Minimum System Requirements for a development PC

help
1

A friend of mine is looking to start learning to code. He has been helping me as a tester on meteor applications so Meteor seems a natural framework to start learning. However, he is on a pretty serious budget. I’d like to recommend a laptop that is sufficient without spending any extra cash. I’m assuming the following would suffice but may be slowing things down.

Feedback from anyone working on a low spec laptop who can share their specification and any issues they experience would be welcome here. Given the budget and experience, we’d have to opt for a Windows laptop.

Intel Celeron N3450
4GB Memory
5400RPM HDD

This is the laptop we are considering:

https://www.lazada.com.ph/asus-x541na-gq219t-notebooks-x-series-black-intel-celeron-n3450-1534-4g-500g-shared-win-10-34309746.html?offer_id=205&affiliate_id=91871&offer_name=PH+Data-feed_0&affiliate_name=PH+-+Kakaku.com%2C+Inc.&transaction_id=102b5519957a26d7bf1e13f2b4ff7a&aff_sub=&aff_sub2=&aff_sub3=&aff_sub4=&aff_sub5=

2

I would say (especially with meteor) you will want to optimize for file operations, which means springing for an SSD.

Not sure what your exact price range is, but ~$300, maybe try this search?

I’ve had great luck with refurb thinkpads, and 8gb ram, i5 and SSD for $300 will get a new developer pretty far, I think.

1 Like
3

Yes, I think SSD is the most important as there may be thousands of files that Meteor needs to process (under node_modules directory) when building an app each time after a modification of even one file that is used by the server.

4

Thanks, that’s pretty much the budget I had in mind, the person is based in the Philippines though so a step from $200 to $300 but we’ll have a look at getting an SSD.