Should I BUY a MacBook for programming? 

liked and subscribed immediately after he said "I'm not going to make you wait till the end of the video". thanks for being a decent human

I think learning to work around the limitations of low end hardware is really valuable for beginners. I got a nice $2k Thinkpad when I graduated high school, but before that I learned a lot with my old $400 dell laptop that I got in like fourth grade. Learning to work efficiently on whatever device you have access to can really help you to be more efficient once you can afford a better device.

Agreed. I have developed professionally on both Macbook and PC, and honestly there isn't that big of a difference. I have a Macbook M1 and I love it, but I would not spend $3000 on laptop if i was just starting. Also, if you are really into gaming and don't want to have two machines a PC might be a better option for you. You can do the exact same thing on either, so it just come down to personal preference and your financial situation.

Fantastic video! Every word hit home. I'm about to start my Software Engineering BA, and your video was a real wake-up call. I’ve got a Windows Surface Laptop Go 2 and was teetering on the edge of splurging on a new Apple computer. But thanks to your insights, I think I'll hold off and see how things go. Appreciate the content!

Binged most of your popular uploads, and I have to say this is a really good advice channel. No annoying sponsors or padding/filler to get the video to 10 mins and the advice you give is very direct & practical. Thanks a lot bro.

thanks a lot for starting the video saying your statement, RU-vidrs are literally missing this essential step

Last year I was attending a full stack web development bootcamp. The instructions to install ruby and ruby gems on mac was easy using a couple of curl bash commands. Even when learning PHP using homebrew to install and boot up a server is by far the fastest and easiest. I try to follow along on my windows PC and found it difficult to install and correctly set up WSL2 and connect my account with SSH for git/github. I grew up with windows 2021 was my first year owning a macbook air m1 and I never looked back and switching I still own a gaming PC but anything development related I use apple laptops. I know a lot of developers try to be humble and drive beginners to use windows and cheap laptop and that is okay but also misleading them to not save up for a apple computers specially since most the guides are written for unix base systems and using zsh and bash terminals are the go to in the modern era

Excellent take James. I got the M1 air a year ago and it's definitely a steal for just the general programming as such along with school work. It's an excellent buy for overall usage and portability, just the basic necessities and whatever one's needs be met. Going for other viable workspace options such as standing desk, quality ergonomic chair, monitors, keyboard, mouse, lightings, cable management, and even some plants for decoration is going to be so much more practical than whaling on a $2000 MacBook Pro in my personal experience, the rest of the money to buy for other spaces speaks volumes. Unfortunately, the ONLY regret I have is not spending the extra for 16gb of ram as for longevities sake its going to be worthwhile.

I gave you a thumbs up in the first 30 seconds for being honest and giving the answer upfront, then getting to the details. I've always gotten by quite well with Windows machines and VirtualBox VM's running my IDE's.

As a student no stick to windows, as a professional who develops production level code running on Linux. Mac has been a blessing in disguise. Setting up for developmental environment and your production environment is so easy man. Windows use to introduce problems and issues. So if you use Linux as servers to run your code I believe Mac OS waaayyyy better

I've been a PC user ever since then moved to Linux before when I studied programming and I like the Unix and bash more for coding, it feels more natural to code in it unfortunately there's a lot of daily stuff that is quite complicated to use in Linux. Currently I use Windows but coding in WSL and it's so complicated to make stuff work than what it should be. So I decided to save money to finally get a macbook because of the M1 performance and it's closer to Linux experience than windows.

Thanks dude, perfect timing 👍

Not worth to buy, totally worth getting one from your employer 😊

I am using a MacBook Pro early 2019 mod, however I am not just only programmkng, but also video editing and music recording/mixing/mastering. Great video!

I’m using hp elitebook 8470p (12gb ram, coir i5 2nd gen) for web development. I mostly use my laptop for react js, php apis and for webflow. It’s working fine for me😊

I'm using Macbook Air M1 (16gb ram) professionally (iOS Development) and I'm very happy with it. It is very light and handles all the tasks quite fast. I have an unconscious desire to get Macbook M1 Max with 32 gb, but I just don't think that $3k is worth 2 more CPU cores

I like ur lighting it look amazing man!

So, I had been using PC exclusively until I found out all the devs and most of the other employees with the company I'm interning with use Mac OSX. And while I could still technically use a Windows machine, the extra steps I'd have to go though to perform the same tasks was just not worth it to me. So, with the wife's blessing, I got myself a new 16" M1 MacBook Pro. And tbh, although there's still a bunch of things I hate about OSX, for coding, it has made my life a lot easier. So I will stick to coding on my Mac and everything else on my PC.

I have a Windows laptop. Thank you for your honesty. I eventually plan on getting a MacBook further down my learning path.

I appreciate you mentioning the iPad because that’s what I was considering using.

I've been using Macbook Pro 2017 professionally since 2019, and it's working perfectly. Although I'm upgrading this year, my sister is having it for her first year of college.

No jokes i actually found my laptop in metal recycling container. I installed extra ram and a SSD drive and now it works flawlessly with vs code for web development

Thank you for putting the answer in the beginning of the video

I am currently using a Asus Rog Zephyrus with 32 GB of Ram and two 1TB ssd nvme with windows and wsl - mainly developing in WSL and Tmux with Neovim as a full LSP but dual boot wit Pop OS when I really need linux . Did not make the whole switch because still I need to play with my kids. I've gotten my hands on a Macbook air m1 and the experience is full imerisible into the OS and everything is at your fingertips.

Thanks man... Your video save me👍

I purchased a brand new 2012 model MacBook Pro in 2016 (to keep dvd and cheaper upgrades haha), exchanged the hdd for ssd and updated ram to 16gb. So far so good for learning. I like to keep machines for 8 years. 🤞 I keep Vmware on for any Windows needs. Thinking about trying Parallels.

I saved $1000 and wanted to buy a M1 MBA but i’m only 18 and starting in programming so for now I’m gonna stick to my parents old Acer laptop. Maybe next year, when I get better experience I’ll invest in a better laptop but we’ll see. Thanks for the video! It helps even a year later ^^

I use vim for coding, and using vim through wsl in windows suck, especially when docker is added into the mix. So I switched to macbook m1 pro (unix core so I can use vim natively) and will never look back.

Currently, I have Macbook Air M1 and I'm in the beginning stages of learning software development. I am taking the self taught route. Thanks for the info; I feel a lot better about my Macbook.

I am usually using a desktop PC for programming. I am also gaming on another desktop PC. My main gaming build has an AIO water cooling that makes an extremely annoying humming noise. So, I use my second build for programming, which has a Ryzen 5600G and ITX case. I always had problems with laptops. My Acer Aspire V15 Nitro laptop's temp sensors started misbehaving and causing the CPU to scale down its frequency to the point that the laptop is no longer usable. My new Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon laptop had overheating problems from the day zero. So, I switched to Macbook pro, and I am happy. The only reason for using a mac notebook for me is the mobility advantage. If I didn't have to go mobile, I would not need a laptop.

I just love your content and the way you make your videos. It makes me feel that your trying to help someone out and not just making a video to make money off of it (which is not a bad thing! but some people's content is just garbage and fake and it feels they made the video just for money rather than benefiting people AND making money at the same time). Liked and subscribed.

Huge shoutout!

Switched to mac recently, best decision I have made

I've been loving Linux for about a year now, and now the terminal is my new home for productivity. I'm still running my Acer Chromebook N7 11 from my school, and I think I've been using it far beyond what it was meant for. Running Ubuntu on it instead, no Chrome OS. It only has 16 GB of eMMC, and 4 GB of RAM. Only about 1.5 GB free to install dependencies for new projects, so I have to only work on some things at a time. For how goofy this setup is, I love it a lot! Definitely in need of an upgrade.

Just bought a MBA m1 and love the way everything looks/works. Totally worth getting rid of my Dell precision

I'm a web developer and currently my laptop is a Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 (Ryzen 5 4600H, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD and 1TB HDD) and it's a pretty solid one. The thing is that I want to learn iOS development for fun (maybe in the future build some apps) and that's the reason why I'm considering buy a new Macbook Pro M1 (16GB RAM and 256/512GB SSD). But if you're just starting any computer would do the trick, my brother in law is just starting to learn and today I helped him setup an old laptop just for him to get started (a Toshiba laptop from 2013 with a 4th gen Intel Core i5 running Ubuntu).

As a game developer for 10+ years, my personal experience has been to use a programming environment that most closely matches the primary target platform for the application being developed. Most companies expect some amount of cross-platform support when it comes to gaming and probably one of the most painful parts of that is working within any sort of virtualized/emulated environment in order to run and test your software. I absolutely love all of Apple's hardware, but with the most recent move to M1/M2 using ARM architecture, I cannot easily justify upgrading to one of those machines since there currently aren't any good solutions to provide an extremely performant x86/x64 working environment (at least none I'm aware of). If you are a student just beginning to set foot into programming, I would recommend doing a bit of research into your course requirements to see what the expectations are for your deliverable work to avoid wasting money on something that will not provide what you need. If you are learning on your own, take some time to research these platform/architecture limitations in regards to your own goals to also avoid wasting money. Personally though, if I didn't have the platform restrictions, I would most likely jump on one of the new M2 systems since they are surprisingly powerful and very well-built.

Well spoken 👏

I am using a Toshiba Satellite laptop that I bought in the Summer of 2015! The battery sucks, so I just keep it plugged in all the time. I started using The Odin Project (Thanks :) and went the virtual machine route which is going great.

I've been using a 7 year old Asus laptop that has held up surprisingly well, only considering updating for more RAM.

I personally use a window’s and about to by a MacBook on the side, if you’re a beginner there isn’t much a difference but for me I want to learn how to also make my own music for my games, websites, etc. Also if you are wanting to program for apple devices you will have an easier time, I do know for sure I had a iMac it just got too old to use also if you want something cheap I’d recommend linux

So what is the best laptop for coding that I should buy ?

I have a 2020 MacBook Air. So far so good.

Before knowing aws and setting up homeserver, I usually recommend my friend to go with window or anything beside MacBook if they have taken any assembly code classes. Because that x86_64 assembly code does not work on intel or m1 mac. But now I change, I fully commit and recommend getting macbook. You can build a lot of things with Mac these days.

I have been coding for 4 years now and I use a macbook pro m1 13'', I use it beacuse the terminal is amazing and xcode is available on macbook only. The only bad experience I have had with my macbook is the fact that java is not optimized for macos so my exprience on java was not great but everything else is a dream.

Going to take out my 2016 HP , upgrade the ram and ssd to start my Networking class. Delete everything and install windows 10. Very interested in software to but I want the degree in hardware, then if I want to I could even land a web developer job with it.. who knows. Thanks for the info! MacBook pro would be cool but I already have a gaming computer plugged into Samsung Odyseyy G9 5120x1440. I need Mac experience but good call on waiting a bit.

He is right, all IDEs will slowly move over to cloud. The backend compilation will happen directly on a VM or docker container.... Bdw... I use a Samsung s22 ultra with Nexdock wireless and compile codes on a ubuntu VM in AWS... Who am i to judge 😅

Used a Lenovo flex 6 to learn/college and now m1 Mac for iOS app development.

I am backend engineer and I use MacBook Air on M1 16\256. This laptop is fully appropriate to my tasks and it's quite enough for me. Thanks

Hi. Currently working as an entry level backend developer and my lead noticed during my screen sharing with him that my 2018 lenovo i3 took around 2 mins to reload an express project. He pushed me to go macbook pro. Im eying a 2016 model macbook due to budget consideration, will i be good at this decision?

i doing app and web development. i plan to buy a mac but i would like to know if i could just install macOS on my desktop so i could just use xcode. ps. i am a react dev and a flutter and react native dev.

I am using HP Probook 4530s for Web Developments Project and also for Linux Administration and yeah i have upgraded a bit the ssd and the ram.

I’m using a lenovo flex 5, I got it because I was going to college and I wanted a 2-in-1 because I thought it would be good for note taking. Turns out pen & paper or a tablet is usually much better for note taking and I never use the 2-in-1 feature. I dual-booted it with windows 11 and Linux mint and it works great for programming and daily tasks, but if I were to go back I would have gotten a $300-$500 thinkpad with 16gb.

I started with a 7 year old i3 2nd Gen with 2 GB of built-in RAM and was using it for over a year at work. Laptops from 10 years ago aren't going to be stumped by whatever you managed to code in your first or second year of programming. Unless the game is AI where you can just pay for Colab on cloud or something. Same for docker.

Let me know, right now i'm intrested in cyber security and thinking buying MBA M1 am i make a right decision? Or taking windows laptop like asus rog g14 or thinkpad x13

I have a 2017 Macbook Pro that I used for the past 5 years, but lately I’ve started to do most of my work on windows. Windows Subsystem for Linux changes the game combined with VSCode. However, the whole Windows 11 thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth so we will see.

I started coding a while ago I mostly do web development, little scripting mostly in python and explore some other technologies like AI & ML, cybersecurity etc I was Confused between MacBook Air M1 or MacBook Air M2, whatever I'll buy I'll upgrade it to 16gb ram and 512ssd. Which one should I buy M1 or M2 Air ???

I have a MacBook for school and a lot of things and I’m a beginner, so I don’t really have any other option. Can you give some websites to code, not for learning code to type out the code

I don't know if I should get a Windows laptop (a lot of options) or a M1 MBA 16GB. I already have a powerful desktop PC which I use with Linux for coding and it works great but because of it, I've been without a working PC for a few days on different occasions. I would like to get a laptop that I can use just for work so I don't have to rely on my PC to be working. I would like a MB for the better laptop experience (Windows is good for laptops but not so much for coding, and Linux sucks), the stability, and for the iOS support. I currently do web and mobile development.

I’m a newbie to programming, I use a 2012 13” Mac Pro, I updated the drive to ssd, it’s still hanging in there.😊

I'm using DELL XPS 15. Works well.

I know that I wanna be a software engineer or starting a e-commerce business online and for that I need a computer and I’m already in the apple ecosystem with my iPhone, AirPods, and iPad, so might as well get a MacBook Pro 14 inch base model

Which laptop should i buy now 😕 I still confuse which laptop to buy. I want to use for graphic design, uiux, coding too

Tell me please, to study javascript, react in the future, docker, databases such as SQL Server, Postgres, and other web development technologies, will the MacBook Air m2 16/512 be enough? If I work for 12 hours will there be no problems with such a laptop due to passive cooling?

I'm need a Mac for iOS dev. Should I get the M2 air or a pro 16 or even a Mac mini?

Prior to getting my first job I've learned with Lenovo Ideapad with i3, 4GB RAM (I've purchased 4 GB more), and 1GB memory of GPU (not related as I'm playing a lot of tanks). In 2018 - I'ts not so long time ago. My first Ideapad costed me less than 400$ and when I'm hearing some questions from wannabe coders on what computer to buy in order to LEARN coding (not mentioning development on a 13 GB of code, 25 different projects with many dependencies solution) I'm feeling like a gruuuumpy old man. Because If someone is planning to spend a lot of cash just to have a computer "To learn programming" - dude... Spend that cash on Udemy, Pluralsight and just quit your job while learning... Had anyone seen a driving license student learning on how to ride with a Mercedes AMG ? You don't need 90 % of Apple MacBook's capabilities ! Unless you like to throw your cash away, or just want to shine with an bitten apple then go for it. And as an answer for the video's author - I'm using stationary PC with i9, 16 GB of RAM and 1TB SSD win 11 Pro. And it's very good stuff for coding. No problems with multiple monitors so far ;D

I'm a programmer for around 8 months, and I'm using a Lenovo Legion with Ryzen 5 5600H, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD and Nvidia RTX 3060 and 165Hz display.. I spend around 1400€ on this machine and is totally worth it!!

Great video.. I own a Zenbook Zephyrus Duo (RTX3080, 32Gb RAM, 2Tb SSD).. not because I need it for development (Python / C++) but because I also want to learn Unreal, play the latest games and run machine learning code with CUDA support. If I would only use this laptop for Python / C++ this laptop would be a terrible waste of money and a simple $500 laptop would do just fine. In fact, if I have a day of pure coding I mostly pick up my Google Pixelbook which runs on ChromeOS but has everything I need. Focus on your requirements and then decide.. don't fall for all the extras you most likely don't need.

I'm been a software developer for many years and I use an x1 carbon, I think it's the perfect balance between portability, size and performance. it's pricey however lenovo has massive sales very often.

you can buy any machine that can run okay a virtual machine, it will take longer to do stuff through a virtual machine, but technically you can use macOS and windows on a linux laptop with a virtual machine, I write this from a 2019 16 inch base model macbook pro tho

Honestly I’m using a iPad gen 8 with a mechanical keyboard to learn it’s nothing fancy but it works and I’m on free code camp so it’s very user friendly surprisingly, humble beginnings

Is there Magento 2.4.4 supporting properly in M1 and elastic search?

guys i’m going to study software engineering soon…what’s the best laptop for it? pls recommend

So I truly want to pay for a laptop but I don't know which is better I will shortly learn to code plus I'm learnig trending recently, I like gaming also, and for sure I need it for college do you recommend a MacBook or a PC

I'm a third year computer science student interested in full-stack development. Currently on my second internship and I initially bought the M1 Air due to its affordability and portability, but after using it for 1 1/2 years I realize I would benefit from more RAM (i.e. at least 16GB) and a fan. I'm debating upgrading or just waiting until my next summer internship since the company will likely send me a powerful macbook model.

I always wanted to try what it would be like coding on mac. I am a web developer and have been using only Windows 10 and 11, I also did react on a mobile project. I can say that it is not necessary if you are a web developer since most of your work will focus on, you guessed it, websites. But during my experience doing react, I can say that it would have been easier owning a mac to check if it's working on ios. Besides, why spend money for work when you can spend it on yourself! Just my opinion. Great coding!

I want to learn to code I have an iPad Pro can I use that for the time being?

I'm a second year in college doing my computer science degree and currently i'm using a asus Vivobook, the battery is trash and it only has 12 gb ram which isn't bad but i def ran into some problem while i was coding using Visual studios such as making a mobile app, it took me 10 min just to run the emulator and then another 5 min to run the program. I found my old 2012 macbook pro and I upgraded the ram, battery and ssd and already I saw a difference in run time. Even though it's an old macbook pro with an old CPU it has more GHZ then my current my Asus laptop. I do reccomend anyone that has an old macbook to upgrade the parts. Its not going be the best laptop ever, But for how it peforms and how it works, I think it will last me a while

I’m a masters cs student and i still use a MacBook Air 2015 with Ubuntu linux

I use a MacBook Pro 16" but only because it came wit my school launch box. (So I'm paying for it through student loans basically). I'm not very educated in computer hardware. Which desktops are popular among web developers? Is my MacBook Pro sufficient?

i am using m1 pro from last 3 years, and still it performs well, battery health is 90. but now i got rich, wanted to buy m2 but confused, should i buy m2 air or m2 pro? Any help in deciding

Developer, on private thinkpad e495 (cause awesome keyboard and grest quality) work laptop is some dell latitude cause that what employeer provide

I graduated with a bachelor in CS. And my 4 years in college I’ve been using my dads old Toshiba laptop. I have a good understanding of programming mostly the basics, but now it’s been a year and a half since I graduated and I haven’t practiced programming in quite a while. So I want to buy my own laptop. A lot of people suggested MacBook Pro. But I don’t know the difference between the M1 and M2. I really don’t know that much about MacBooks and weather I should buy a MacBook or an HP laptop. I really would appreciate your help.

I use a macbook air i5 8go I should take more RAM, I got some problem when I’m coding on react + browser with 3, 4 tabs I will change for the new MacBook pro M2

I was thinking of getting a Thinkpad Carbon X1. I'm too hooked with Windows ecosystem. I'm still able to do Web Dev and Machine Learning with ease.

LOL at 1:10.... that's exactly how I feel sometimes when looking at my bank account. Thanks for all the great info you have been putting.

Nitro 7 coz I want to play games as well as code. Though ill suggest to install more ram if its 8gb

I am going into my sophomore year at college and have been using a 2017 MacBook Pro which has been decent so far but I am transferring to a bigger school and I was using my moms MacBook so I need to buy one for when I move in the fall. I will be buying a Macbook and am very interested in the M2 mba. Could I get by as a cs major at a big name engineering school with 8gb ram and 256 ssd (base m2 mba)? Or would it be worth getting 16gb ram? It’s +$200 for upgraded ram.

I am planning to buy a MacBook because of compatibility issue. Specially working with different OS.

Okay all can you guys please suggest the windows laptop with best battery backup for coding, Thanks!

Mostly i do coding and ui/ux then its will fine with 8gb ram ?? Bcz i don't do video editing or graphics design

Have used mac as personal machine for years along beefy windows desktops(mostly for gaming) and I will never pick windows as dev machine. I'm not saying they are bad or that mac os is better by any means. It simply comes down to preference. I love spending less time configuring my environment and being able to use the terminal. Everyone always bring up linux in windows but the thing is I don't want to set that up. I also tried buying a high spec windows laptop with an rtx 3070 and as soon as I heard the airplane half a foot to my left start taking off I was like YEA RIGHT! Portable gaming for what? I'm not starting that thing up with people around me lol.

so great video

at the price point apple silicon will beat out any other chip. Also as a software dev for work the only reasonable os you can use is either linux or mac. unfortunately linux isn't as popular and so some simple apps like excel isn't available on it. Windows honestly isn't a reasonable solution theres no native terminal and my time coding on windows id spend half of it dealing with some issue where it cant install a package or some other obscure windows error and unfortunately there just isnt a lot os support online for windows youll see plenty of stack overflow posts using mac or linux and the solution is to just copy a line and paste it into your terminal but with windows it just isnt that easy.

I have a budget of 500 and I want to get a good web developer laptop which one should I get? ❤️

I am student working on PC and I have recently bought a MacBook 2020 i7 for $500 in ebay for programming outside home like library, and mostly because of my inner child dreams of having one of the apple products like ipad or mac. So buying it closed my gestalt and moreover, I have a device which I can take everywhere whether it's a university or other country, as I do travel at least once a year on summer vacation.

Once you go Mac, you never go back! After I got a 16" M1 Pro from my work, Windows feels like it's far behind Mac OS. Though there are some things in MacOS that are infuriating(looking at you file explorer). I would just hate to give it back when I quit (soon 😅). In my university days I used an Asus laptop on which I dual booted Windows and Linux and it was more than enough. Nowadays I use a dual-booted desktop PC and an office provided Macbook. Also I should mention that if you're going to be doing any iOS related development then Mac is pretty much your only option.

I'm using a custom built desktop. However I am in the market for a laptop as my 6+ year old HP envy x360 is starting to give out.

to the point

Please can a Acer Aspire one netbook used for coding