Netbook for DOTNET Development

Question

I'm looking for a netbook to do some dotnet development. Is there a recommended brand/configuration. I'm looking for reasonably good performance. Here are some of my requirements:

1. Win 7 ultimate
2. MS Office
3. VS 2008 and VS 2010 when it's out
4. CodeRush
5. good size keyboard without having to do a Fn+Key for Insert, Home, End and Del keys
6. Preferably Core 2 Duo
7. Decent battery life

P.S. The config of the netbook handed out at PDC seems pretty awesome.

Answer 1

What the marketing departements generally call a 'netbook' is most likely not suitable for dotNet development.

Here are some gotcha's from my POV

• screen resolution and size too small (this is the killer!)
• CPU not powerfull enough (or maybe not!)
• not enough RAM (more ram, more speed)
• keyboard to cramped

I've been issued a Lenovo X200s (a subnotebook, nice machine). It is usable (just) with a full scale IDE, but to fully use VS (or Komodo), as it is intended, I must add a big external monitor.

Answer 2

why a netbook? if the motivation is cost, what about a Windows Virtual Machine?

Answer 3

Assuming that you need a netbook for portability and cost, and that you're willing to live with the limitations in screen real estate and speed, the only real recommendation would be the same as most computers: buy the most RAM you can afford in the package that suit your needs.

Answer 4

The new Samsung N510 has a 11.6ins screen, large keyboard and a matte screen.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Notebook-1-66ghz-160gb-black/dp/B002OOVTCI

It's more expensive but I think it will be pretty popular over the next years or so.

Answer 5

1. Get a data connection on your cellphone that you can tether to a laptop.
2. Build a powerful development desktop machine at home
3. Remotely connect from your netbook. Do all your development remotely.
4. Don't worry about the netbook power, it's just a dumb terminal.

Answer 6

Netbook are surprisingly powerful.

While on vacation last fall I used my wifes MSIU100 netbook (1Gb Ram, pretty standard ATOM processor, WinXP) to work on a moderate sized ASP.Net application using VS'08 with Resharper 4.5 and Sql server '08. It was slower than my main development machine, but not painfully so. The only really awkward part was the small screen, but I managed to get by with all the various tool windows collapsing when not in use. I expected the experience to be much worse.

I bet nearly any $300 netbook will get the job done.

Answer 7

With netbooks, the screen size is a pain, as with most IDEs you'll get polluted by tons of useless toolboxes anyway.

I have a small application called ScreenSpace, that makes fullscreen any part of an application: http://www.dandeware.com/products/. That would help you to code properly since you would be able to make fullscreen the code area of Visual Studio.

Watch the 30 sec video in the link to see what it does. Also, there is a freeware version called ScreenSpace Lite. If you have a chance, try it and let me know if it helps.