Programming on a low end laptop could be challenging, but not everybody have the luxury of using a high end laptop. So, can low end laptops be used for programming? Especially web development.
Yes, you can definitely use low end laptops. Web development itself doesn’t require high specs, but the higher the spec, the more comfortable you will be.
In my own experience, I’ve used a laptop with Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM and 1TB HDD. It works quite smoothly for web development. I’ve used it for PHP, JavaScript, Laravel and React. It runs smoothly for the first 3, but it takes 10 to 20 minutes to start up the React development server. In fact, I’ve even used that laptop for Android Studio. Well, to be honest, it’s not a very pleasant experience, but it works with a lot of patience. So you definitely can use it but it takes patience depending on what tools you use.
In Quora forums (e.g. this one) as well, a lot of people shared their opinions and experience and their opinions are somewhat similar to mine. It’s possible with any laptop, but more comfortable with better ones.
My advice is, if low end is your only choice, just use it to earn or save up enough to get a better one. But, if you’re comfortable with it, please continue. As long as you don’t use JavaScript frameworks like React or Vue, you shouldn’t find performance as an issue.
Minimum/Preferable Specs for Web Development
If you’re looking for a new laptop, you should consider these specs :
- Processor : Intel 3 or AMD Equivalent
- RAM : 4GB
- Memory : 256 GGB SSD
- GPU : Any integrated GPU would be fine
Those are the minimum specs I’d recommend, but it is okay to go below that. With the specs above, you would be pretty comfortable coding with that laptop.
For the processor, you can use below the intel core series and it would do just fine. Even Celeron does the job, so everything else would be fine. In the case of RAM, as it is for running several tasks at once, 4GB should be enough, even 2GB might be fine, just be mindful of how many tasks are running at the same time.
For the memory, it is important that you use SSD and not HDD as it affects your loading speed drastically. In the case of GPU, web development doesn’t really depend on it, so just use the one integrated to your laptop.
If you have a limited budget, I suggest you prioritize SSD, then processor and RAM in order.
Keep in mind that these specs are for web development, if you use it for Android or Machine Learning, please use better specs.
Summary
So, you can go ahead and use mostly any laptop available for web development, but obviously better specs give better coding experience.
Please go ahead and visit the rest of my blog here if you are interested in learning about web development and I’ll try my best to share valuable information!
Do you have any experience with low spec laptops for coding? If yes, how does it feel? Share below!