, so I'm too fussy I guess.

crazygringo 13y ago

Serious question: aside from data-entry people and accountants, who uses numeric keypads anymore? As a developer, I don't exactly type a lot of numbers. And they're too far away from the home position of the hands to make the numpad efficient to use for numbers in mixed alphanumeric text. It really seems like they are rightly turning into a very niche input product, like Wacom tablets, instead of a general-purpose one.

batmansbelt 13y ago
True programmers do everything with alt-codes.
- SwellJoe 13y ago
  Get off my lawn. Alt codes didn't exist in the days when true programmers roamed the earth.
Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
I must say I'm probably quite biased regarding the numpad, because much of my programming is about experiments that give numeric results, which then have to be processed and/or reported... so typing lots of numbers always ends up being a part of the equation in my particular case, but not on the code itself. Numpads are nice for roguelikes as well :)
- robocaptain 13y ago
  This is why I always need a numpad as well!
digikata 13y ago
Yup, I'd rather go without the num pad and avoid the minor space and weight increment. If needed, I can always attach a usb number pad.
akbar501 13y ago
I dislike the trend of putting number pads on laptop keyboards. It moves the entire keyboard to the side.

adrusi 13y ago

The problem with numpads on laptops is that it shifts the keyboard to the left, resulting in a non-ergonomic typing position. That's much worse than not being able to type in numbers marginally faster. Also using numpads takes your fingers far from the home row, which is in contrast to your trackpoint argument.

photex 13y ago
This is precisely why I haven't purchased several otherwise very nice looking Linux laptops.
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  Which Laptops? I always like seeing who's making Linux laptops.

kbenson 13y ago

When I specced out my Dell laptop a couple of years ago, I specifically went for a smaller model so I could get a keyboard without a numeric keypad. When on my lap, why would I want the keyboard shifted to the left? If it's on a desk and not your lap, buy a keyboard.

ebbv 13y ago

Number pads are such a colossal waste of real estate. Let alone on a 13 inch laptop, the keys would have to be so small. With regards to wanting a 4:3 display over a 16:9/10; with 1920x1080 resolution do you really need the 4:3? Are you really going to make your terminal/editing window full screen height? I use my rMBP in 1920x1200 and my terminals rarely need to go full screen height in order to see all the lines of code I need to see.

Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
I always make my terminals and windows full screen height in my 1600x1200 monitor and in my old 1920x1200 laptop. And on the desktop, I also have a vertical (1200x1600) monitor, typically used for documentation. Vertical space has always been the most important for reading text, that's why books typically come in portrait form...
- ebbv 13y ago
  Books can't scroll. Terminal windows can. The question is how much text needs to be on your screen at once. Sometimes you need a lot but I find most of the time I don't need 1200 pixels of height worth of text on my screen at once.
- apetrovic 13y ago
  So, if you have the same number of rows (say, 1200), you'd rather have 1600x1200 (4:3) than 1920x1200 (16:10) screen? I hate 16:9 screens, just because manufacturers robbed me of 120 pixels on the screen (1920x1200 vs 1920x1080). 4:3 fascination was always strange to me - I never saw 4:3 laptop with more than 1200 pixel rows, and more pixels before my eyes is always better in my book.

macco 13y ago

This is totally shitty naming by Dell. Name it Dell Sputnik and you are fine.

adricnet 13y ago
Ah, the eternal "war" between product development and marketing. I like the Sputnik name better as well, even when they called us cosmonauts :D
dkuntz2 13y ago
But the XPS 13 is a standard Dell laptop. Sputnik is just the project to get Ubuntu running excellently on them, coupled with some developer tools.

rsync 13y ago

"This is just a standard high-end laptop. Disappointing." Well, a high end laptop with a low resolution screen...

geminitojanus 13y ago
It's a strange world where we're saying 1080p is "low res".
- astrodust 13y ago
  It is pretty garbage by today's standards, and is inferior to CRT screens I had ten years ago. If this is for developers, pixels matter.
- jamesbritt 13y ago
  For people used to WUXGA it's (somewhat) low res. I thought the newer W-series Thinkpads would have better res then "HD" (AKA "short screen") but last I checked they're still stuck selling "business" machines with entertainment-consumption screens. Plus a numpad that shifts the main keyboard over. On the bright side they still have dedicated trackpoint buttons instead of the clacky thing built in to the trackpad that some of the other other recent models have.
  - davidw 13y ago
    The Dell that I got several years (3-4) ago that this one replaced was WUXGA. This one (an XPS13) is light and has more battery life, and is faster and all, but I do miss that screen a lot. More pixels == better, with a bias for vertical pixels.
- r00fus 13y ago
  16:9 is a no-deal for me. Horrible aspect ratio for actual work. I require at least 16:10 or preferably 4:3 (I have two monitors in portrait together at my office that effectively give 5:4)

prof_hobart 13y ago

I absolutely detest TrackPoint-type sticks. I find them largely unusable for pointing, and every one I've ever had has got in the way of actually typing. We have them at work and thankfully they are removable. A non-removable one would be a deal-breaker for any laptop for me.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
hackbinary 13y ago
I absolutely love TrackPoint-type sticks. I find them the best thing for pointing, and each one I have ever had has never got in the way of actually typing. I wish we had them at work.