# Something portable for development purposes **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [October 14, 2009, 6:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249 "2009-10-14T06:00:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2009, 6:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/1 "2009-10-14T06:00:49Z")
Alright… I’m going to buy something to develop with, and use as a general thought-dump. I use Ruby and Ruby on Rails… And I own a Rubymine license, so recommending a Mac for the sake of Textmate is a bit silly. I will listen candidly to all advice, though. What am I looking for? Oh… A clear screen, anti-glare would be awesome; the keys can’t be too small; the battery life is between reasonable and awesome; and it’s light. I do appreciate your recommendations. Pretend money isn’t a problem as long as it’s under US$2,000 (Yeah, I don’t think you can convince me to buy a Macbook Pro or a Macbook Air… But maybe you can!) ---
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/2 "2009-10-14T12:21:39Z")
On 14 Oct 2009, at 05:00, Aldric G. wrote: > awesome; and it’s light. > > I do appreciate your recommendations. Pretend money isn’t a problem as > long as it’s under US$2,000 (Yeah, I don’t think you can convince me > to > buy a Macbook Pro or a Macbook Air… But maybe you can!) My current port-about is an MSI Wind u100 running Snow Leopard and packing a 9-cell extended battery. Assuming you want a USB DVD drive of some variety to use with it you could source the same for about $650 including the Snow Leopard license. Configuration is only a mildly black art these days (see [http://forums.msiwind.net](http://forums.msiwind.net), currently offline but with all the relevant posts in google’s cache) and you can be running full vanilla OS X with software update and hibernation in under a day if you don’t require Windows. Linux is an easier dual-boot option although that’s only necessary for VGA out. I was carting this around at LSRC with Leopard installed and it worked a dream for coding. Now my poor MacBook fears a life of Windows and games is all that awaits it! Alternately they’re also very sweet machines with Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 which gives you access to the fully Ubuntu repos. For those with larger fingers the Samsung netbooks have very good keyboards, although I think the screens are glossy. Or for some retro chic, the older IBM X series (X31/41) are hard-wearing, light, blessed with Thinkpad keyboards and still pack reasonable bang for software development. They run linux like a charm. Ellie ## Eleanor McHugh Games With Brains [http://slides.games-with-brains.net](http://slides.games-with-brains.net) raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds\_to? :reason ---
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/3 "2009-10-19T19:35:38Z")
Eleanor McHugh wrote: > ## My current port-about is an MSI Wind u100 running Snow Leopard and packing a 9-cell extended battery. […] > > raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds\_to? :reason Yes, I just had to keep your signature in there. What kind of battery life do you get? Does the 9-cell battery stick out like a sore thumb, or like a malicious growth? ---
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/4 "2009-10-20T00:21:00Z")
On 19 Oct 2009, at 18:35, Aldric G. wrote: > What kind of battery > life do you get? Does the 9-cell battery stick out like a sore > thumb, or > like a malicious growth? It’s a bit of a carbuncle, but I get 6 hours from it reliably when doing heavy processing with wireless enabled. I suspect that could be extended for lighter usage, or maybe by swapping the HD for an SSD. Oh, and safe sleep works too which is sweet. Another nice feature is how cool the Atom processor runs for the bang it delivers. I’ve had a FreeBSD system building the Gnome ports in VirtualBox for the last day or so and it’s not appreciably warmer than when its sat idle. Hopefully Apple will oneday release a MacBook Nano but until they do, the MSI Wind is definitely a reasonable stopgap. Ellie ## Eleanor McHugh Games With Brains [http://slides.games-with-brains.net](http://slides.games-with-brains.net) raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds\_to? :reason ---
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 6:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/5 "2009-10-20T06:05:20Z")
Eleanor McHugh wrote: > Hopefully Apple will oneday release a MacBook Nano but until they do, > the MSI Wind is definitely a reasonable stopgap. Well, this thread isn’t exactly the wealth of information I was hoping for, but this seems to be the cheapest, most reasonable option. Any thoughts on the new Acer netbook? [http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-AO751h-1378-11-6-Inch-Netbook/dp/B002BHN63S/](http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-AO751h-1378-11-6-Inch-Netbook/dp/B002BHN63S/) ---
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/6 "2009-10-20T20:37:45Z")
Brian C. wrote: > A friend of mine has the Dell Mini 9 and is very happy with it for light > Rails development. It’s no longer available, having been replaced by the > Mini 10v, but that’s still cheap and light, and you can buy it without > the Windows tax. That sounds delightful 😉 I’ll also look at it. ---
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 9:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/7 "2009-10-20T09:37:50Z")
A friend of mine has the Dell Mini 9 and is very happy with it for light Rails development. It’s no longer available, having been replaced by the Mini 10v, but that’s still cheap and light, and you can buy it without the Windows tax. I have an old Thinkpad X30 which I’m very happy with, modulo some problems with battery charging. I’d be interested to hear how its processor (Pentium Mobile 1.2GHz) compares performance-wise with the current crop of Notebook processors (e.g. Atom 1.6GHz) ---
**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/something-portable-for-development-purposes/177249/8 "2009-10-21T20:58:25Z")
On 20 Oct 2009, at 08:37, Brian C. wrote: > current crop of Notebook processors (e.g. Atom 1.6GHz) > I have an X31 with the 1.4GHz Banias Pentium-M and I don’t notice a > huge difference between it and the Atom 1.6GHz for general computing. > The Pentium-M has a larger cache, but that’s offset by the Atom having > SSE3. Also the GMA950 lags a lot less than the underpowered Radeons > that IBM put in the X30s which allows more desktop eye-candy. Despite the difference in power stats between the two chips, I get about the same battery life from both per Wh of battery - and still less than with my old MacBook 1400 😉 Ellie ## Eleanor McHugh Games With Brains [http://slides.games-with-brains.net](http://slides.games-with-brains.net) raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds\_to? :reason