We have a developer who runs Linux exclusively and does development on a number of different platforms for various internal tools. He does a bunch of Drupal stuff, and also spends a lot of time with python.
Right now he has a relatively standard Lenovo 15 inch laptop that is kind of heavy. He runs a bunch of VMs on it and it isn't really keeping up. He's due for a new machine.
Initial thought is to get another 2015 15 inch Lenovo laptop for about 1800 bucks (the budget), but I suggested that he might want a desktop machine instead. We could probably get him a standard Dell SFF desktop and throw an after market SSD in it and more RAM (RAM and hard drives can come out of another slush fund since they are not a "computer"). He already has a nice monitor so we don't need to buy that.
So if we do this, we'd need to get him some sort of device to remotely connect to the workstation without spending a ton of money.
As people who probably run mostly Linux machines I'm curious about your thoughts.
Oddly, an 11 inch MacBook Air might be a good choice. Our company has a lot of Macs anyway so this would be fine. It'd be 899. It's pretty under powered with 4 gigs of RAM and a 128 SSD, but for a browser and SSH and VNC (should he want his workstation's GUI) that should last 4 years.
The 11 inch MacBook Air seems like it's probably a better cheap/small laptop for 899 than anything Lenovo offers. This guy might even enjoy playing with OS X since he could run some of his tools natively, but really it'd just be a portal to the workstation. Or he could even put Ubuntu on the MacBook Air.
Another thing that might work is the lowest end Surface Pro 3. Downside is it is Windows, but it'd be small and light, and is pretty cheap, and can run Chrome, SSH and VNC, but is actually less computer than the 11 inch MacBook Air.
We've already determined an iPad/Keyboard is not an option, and the Surface 2 running Windows RT is not an option since Windows RT sucks. Last, we can't find a small cheap machine from Lenovo that would be worth being a Linux laptop.
What would you guys want in this situation? Would you go for the workstation and try to work out some remote access device?
Or would you rather just get the powerful 1800 dollar Thinkpad?
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