Ask HN: A cheap netbook for development? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: A cheap netbook for development?

27 pointsdevmonk53 comments

I have been wanting something inexpensive, lightweight, and not bulky to carry around the house and around town that I can develop on. I know most netbooks are fairly underpowered for development, but I thought I could focus on developing with vim or something lightweight and could build/test on a server. I'm also interested in Android development, but I'm not sure about the value of running Android on a netbook for testing vs. a mobile device. I would be the first to tell someone that they should just use a mac pro if they had the money and wanted to be mobile, but I just think of it as too bulky, and I really like the idea of a netbook. I know my fingers might be a little cramped, but maybe I'd get used to it.

Have you done any development on a netbook, and if so, what do you think of it? Any recommendations?

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I'll echo most everyone else - a netbook, for development, is not an ideal choice. However, there are advantages - very portable, ridiculous battery life.

My main choice (and the one I ended up buying) was the Asus 1005PR : http://commercial.asus.com/product/detail/69

Here are the reasons: 1. Ultraportable. 10" screen means it fits anyway, and is light enough to carry around by hand. It's lightweight and comes with the standard EEEpc addons, making the boot-up time, especially to the mini-os, very good. This means quick note-taking and response if you think of something cool on the fly.

2. Absurd battery life - sometimes you don't want to drag around the power cable. Sure, 6 hours is enough for most people, but in honestly most other netbooks I've tried only hit 3-4 hours. I can easily crank out 6-7 in a single Starbucks dev session. This netbook will get you there, and the bus/train ride home.

3. Adequate screen size - Sure, it's 10", but its got a 1366x768 screen. Vertical space is an issue, but horizontal is very good - widescreen makes it pretty sexy for Ubuntu Unity (though I don't really like Unity). I will say that it 100% better than a 1024x600.

4. Fast - a Broadcom chip means you've got 720p on youtube with no hiccups. 2gb of ram with a decent Pinetrail processor. Not ridiculously fast, but with any netbook you're really not going to get more than 2Gb and a decent processor, but this does do the video part at least. Slap on a 64GB solid-state and you're flying.

5. Cheap? Really, all netbooks are cheap. This is towards the upper spectrum.

6. It fits the bill - it fits the specs you posted. It's not underpowered, and it's extremely portable and fast (bootup especially). Good for monitoring uptime/fixing quick bugs/ developing for long periods of time (with proper adjustments to your dev environment).

Hope this helps!

I own an Acer Aspire One (1.6Ghz Atom, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive). While the battery life isn't bad (5 hours), performance is poor and the whole thing is too small to do much work on. I've also had constant problems with audio, video, and wifi in Ubuntu. Windows XP works alright, but it's not useful for much more than browsing the web.

I have been wanting something inexpensive-

I used to think this way. Now I realize that it's not worth skimping on something you spend a significant fraction of your life using. Instead of the up-front cost, think of the amount you'll be paying per hour for the life of the machine.

I'm going to use numbers that favor cheaper computers. Say you use it 4 hours a day and upgrade in 2 years. If you spend $500, you're paying about 17 cents per hour. $1500 is 50 cents per hour. If you're actually using the machine for development, you'll create many times that in value each hour, let's say $5. If you can improve your efficiency by 10% (50 cents/hour) by buying the $1500 machine, then it's worth buying.

I've followed my own advice and bought a maxed-out 11" Macbook Air. I love it enough that I'm using it as my main development machine.

I've been doing some work on my eee 1000he lately. Eclipse is runnable but noticeably slow. When I'm at home, I tend to use it as an x terminal for the desktop upstairs. I love the battery life, the keyboard is good enough for several hours with only a slightly cramped feel.

This is not my primary development machine and I think you aren't looking for that either. It's not just about the initial cost outlay. When I carry around a $300 machine, I don't worry about leaving it in the car, or spilling coffee on it, or so on. I don't worry about some absurdly padded bulky bag.

If I were in the market right now, I would go for an 11" timeline or similar intel ULV. The boost to 13??x768 is about 50% gain over the 1000he's 1024x600, and the CPU is probably 2-3x my atom.

I was using an Acer Aspire One until 2 days ago, when I bought by new HP Probook 4420s (ya I love this new machine).

My tricks to run heavy stuff to run stuff efficiently on an Aspire One were:

1.) Use XFCE (lightweight) or Lxde (super-lightweight) as your desktop environment. Made it possible to run Eclipse pretty fast. Use the version of eclipse from the OS repo. I had problems with the overflowed UI elements being hidden in the original version from the eclipse site.

2.) I used Synergy to share my desktop keyboard and mouse when I'm at home.

3.) Use Chrome instead of Firefox whenever possible. Chrome's startup is faster. Don't suspend with too many tabs open in Chrome. Chrome hangs your netbook and crashes.

Rather than a netbook, get a 11.6inch machine like the Acer 1830T (or many others). More screen resolution, better keyboards, more CPU horsepower and only slightly more expensive (can be had starting around $375-400) and weight is still only around 1.5kg/3.3 pounds.

Agreed 100% here.

After a long time of using a Netbook for computing, I'm realizing soo much how the 'battery life and portability' is really not an issue.

Every year, more and more laptops come out that are lighter, faster, and just as cheap. And in all honesty, weight shouldn't be a deciding factor anyway - you can't operate the damn keyboard in mid-air, so you're going to be setting down your laptop a lot. If you're running a dedicated environment, you're also probably walking around with a backpack or messenger bag - my preference here, both for easier access and just plain looking cooler : )

But the issues of screen size and better keyboards are huge. Between the common need of many for running VNC and remote servers, and just the fact that an increase in pixels up to somewhere around 3000x1000 leads directly to increased productivity, the drawbacks of a 4-5 hour battery and an extra pound or two quickly fade away. Most people that are serious about the portability either bring a charger or an extended battery - I prefer the latter, since I often find myself in places without outlets or power strips (like the subway, or a conference auditorium ).

Think about it this way : What's the difference between a bag that contains the following:

3-lb "Workhorse" laptop; power cable; spare laptop battery; notebook; pens;

And one that has a 1-lb netbook?

Nothing.

Except for the fact that the netbook is slower and smaller, and only marginally cheaper.

As I write this, I begin to regret my own purchase :P

Portability is important to me, and when on the move you can't find too many electrical outlets. And bringing an extra battery adds weight to my already overcrowded bag, not to mention changing it is disrupting my work.

Also, when a device consumes less, it also generates less heat. This summer got really painful to hold my Dell in my lap.

I also like to travel with public transport, but it is not fun to carry 6 lb with you especially on a crowded day.

I totally understand this, and it's why I switched to a netbook.

But looking back, I realize that all these are really becoming non-issues. Two years ago, maybe - back when netbooks had (on average) 8-9" screens and were significantly lighter and more sustainable for long periods of time.

But nowadays - take a 13" Macbook Pro vs. my recommended Asus 1005PR EEEpc: 13" screen vs 10.1"; Significantly faster processor; 4GB RAM vs 2GB, supports 8GB, higher FSB; Larger keyboard.

What does it trade off? 6hrs vs 8hr of battery life, and it is 4.5lbs to the PR's 2.8lbs. Oh, and it's larger by about 3 inches.

Not even a contest. More screen space, better memory, a bigger keyboard, and comparable battery life is waaay more important than a few extra pounds. And while I understand the heat issues (which, really, depends on the model more than a specific type of laptop. Heat will be directly proportional to load and venting, so heat on one vs. the other will depend on the venting, because what you are developing will be the same), this is also starting to be less of an issue - I don't know what to say if you're putting something that generates heat on your lap during the summer. As far as weight - it won't be 6lbs difference, and even if it was, I would argue that this is worth it. With a proper laptop/messenger bag, this issue also goes away.

Edit: Oh, and yes, the Macbook does cost more. $700 more for these extra specs? Maybe not worth it...

But then again - craigslist one for $700 total, probably with a RAM upgrade. $400 for a good netbook vs $700 for a complete beast is an easy choice for me.

Typing this on an 1810TZ and I agree. 3GB of RAM, reasonable processor, 1366x768 native resolution, 6-8 hours battery life depending on usage. Cost me £330, although I've swapped out the HD for an 80GB Intel X25M SSD which cost an extra £130 or so.

I use this as my primary machine, plugged into a 24" 1920x1200 monitor and a USB keyboard/mouse on my desk. It's easily fast enough for what I need.

I've got an Asus Eee 1000 HG which I use for Windows development, bought as a reconditioned ex-demo machine for about half retail. It's obviously slower than my main machine, but (by and large) quite fast enough for my day-to-day development usage with Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server. VS2010 is particularly useful for netbook development, having a lovely scalable default programming font and a zoom feature.

The one time I remember it being particularly slow for development was when I was doing some odd SQL Server testing and needed to return a couple of hundred results sets. The query wasn't very slow to run, opening that many results set in quick succession was. It's also not really fast enough for raw photo processing but then I'm not entirely surprised about that and it is usable in an emergency :-)

I know what others mean about inexpensive - for me this was as much testing the theory as anything, a dearer machine wouldn't have been bought on a whim. I can live with the limitations inherent in such a cheap machine, they don't cause me major issues.

The machine has about 4.5 hours battery life - that's good but it's taught me that with a small machine like this because it just lives in bags most of the time, the more battery life the better - it doesn't get automatically plugged in to use every night, so more battery life is better.

A better screen - higher pixel and colour resolution - would be appreciated but the existing one is perfectly usable.

I wouldn't have taken the punt on a dearer, higher spec machine when I already had a perfectly good main laptop, and I'm still getting significant added value from this cheap little thing from places I wouldn't / couldn't take the big main machine. If you can get a good deal, I'd recommend one to anyone - even at full retail if you've got a solid use case and are happy with the spec you've found.

A better screen - higher pixel and colour resolution - would be appreciated but the existing one is perfectly usable.

I have developed on a netbook, it is really not worth the experience. If you want cheap, buy a desktop, a dell, or the 999 mac.

Ditto !

Bought an Asus and ended up using it as a portable note taking device. I too was using Vim to edit programs - and that worked well. As for Java development compiling was excruitiatingly slow and Java apps were very slow to load. Having big fingers I never really adopted to the keyboard. For note taking, I ended up using only one hand to type across the whole keyboard. Looks strange but rather quick.

Have since upgraded to a MacBookPro with 4G RAM - much nicer experience.

I was doing terminal based development on vim over the network....the small keyboard, unusably small modifier keys, and unconventional keyboard layouts made it just plain painful.

I wasn't even compiling on device and it sucked.

Thinkpad X100e. It's got an 11.6" screen with a 1366x768 panel. Nice keyboard and runs Ubuntu well. Should set you back about $500.

Upvote for you. I have a Dual Core one with an AMD Neo. It works pretty well for a small machine. Probably going to install a smallish SSD in it soon. It also runs Ubuntu quite well.

i got a toshiba t215, pretty much same specs, same price range, different style.

Actually it might have been the slightly newer/faster neo chip that made me get it, but the x100e is probably upgraded by now.

totally considering trading it in for an 11" macbook air now though

I use an older Asus Eee PC. It works pretty well, but has resolution issues like others mentioned.

I do a lot of graphical work on it (I created http://productplaceme.com on it) and it actually works really well. I'm even doing digital paintings on it after setting up my tablet.

Resolution is an issue, like others mentioned. On the other hand, it does keep you focused. You definitely have to work on one thing at a time. This might be a bigger issue for people who do a lot of coding-- I can't really comment on that.

It is nice having one machine to bring everywhere. If you're flying, you don't have to transfer everything to your netbook. It's all already there. The portability also makes it so you can comfortably use it anywhere (like on the couch, where I am now). On the other hand, the least comfortable place you can possibly use it is a desk.

If you do get an Eee PC, download and install EasyPeasy. The default Xandros was pretty terrible, and EasyPeasy is pretty great.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that I'm doing digital painting on a 250-dollar machine, with a 45-dollar tablet, using free, open source software. In other words, I'm doing Photoshop-level work on hardware that costs half as much as Photoshop. Not a bad deal.

I hack on my older Asus Eee PC 1000HE. Replace the default Windows with Ubuntu UNR (10.04 edition, not 10.10 imho) or some other Linux, upgrade the RAM to the highest amount possible, and it's as snappy as a desktop workstation.

There is a particular Eee PC with 1366x768 resolution (same as 11.6" MacBook Air, but it's only $400 or so). I forgot the model number but it should be easy to find on amazon. I want to say the model number ends in "PR"

edit: http://www.amazon.com/Seashell-1005PR-PU17-BK-10-1-Inch-Netb...

My wife picked up a similar "subnotebook" for her classes (12.1" screen, though), and I've ended up taking a liking to it: an MSI Wind12 U230-040. They keyboard doesn't suffer from as much of the braindamage that some of the other devices in this form factor seem to sport (two fingers required for some common keys like insert, delete, page up/down, etc), and the 1366x768 resolution is quite usable. Video performance is respectable, you can stuff 4GB of RAM in it with a 64-bit OS, and I'd expect it to fly with an SSD.

There's a few different versions of it; the -040 has a dual-core Neo X2, while the newer -087 models have a single core. MSI is notoriously lousy about making minor adjustments to the model numbers/names, but making substantial changes to the underlying hardware.

Coming down the road (MSI is also notoriously late on delivering new models, apparently) is the U250, and there's a few specific spec updates on the roadmap for it (DDR3, processor and video updates) should make for a very capable small-form-factor computing device.

My more general recommendation for any of these smaller gadgets, though, is to go into a store and handle them yourself. Use the keyboard, fire up notepad and write a little bit of code if that's what you were planning to do with it. The keyboards on a lot of these units are absolutely vile; they're all a compromise between key size and layout, and you'll want to spend some time with them to see if you can live with it.

Use the only Richard Stallman approved computer, which also happens to be a netbook! http://www.lemote.com/en/products/Notebook/2010/0310/112.htm...

See: http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/

There was a thread about this a while ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287909

The blog post that thread links to is worth a read.

I personally do some Django development on a netbook and have found it excellent, especially while commuting. I have not had a problem with being under powered (I don't know how Android development would compare) and the only downside has been the lack of screen realestate. Thankfully I bought a netbook with a reasonable keyboard size (Asus Eee PC S101).

Using IDEs with netbook is not really good experience: screen area is just too small for having all components on screen same time and you cannot help noticing that modern IDEs do need way too much resources to be smooth on such tiny machine. Netbooks cannot really be used like normal laptops: usually there is no other option than programs fullscreen, which in practise means you need virtual desktops. This effectively throws windows to the bin, but if that is not problem for you.. go ahead and get one. Just make sure you test it beforehand, many netbooks still have horrible keyboards!

Lately I have been doing most of my developing on netbook using vim and must say I love it. There is no performance problems with any scripting languages, not even while having mysql + rails/cakephp on. Only problem is compiling bigger projects when doing c/c++, but that isn't problem if you have access to box with more power like you suggested.

My own machine is Samsung n140, although my config is not the most usual one: stripped down arch + xmonad. Battery life while using wlan is from 10 to 14 hours. The reason why I ended to this particular machine is combination of awesome battery life + really nice keyboard, one of the best I have found from any laptop. Minus side is kinda low quality HDD which blew up quite fast, but I use this machine only on battery power with agressive spindowning and load count jumps into sky fast which can explain.

I have used a netbook for development. It is not very fun. The main problem is the screen resolution - 1024x600. This ensures that a modern IDE will not fit on the screen without hiding the most useful parts. For example, when you compile code, you will not have enough room on the screen to view your errors and code simultaneously. (Or rather, you can, but it is frustratingly very cramped).

So, I use Notepad++, auto-hide the Windows taskbar, hide all of the toolbars, and reduce the font size. Now it is usable ... oh wait, no it isn't ... the screen resolution is still a big problem. What about when I want to ... view a help file? Compile/run my code in another window? View a website? First, there is almost no room on the screen to put two windows side-by-side. (It can be done, but they have frustratingly small widths.) So, you have to manually switch between applications all the time. And you soon find that it gets old fast, especially since the taskbar is necessarily auto-hidden.

Another item (at least from my 1-yr old netbook): Netbooks are staggeringly slow at playing web video - high-res video on youtube is not watchable.

So, I do not recommend a netbook for development. For basic web browsing, a netbook is awesome. But not for development.

EDIT: These are based on my experiences with a 1024x600, no HD-enhanced netbook. There are new models out now :)

I used emacs, git, and (soon-to-be)xmonad. The size is not an issue for me, but my problem was mostly with the linux distribution I used.

Eventually, I got rid of ubuntu and settle for archlinux.

I think netbook are great for web application development, especially if you used exotic tools like emacs and xmonad.

I never used an IDE, or heavy duty debugging tools(I find manual debugging to be a great and useful tool), and the rest of tools that need a pretty GUI.

I use xmonad since a few months on my netbook and it's indeed the perfect choice for this!

I've had similar experiences - worth adding is that eclipse is a no-go - not worth trying at all. I have done c# development while having SQL Server running though, so it's not all that bad. Screen resolution is the biggest issue for anything other than eclipse.

I recommend an X series thinkpad. x40 although X60 and up would be ideal. It'll be in the $300-600 range used, and lightyears better than what any netbook would offer

The X40/X41 might be cheap, but it is limited to a proprietary 1.8" drive and 1.5GB RAM. It'll be a slow drive around 40GB 4200rpm or you can spend money for a SSD.

I suggest the X61. It'll support up to 8GB RAM and takes regular laptop drive. On ebay, I've seen it slip out for $300.

I have an X41. It's a sturdy old school Thinkpad, but it's slow, has poor battery life and the screen quality is terrible to 2010 eyes.

I have an EeePC 901with 2Gb RAM and Ubuntu netbook edition installed - it works pretty well for development and web dev type stuff - I even wrote a book with it. About the only thing that I wouldn't use it for is anything requiring a large screen (eg. layout and design) or something requiring large amounts of processing power (eg. Running Eclipse or compiling lots of stuff). Other than that, it's great.

Definitely true - I do want to say, however, that newer netbooks will be able to handle all but the largest projects in Eclipse/Netbeans with ease, so this part is less of a consideration. Your main bottleneck will really be memory, which should still be adequate.

The MacBook Air looks pretty good (SSD standard!), but it s not as cheap (in either sense) than the typical netbook.

I run XCode on a Dell Mini 9 with Mac OS X. It has the expected tradeoffs: the keyboard is tiny, resolution too. But it's amazing how fast it feels die to the SSD. I simultaneously hate the keyboard for putting the quote key elsewhere, and am impressed that I can mostly adapt to this.

I bought a small netbook Acer one, but couldn't really do anything with it because typing suffered on the too small keyboard, so I gave it to my daughter. Really looking forward to getting a 11" macbook air to have as the computer to bring when going away for weekends or travelling. Hate lugging the 15" MBP everywhere, it takes too much space and is heavy (although it's a pretty powerful machine).

I have a HP mini 5102, and spend 3 hours a day on it doing web dev - I find it awesome. Resolution is 1366x768 so you don't get too squashed in. It has 3G built in as well and the battery life is safe for probably 5 hours (meant to be 8 maybe) The keyboard is almost natural size, and it has enough grunt to keep a few things open (lets not kid ourselves, but it does better than I expected).

I have used nothing but some Dell Mini 9's for programming and everything else for over a year. It took some getting used to, and some significant customisation of my window manager, but I feel as productive with it as with anything previous.

The low specs rarely bother me. I have upgraded the SSD, that was the only stock component that was annoyingly slow (and small).

I wrote up the approaches I use for very task-specific, low resolution workspace layouts here: http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/xmonad_layouts_for_netbo... Should be applicable to non-xmonad users too, just perhaps harder to do.

I use an older 9 inch Eee PC. For $170 off of woot, it's been real good. I actually liked it enough that I got rid of my desktop and this is my sole computer now. I do tons of development on it. I installed a lightweight Linux distro (Arch) and am running a lightweight, minimalistic DE (stumpwm). I found that the default KDE3 was too heavy, but with my customizations I have almost no lags in development (all of my development is for web apps written in Chicken Scheme). I like to work out in the sticks (in areas you can't get to by car) so this works out real good.

If you need to use development environments heavier than emacs/vim, than you may need something more powerful.

I'm currently doing full-time development work on a netbook. It's not ideal but it is manageable. It's an MSI Wind running Ubuntu 10.10. Admittedly it's hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. And I upgraded it to 2GB of RAM and a 300GB hard drive. At any given time I'll have gvim, chrome, apache, mysql, and memcache running.

I'd like to get a beefier laptop but this will do for the time being. Funds are tight.

EDIT: If you decide to get a netbook, try out a few and see what keyboard layout you like. The hardware inside will be pretty similar, but the keyboards are all crummy in slightly different ways.

I just bought the latest asus netbook, its an intel duo core, they have just been released two months ago(i think). It has 250gb and 1gb ram. I run a dual partition ubuntu/windows 7 and i run netbeans to do some programming. I really love it and forget to log onto my home laptop when i get home, also the 1 gig ram seems fine so far but i will upgrade it this week to 2gigs. I actually debated between an ipad and a netbook and after playing around with a friends ipad i chose this netbook for $350.

I use an Asus Eee PC 1005HA, it's inexpensive and very lightweight, perfect for working from anywhere. Great autonomy too!

With a resolution of 1024x600 the screen is not very big but I use xmonad (a tiling window manager written in Haskell) which maximize the available surface. I also only use command line apps and it makes everything extremely fast.

xmonad + vim make me very productive and if I want more power I just log on another computer by ssh and it's completely transparent!

I've always wanted to go on the road and still do dev work, i was considering this setup as a dev environment, iPad + bluetooth keyboard for coding on and while i could easily switch between code editor and browser i'd probably use my HTC Desire HD as the web browser to view what i'm coding.

In theory it would work but i've yet to test it as i dont have a bluetooth keyboard yet.

I'd recommend the Toshiba R700 series .. I have the one from BestBuy in addition to my MBP.. 13 inch machine with Core i3, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, 720p display, 5-6 hours of stock battery life (not playing video though), eSATA port for 750$ .. Did I say 3 lbs and doesn't heat up as much as MBP?

the crappy part : Intel Display adapter and very bad speakers .. almost tin can like

Other than my work machine, I've been using an Asus EeePC as my primary machine since March. I have a desktop at home, but I haven't touched it other than moving it to another room.

I use the EeePC as a dev machine and have to say, they keyboard sucks for special characters <>/\[], but the convenience is nice. Guess it's about trade offs. I love the netbook.

I should add: my dev environment consists of Google Chrome and a screen session with vim running in PuTTY. Pretty minimalist as-is.

I have a MSI Wind. The keyboard is a pain to do dev work with. if you're doing Android development with a netbook get a real device to test - the emulator is practically unusable.

Agree with the rest of the comments here, a regular cheap notebook with a better processor will fill the role much better.

I had a Dell Mini 9 and used it for months, but the keyboard and form factor got me down so I swapped it for a Macbook Air. Granted that's not a netbook, but it's far better for work.

I do a lot of objective-c though so I might be more enthusiastic about the Air than you.

Although it might not fit with your requirement of being inexpensive, if you want something with a real CPU, light weight, small form-factor, and great battery life, I have the Asus UL20A-A1 (~$575) and love it.

Asus 1001P has served me well, wireless drivers are finicky with linux, it has the best size to usefulness of keyboard ratio I have yet to encounter. Cost me about 400$

Wireless drivers and screen display are the most common problem I experienced with Asus 1001P. My major annoyance is the mousepad. It has caused me to dislocate my emacs pointer and start doing weird crap to the codebase.

I received my Asus 1001P for free.

it does that to me too, :'( but only on linux, so I think it might be more then just the hardware.

I like my Thinkpad X61. It's not a netbook per se, but it has good battery life and isn't too bulky.

Why not just find a T61 on eBay for the same price and get a bulletproof, fast machine?

LG X120, it's really basic. But it runs super quick, I do some light development on it.

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