Is a 14" laptop comfortable for a programmer to work with?

Brady Kelly

I'm comfortable on my 15.6, but suspect smaller would be a squeeze. I've never tried smaller. I always want another screen though, vs. a bigger one, to split my desktop up, but I'm lived for about two years without and gotten used to it.

Lost User

Using 15", because it's comfortably on the lap. Not at work of course, since it would be capping the productivity. At work, a desktop with at least two 19" screens is expected. What kind of work? Development benefits from "screen estate" and a real keyboard. There's a huge difference in speed when controlling the PC blindly from a keyboard or having to muck around with a touchpad trying to use the scrollbar.

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rah_sin

I think 15" would be better. rahul

Wayne Gaylard

_Maxxx_ wrote:

but I don't use it as a rule

Sorry! And my condolences to your wife.

When I was a coder, we worked on algorithms. Today, we memorize APIs for countless libraries — those libraries have the algorithms - Eric Allman

CPallini

It depends on what kind of work you have to do with. For instance, I find comfortable the 10" netbook for coding small console applications using vi as editor.

Veni, vidi, vici.

Lost User

Yeah, I use 14" laptop, it is really comfortable. I dislike larger or smaller.

Meysam

TadejK

If you really want to, any size can be ok .. But if you ask me, you need 2 monitors, each at least 22". I actually have 3 monitors, but that's usually an overkill (don't get me wrong - it's great, but not *that* much more than having 2). Regards, Tadej

Farhan Ghumra

Me too, I just love my Dell 14" laptop

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Mark_Wallace

Don't say that; you'll jinx it.

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Nemanja Trifunovic

For any serious work I add external monitor(s) and keybord, so it doesn't really matter.

utf8-cpp

PIEBALDconsult

Mine's 15, but I have a pair of larger monitors at the office so I only use the built-in for brief periods at home (and I don't like it) when I don't feel like connecting it to the TV. I also add a regular keyboard and mouse at both the office and home. In my opinion the built-in devices are only for emergencies.

0bx

For me not really. I'm used to my 15'' laptop screen as an extension of my 19'' monitor. When I have program without my extra monitor I get more easily frustrated, but it really depends on what you're doing... if you have to do a lot of testing, it's not really handy.

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RJOberg

The more screen real estate the better. Where I worked before, one of the PhDs successfully made the arguement based upon a research paper that the number of screens has a direct correlation upon productivity and we all ended up with dual monitors... he ended up with three. 15.4 is the smallest I think is reasonable.

lewax00

I'm generally not comfortable when using anything less than 17". I don't just need a whole monitor to be big enough, I need each half of it to be big enough (I'm generally using two or more programs at a time, and if I only have one monitor then I need to be able to comfortable fit two windows on it). Which is why I rarely do anything serious on a laptop.

Roger Wright

Yes, but only if you're writing microcode.

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