Ultra-Portable Laptop or Tablet PC for Development and Sketching

Question

I am a software developer that primarily writes in PHP, [X]HTML, CSS, Javascript, C# and C++. I use Eclipse for web development, Visual Studio 2008 for C++ and C# work, TortoiseSVN, Subversion server for local repositories, SQL Server Express, Apache and MYSQL. I also use Office 2007 for word processing and spreadsheets and use Vista Ultimate 64 as my primary operating system. The only other things I do on my laptop are watch movies, surf the internet and listen to music.

I currently have a Acer Aspire 5100 (1.4 GHz AMD Turion X2, 2 GB of RAM and a 15.4" screen). This thing does not cut it in performance or portability, and in addition, my DVD drive failed. And before anybody posts about vista: I have had XP Professional 32 on it for the last two years, and recently upgraded to Vista 64. It is actually faster (with areo disabled) then XP; so it is not the OS that is causing the laptop to be slow.

I usually sketch a lot, for explaining things, developing user interfaces and software architecture.

Because of my requirements, I was thinking about a Lenovo X61 Tablet PC. It outperforms my current laptop, is significantly more portable, and... is a tablet.

My question is: do any other software developers use this (or other tablets) for programming? Does it help to be able to sketch on the computer itself? And is it capable of being a good development machine? Will it handle the above software listed?

If not, what is the best ultra-portable laptop that is good for programming? Or are ultra-portable laptops even good for programming? I could manage with my 15.4" screen, but am spoiled by my two 19" at my home desktop and my job's workstation.

Answer 1

I don't know about which laptop, but consider a Cintiq.

Answer 2

Having programmed on an eeepc, the small keyboard was the biggest frustration, followed by the small screen size, though small fonts or external screen can help with that.

Programming using a onscreen keyboard is even more frustrating for me. I could only type a letter at a time, and without tactile feedback and word-completion-for-programmer writing non-trivial programs was equivalent to torture. Not to mention most touchscreen drivers are overly simplistic in their remapping algorithm, so the pointer-error is different on different part of the screen, making rapid entry more difficult.

In essence, programming requires easy and fast text input and currently these are incompatible with the design goals of ultra-portables, or tablet pcs without an attached keyboard.

Your requirements are probably best met by a new wireless technology that requires no batteries - pencil and paper. You could do sketches on a tablet PC, but in my experience unless it is a very good tablet PC, pencil and paper is still faster and easier. It also makes it easy for you to give a copy to your customer since almost every company have a photocopy machine. Further, you are not bounded by battery life and other technological requirements.

Sometimes the solution isn't always newer technology :-)

Answer 3

I have also used an Eee PC (a Japanese Model 901, 8.9" screen) for light development. I can also reflect freespace's response that the keyboard is a little small to type confortably on, but I have been using it exclusively for the past month and a half and have become fairly comfortable in using it. The screen is a little bit on the small side and the vertical resolution of 1024 x 600 is a little bit lacking. However, I have been using Eclipse (for Java and C), and with some tweaking of the toolbars and windows, it seems to work fine for me.

The current "netbook" caterogy machines which use the Atom processor may be a little bit lacking in terms of performance if you consider your Turion X2-powered laptop's performance not to cut it. Compiling can take a while and the response may feel sluggish at times. With my Eee PC, it seems as if the SSD is a little bit on the slow side when it comes to heavy disk access. However, in terms of portability, coming in at around two pounds, netbooks are very lightweight and easy to go around with.

Answer 4

For a full-time dev, a large screen and a proper keyboard are a must, both of which are not present in a laptop, and especially so in an ultra-portable.

There are advantages going for laptops, though, and my main machine is a Dell Latitude 110L, soon to be 3½ years old. It doesn't really matter which laptop to use as long as it has the source-crunching power for your dev environment, and a tablet could really benefit you according to your description.

But do yourself a favor and get a large (22" and up, they're getting really cheap) monitor and a proper ergonomic keyboard and mouse to hook up at every permanent working space.

Answer 5

I have been using the Lenovo Thinkpad X61 tablet for the past 1.5 years and highly recommend it. I do graphic design and desktop and web application development on it and it works great. I originally ordered the tablet with 2Gb of RAM but upgraded to 4Gb.

There are two definite must-haves with this system:

• Ultrabase - This is Lenovo's docking station for the X61 (I think it's about $170). It allows me to have a multi-monitor setup when I'm at home and also provides an optical drive (the tablet doesn't have one). The base is affordable enough to warrant having one at work as well.
• Microsoft OneNote - This application rocks and is where I do 95% of my stylus use. See this SO thread for my reasons why I think this program is so great.

P.S. Web browsing in tablet mode is a unique experience. With a browser that's setup for mouse gestures (Firefox + All-in-One Gestures), there's nothing like kicking back in a big soft chair with a computer that feels like a book.

Answer 6

Yes, I consider Tablet PC's to be great software development machines. I prefer it over the ultra-portables especially the new Tablet's from HP and Dell.

I’m about to order the new 64 bit Tablet PC from HP. You can configure it to use the 64 bit AMD Turion Ultra ZM-86 processor making it the first 64 bit Tablet PC on the market. I don’t expect the battery life on a 64 bit portable to be good but it should provide 2.5 hours which is all that I usually need.

This tablet PC will be my primary software development PC for home office work. I’ll also use it for occasional software design and teaching sessions.

I’m going to order it with the docking station so that it can drive dual 24 inch monitors. I need the dual monitors to maximize my productivity whenever I have 4 hour coding sessions in my home office. I'll also have the luxury of disconnecting to do some work on the couch.

Answer 7

Even though I am a huge believer in the Tablet form-factor I think you're making a big mistake as a developer if you trade off power and resolution capability for tablet functionality.

The ideal situation is a slate Tablet and a powerful laptop. Use OneNote shared notebooks to keep the two in sync. This is an awesome travel combo: you can use whatever writing mode (typing / pen) is appropriate to the moment and you have, if not quite 2 19" monitors, more screen real estate than most. If the slate is laid flat on the table beside your laptop, it's not intrusive (it's not like you're building an off-putting "wall of monitors").

Because the slate in this scenario is essentially a smart display and writing surface, you can get away with a relatively under-powered one that is lighter, has better ergonomics, etc. (I travel with a 3-year-old Motion slate.)

The only caveat to this is that non-tablet XP has trouble with OneNote shared notebooks that contain ink.

Answer 8

I think very visually so I bought a tablet. It's the HP Pavilion tx2000, and for its tablet features, I love it. I use Visual Studio, Expression Blend and Web, Visio, and various tablet apps like InkSeine. I never use the tablet when I'm at home, though.

I would suggest you try a tablet in the store and see if the screen is going to work for you. The screen on my particular tablet is very reflective and almost unusable in heavy fluorescent environments.

Answer 9

Thanks for the suggestions.

Having 2 devices may be a better option. One of my objectives is to get up to speed with the coming wave of multi-touch tablets running Windows 7.

For the new 64 bit HP tablets, I believe that when docked, it should have the CPU horsepower and graphics capability to drive two hi-resolution 24" monitors.

The preferred 24" monitor is the Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP.

Answer 10

I use a MSI Wind U120 with 10" screen and altho the keyboard is squashed it is not, in my opinion, as bad as with the 8.9" devices. Plus the screen is actually readable at that size.

Answer 11

I'm going to suggest the HP touchsmart tx2z series, weighing in at ~4 lbs with a reasonably sized screen 1280x800 res and both tablet and multi-touch it's already got alot going for it, but throw on top a dual core proc and 4 gigs of ram, and a really good windows 7 experience, I've found it to be a fantastic system for anything from development to gaming (runs portal decently) sketching is fine, and even better with MSPaint in win 7, with adobe photo shop i'm sure it'd be godlike. it's stylish, easy to carry, and the keyboard isn't cramped like most net-books, so prolonged useage doesn't give me cramps, definately one to consider! Only downside is HP support, or rather, the lack thereof.

Answer 12

A tablet is not necessarily an ultra-portable. I have a Dell Latitude XT tablet with the 1.3 GHz low power processor, 9-cell battery, and 3GB ram. Running Vista with Aero disabled it was fine for development in Visual Studio. I am now running Windows 7 on it (the RC of course) and it runs Visual Studio, Expression Studio and Eclipse with much power and speed. It is now my full-time development machine. The keyboard is spacious and tactile compared to other tablets and the pen is very good for drawing diagrams or doing notes/user expression presentations using OneNote. I whole-heartedly recommend an XT for web and software development.

Answer 13

don't know how you guys do it..last year or so i completely ditched my laptop... its just not worth it when I have dual 24's at home as they are so cheap. typing on good keyboard and good mouse with these running 1920res, then switching to ANY laptop is just overall a crappy experience. If I travel I just take my flash drive with me and whatever I'm working on and find a desktop somewhere to plug into.

Answer 14

I am a doing a computer science major and have the same requirements as Nelson. I don't know about the x61t, but it is really stupid to compare it to 10 inchers. I have owned a lenovo ideapad s10 for over a year and it was slow, but decent for light development work (in Ubuntu). The cramped keyboard was a problem, but you get used to it.

But when you talk about a THINKPAD tablet, you are talking superb quality, full sized keyboards and a trackpoint that allows you to navigate while typing, which is pretty fast input. The only unanswered question here is, does it have enough processing speed to handle the IDEs mentioned. Personally i don't think it should be any problem if you are going to use Windows 7 or any variant of Linux. Fedora 12 is apparently killing it on tablet PCs these days.

A huge reason I am buying the X61t is because it has support for legacy serial and parallel ports on it's ultrabase, which is a great help for hobby embedded development.