The trouble with high-end laptops is that they're not very portable, in the sense that battery life suffers - I generally have run my Vaio F series at 50% in the power settings.

Simple solutions are to bring an extension chord with the charger in a little laptop bag and sit by an electrical outlet, which is sooooo easy to do. I have sat in classes, seminars, coffee shops, libraries, and restaurants doing exactly this. It Is No Problem.

It Is No Problem.

To my mind a bigger problem tends to be bulk and weight.

I stick with a 15" retina MacBook these days, which is considerably more compact than most of the laptops mentioned here, and it's still on the bulky/heavy side to carry 8 hours/day in a backpack. I couldn't imagine lugging around one of those 17" desktop replacement machines... (well, ok, I have done so for work, and it isn't fun).

Who's going to carry anything around for 8 hours per day? I put my laptop in my car and when I had a locker it would go there. To me, laptops are light! I use a laptop bag with a shoulder strap and it is Easy. I tuck my PC things in the bag and I forget its there. Most of the time the stuff is sitting somewhere and not on my person.

Laptops are an awesome powerful portable office. With a flash stick you can transfer data so easily to other equipment. Every professional should use one. If I were the head of a company and saw that some of my people in computer related fields never carried a laptop then I would seriously question their work ethic.

In Japan and other countries leading the USA, laptops more common. Guess why? Better work ethics! USA is such a freaking lazy country and sloppy, too!

Okay: Rant button is turned OFF. LOL

Laptops are an awesome powerful portable office. With a flash stick you can transfer data so easily to other equipment. Every professional should use one. If I were the head of a company and saw that some of my people in computer related fields never carried a laptop then I would seriously question their work ethic.

In Japan and other countries leading the USA, laptops more common. Guess why? Better work ethics! USA is such a freaking lazy country and sloppy, too!

You act as if I don't have 4 of the damn things (decent MacBook Pro for personal use/dev, and 1 each of cheapo Mac/Windows/Linux laptops for work).

I still miss my 11" MacBook Air, though - that was truly portable.

I'm not sure why you have this impression? I use nothing but laptops now and my current laptop ( Razer 14" ) and my prior 2 year old ( Asus g53 ) have absolutely no issue running UE4. But yes, you have to pay for a solid GPU and a non shit hard drive.

I'm probably going to get a bunch of downvotes for sharing a perfectly honest and valid opinion, but, I just really cannot take seriously someone that develops on nothing but a laptop. I don't even know how you physically manage to deal with lugging such a thing around all day or dealing with the ridiculous keyboard.

I would also say you probably paid an absurd amount of money for that laptop for no tangible benefit over a desktop, I guess not all of us want to drop 1500-2000 dollars or something on a big heavy metal box that requires constant recharging.

Also Razer? Really? You paid 2000 dollars for a laptop?

I'm one of those strange people that doesn't like throwing money away just because its sitting on a desk infront of me ready to be put into a blender. But hey that's just me.

Who's going to carry anything around for 8 hours per day?

I do, unfortunately, sometimes more.

Portability is important for a laptop, especially considering it is the only advantage it has over desktops...

The asus 500 series has nearly all that you want: http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/354300/asus-n550jv-cn270h/specificaties/

There's also pcspecialist.co.uk if you can shop from the UK. Customized laptops.

First off I'd like to encourage Tjakka to rethink about the choice of going to a specialized school for games development instead of getting a computer science or computer engineering degree from a university. I'm not saying that a specialized school is necessarily a bad idea, but I think a degree from a university keeps more doors open.

I'm probably going to get a bunch of downvotes for sharing a perfectly honest and valid opinion, but, I just really cannot take seriously someone that develops on nothing but a laptop. I don't even know how you physically manage to deal with lugging such a thing around all day or dealing with the ridiculous keyboard.

I have been developing my private stuff on nothing but a laptop for the last couple of years. I actually switched from desktop PCs to notebooks and I'm very happy with them.

You should put a regular keyboard, mouse and screen at your desk, which eliminates the keyboard and mouse troubles and gives you a regular two monitor setup when at home. On the road, you want at least a small notebook mouse and a notebook with a resonable keyboard. The notebook keyboard should have a numpad, because otherwise the Home, End, PageUp, PageDown and cursor keys are probably inaccesible, and they are absolutely necessary for writing code. With that setup you can be just as efficient as with a desktop PC.

The weight can be a problem for 17 inch notebooks, but already with 15.6 inch I would bet that the printed scripts for the lectures weight more then the notebook. I used to carry a 17 and later 15.6 inch notebook to university every day and it wasn't a big deal.

Also, when on the road, don't forget to pack the two most important tools of every software engineer: A piece of paper and a pen!



As to the question if there is any real benefit to a notebook as opposed to a desktop PC:
If your work requires you to be hooked up to the company network, a bunch of console devkits or an industrial robot etc. then the mobility of a notebook won't do you any good, that is correct. But for a student the situation is different.
As a student you go to lectures and either they are important, or it's a bunch of stuff you already know, or the guys who is giving the lecture doesn't know shit. All three cases can and will happen and in the latter two you want your programming gear around so you can utilize the time by educating yourself. Same goes for empty timeslots between lectures, which is also very common at universities.
When you have visited all your lectures of the day and go home, you probably have some exercises to do, or hobby projects to work on. Maybe you don't want to do them at your own desk at home, but rather in a park, or while visiting your parents. Or maybe the exercise requires you to join forces with a fellow student so you meet at his place or in the library. In either case the mobility of a notebook is a very big plus.

I should point out that the idea of the laptop is to work on with it on school.

All the lessons are practically, you've got to make it and give it in on the school forums.

I do not care about weight nor battery life, I dont mind carrying something heavy and I will have access to electricity 95% of the school day.