Hi everyone I’m new to the forums and I’m looking for some advice about choosing a laptop for web development for use during the next 3 years of university.
I’ve had a look online and with a budget of ~£1000 to spend I was thinking along the lines of a Lenovo Ideapad (Y580?) or Dell XPS 15z/17. I have considered getting an iMac but value the portability of a laptop over a desktop and I can get a better spec laptop for the same money. Ideally if I had the cash I would get an MBP but that not bring the case I’m looking for the next best thing! 
The software I’ll be using is mainly the Adobe CS5 suite and Visual Studio for .NET development. I’ll probably use the laptop for gaming as well but nothing hardcore (a few MMOs / RTS games) since I have an xbox for playing online.
I’m really just concerned about stability / longevity as I dont necessarily want to replace the machine in the next 3 years.
Can anyone comment on Lenovo / Dell hardware or make any recommendations?
Thanks
Hi there hope your doing well. I’m not sure about a laptop, for it though definitely get a SSD, a good choice is the OCZ 60GB Agility 3 SATA and you can always get an external usb hard rive for DATA.
I have a Lenovo laptop (running Ubuntu Linux). It was real bottom-of-the-range stuff when I got it (all I could afford at the time :)) and six years later, it’s still going strong. It’s not my main machine - I prefer a desktop PC - but it’s had plenty of use and the only thing I’ve had to replace was the battery, just a few months ago.
At the risk of being called an Apple fanboy, you can get a macbook for less than 1000 pound. Don’t worry about getting one of the new retina ones, I have always preferred the 13" macbook pros to anything else I have tried.
In my opinion the macbook pros are the best laptops that have been produced in the last 4 years. The air’s are really great machines as well, I wouldn’t rule them out. You wouldn’t regret getting a mac.
Thanks for the replies. I hear a lot of good thingd about Lenovo and gut instinct (I don’t know why) tells me I would prefer the Lenovo to a Dell.
If money was no issue I would get an MBP no brainer but even with my student discount I think the base 15" MBP is around £1300. I couldnt do with a 13" screen I’m afraid and I find it hard to justify more than £1k on a laptop (even if it is a Mac). Where would I get an MBP for £1k?
(The thing that slightly tips my preference towards windows is my Uni course is .NET so I need windows to run IIS and Visual Studio. A friend of mine did point out virtualising these in something like VirtualBox would probably be just as fast as running natively)
Look on Amazon for refurbished ones, it is really easy to swap out the hard drives for new ones(SSD).
The 13" is actually a perfect size 
especially if you’re taking it to uni.
They start 1k from the store, but you could find cheaper ones on eBay. I’ve had success second hand before.
Don’t do it!
You can run windows on a mac just fine dual boot or in a VM.
I think the Dell XPS 15z will be the best for your budget , Price 999$
BATTERY INFORMATION
Battery Life 8 Hours
Battery Details 8-Cell Lithium-Ion
STORAGE
Hard Drive Capacity 750 GB
Hard Drive Technology Hard Disk
Hard Drive Speed 7,200 RPM
STORAGE
RAM Included 4 GB
RAM Possible 8 GB
RAM Type DDR3
RAM Speed 1,333 MHz
Memory Details 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz