In the market for a new laptop, wondering if anyone had suggestions for reasonably priced laptops that can handle multiple bioinformatics softwares. I use DNPsp, Arlequin, Haplotype Viewer, Mega, PGDSpider, and Migrate-N.
Or any suggestions on good operating systems?
Thanks
I'm going to take a different tack and assume you actually want bang for your buck, in which case, Macs are not the way to go. The same components and specs in a non-Apple machine will run you many hundreds of dollars less than the Mac equivalent. And with the Windows Subsystem for Linux, you can have a fully-functioning unix command line at your disposal even if you get something with Windows.
However, as others have mentioned, most heavy-duty analysis is really more appropriate for a computing cluster. And for what you're running, nearly anything will do. Snatch something with at least 8 GB RAM, a decent processor, and (if possible) a solid-state drive, and you should be set.
I think the overpricing of Apple laptop is something of a myth. Last time I looked for a laptop (a couple of years ago), I found that for what they offered, MacBook Pro were actually competitively priced. Nothing else on the market had nearly as much battery life and getting a Lenovo laptop with the same specs and components resulted in a price within 100 Euros of an Apple laptop. It's true that most non-Apple laptops are cheaper but mostly because they're cutting down on some of the features. So depending on which features are less important for you, you would definitely find cheaper laptops elsewhere. Also, all my Apple laptops have lasted 5+ years without problem (and at one point I traveled a lot) and for most of them I didn't have to replace the battery (typing this on a 5 years old MacBook pro with original battery still allowing a full day of work).
Hi Jean-Karim, great feedback. My HP laptop is already on its last legs after 2 years (also traveled a lot), so, I have began to wonder if, with Apple, you actually get more endurable material. Before this, my previous laptop (non-Apple) also lasted 2 years. Prior to that I had a Dell desktop that lasted 10 years.
Travel is a real pain, so, I have also contemplated buying a high power desktop, and then just traveling with a pocket-sized device.
A new 15" Macbook Pro with a 7th-gen i7, 16 GB RAM, a 256 GB SSD, and a Radeon 450 is $1800. You can get machines with a better GPU, a 1TB harddrive in addition to the SSD, and the same specs otherwise for almost $700 less. The gap is very much not a myth, unfortunately.
I have a Samsung R580 that's almost 8 years old now, and it still works fine as well. Most computers should last a good long while assuming you take care of them and the harddrive doesn't crap out/is replaced.
I think we should stop this discussion here. There are many levels to these things besides a raw collection of component specifications. Eveyone has a different perspective in what they like/consider acceptable/have budget for. Mac's do use some components that may not even be available on retail market (or to all manufacturers) so a direct apples-to-apples comparison is hard to do.
Any laptop that suits you should be fine. In my experience people have mostly used MacBooks.
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are you planning to actually run the analysis software on the laptop itself? In my experience, most software is run remotely on a compute server and the laptop is just used to access the server, and most people prefer MacBooks.
Yes, I run it on the laptop itself because my data is relatively low volume. I'm still thinking a MacBook for this, using Ubuntu as the operating system
Why? macOS is a fully qualified unix(-like) operating system.
I would suggest not getting a MacBook though. Even if your data is low volume. MacBook Air (or Pro, if you can afford it) would be better.
I've got a Hewlett Packard, 16GB ram, 8 CPU cores (1.7GHz each I think), and 2TB hard-disk. At 2 years of age, after much travel, and many intensive analyses, the fan is now broken and it typically overheats and switches off automatically to protect the hard-disk. My comma key also fell off somewhere along the way.
Invest in something that's robust if you travel a lot, as I do.
Does that laptop serve double duty as an exercise gadget when off?
Due to it's almost 10 kilogram mass, it certainly keeps my arm muscles in good shape. The fact that it's literally burnt on the underside from overheating means that it also triggered an alert at a US airport once.
I appear to have mixed up my system of weights having lived between the USA and Europe in recent years. It's almost 10 pounds (~4.5 kg)
Last I checked, installing Ubuntu on a Mac was a very involved process. I don't think its worth it at all. You can run Ubuntu easily in a virtual machine (e.g. VirtualBox), and you can also install many bioinformatics tools natively in macOS using Homebrew.
One that can support/run all the above software that you need.