Optimal Laptop Specs

 

For programming there is an idea that the device optimally needs to be like a gaming laptop or have alot of processing power , when compiling really doesn't take as much from the developer's time as coding does .

For programming specially for applications that aren't games the requirements of the processor doesn't have to be so much , in fact a low end processor like an i3 10th gen can be more than enough and I would even recommend because overheating is our real enemy since if the processor overheats , no matter how fast it is , the performance will go down quickly ; when we developers tend to stay for a long time , and most of that time isn't in graphically intensive tasks. 

Quick access memory is equally important. 

So here are the main problems I think we face  : -

1 - Over heating over a long period of time 

2 - Slow access to memory ( internal and external) 

3 - Eye pain

4 - High memory on the main disk

So what can be done ?

I had tried many solutions but for each problem here is what I had currently came up with :- 

 Over heating over a long period of time

1 - If both the Ram and SSD are soldered down to the mother board , then its even better as that would mean that the number of separate components that generate heat is less , and more space inside the PC for aeration .

2 - A wide screen like 15.6 inches , as that would mean that there is also more space in the laptop for thermals management . 

3 - Having the air vents on top or on the sides, as from the bottom it would heat faster

4- Investing in a cooling stand for the bottom of the laptop like this one .

5- Having a processor that isnt too high in processing speeds , as less processing speed means less heat , but you want it to be able to reach 3.6 ghz within its max turbo speed . You can find the intel processor specs on this website , and here for AMD 

Fig 1

On the Task manager in the performance section you can see that there is a difference between the actual speed and the base speed 

6 - using an electric blower to clean off the dust from the air vents. 

7 - Having an integrated graphics card instead of a dedicated one, as a dedicated graphics card will definitely need more cooling as it consumes more power and has its own memory. 

8 - if the type of cooling system uses more than just the fans like liquid cooling. 

9- taking off the adapter switch from the wall when the laptop isnt being used, as this would prevent over heating of the power socket. 

- There is also an emergent technology for cooling called solid state active cooling which uses high velocity 120 mph air jets to cool the ssds :- 

Vid 1

Quick access memory ( internal and external) 

1 -  Having a solid state drive (in order to quickly save and retrieve data which basically happens all the time) .

2 - Having lots of DDR4 ram at least 8 gigabytes , optimally 16 gigabytes for exactly the same reason except that its quicker access . 

- If both this ssd and ram are soldered to the motherboard, then they would have an even better performance at high clocking speeds, so you won't need to then buy alot of memory. 

- Software wise on windows you can adjust the PC for best performance in the environment variables.

Eye pain

 - Since blue light is harmful to our eyes and health , having an anti glare screen for the eyes would decrease the strain. Alot of laptops come with it already so there is no need to always buy it .

 - Software wise you can enable night light on win 10 and dark mode on the IDE

High memory on the main disk

 - Having an SD card slot as that would mean that you can take alot of the unnecessary memory load from the SSD drive . The SD you can backup separately from your hard drive so you can backup only the important data.

Software wise you can remove unnecessary startup apps as well as the running ones from the details section in the task manager as in Fig 2

Fig 2

- Also I like using CCleaner for fixing any registry problem as well clearing extra cookies from browsers and unused files and folders .

There are also optimizations you can do for android studio , like setting the minimum Heap to use less memory , removing unnecessary plugins and using the SideMirror plugin which uses the scrcpy app which provides display and control of Android devices connected via USB for emulating android on your physical device instead .

Of course you may say why not just get a mac , and true that a mac manages alot of these things very well , however if you want a budget programming laptop that has some of the good old USB A ports and head phone jacks or an emergency programming laptop, then this can be a guideline :) .