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Comment by kanishkdudeja | Hacker News Reader

The i5 variant comes with just 8 GB RAM. Would have considered if they had given an option for 16 GB RAM.

Being a developer, 8 GB seems tight these days! 15-inch 16 GB variant comes with i7 but the price is a little too steep (starts from 2500 USD)

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Where do you see that the i5 doesn't support 16GB? The specs list on microsoft.com seem to just say "i5 or i7, 8GB or 16GB RAM"

Check the bottom section of this page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-book...

Might still be a configuration option, that just looks like base specs (but also, maybe not)? They're hardcore trying to push the i7 upsell on that page

To be fair, if you're developer, you'll probably also want an i7 (since a lot of compilation tasks are highly parallel and the extra cores will help a lot)

That's right. But the i7 15-inch line starts from 2500 USD. I think lots of developers won't be able to afford at that price point.

i7 13.5" starts at 1,999. Still pretty crazy that prices are turning the opposite direction lately.

Thanks. Fixed this in my comment.

If the quality is there, I welcome it. I'd love to spend over 2000 on an X series ThinkPad that doesn't burn my skin and has a real screen (3:2 or better).

It’s unfortunately the expected thing, as powerful general purpose computers become a specialized niche tool for developers, since regular consumers are being satisfied with phones and tables and inexpensive laptops. The market is no longer growing, it’s shrinking.

Macbook Pro 15in starts at $2400 https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/15-inch

That doesn't seem too bad. If you use it daily (240 days a year) and the machine lasts two years, then that's a bit more than $5 / day. I think it's reasonable.

I never compile on my own machine, but I can tell you that if I can't have 30 chrome tabs open at once we are going to have a problem.

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