First Steps: Choosing a Laptop

The first major milestone in this journey will be choosing and buying a new laptop.

Until now I have relied on either work-provided laptops, or my extremely large, old, and non-portable desktop PC (lovingly named Ol’ Bessie). For this journey to start off on the right foot I need my own machine. Something I can take with me, ready for work whenever inspiration strikes. Something which can run all of the various software I will need on this adventure. Something which will remain in my possession no matter where my career takes me.

Even now as I type I am using work-provided hardware. This is not something I wish to continue for any longer than is necessary.

Finding Bearings and Setting Requirements

But alas, where to even start… I have always been into tech, both programming and gaming, but I haven’t kept up with hardware for around 10 years now. I needed to do some serious catching up if I was to make an informed decision on this.

My footing was found in some brand names located in a few “best development laptops of 2025” articles (which are very likely sponsored to the gills, but still) and some Reddit threads claiming to show much of the same. After getting myself more familiar with the current hardware landscape, I shifted some efforts into ChatGPT and Perplexity to help me scan more of the web with more speed, to mixed results.

My requirements were:

• 16-32GB of DDR5 RAM (this work laptop has 16GB and it struggles under heavy workloads)
• A “good” CPU (I’m quite out of date on my CPU knowledge)
• Minimum 500GB of SSD storage
• Not really bothered about GPU (I don’t plan on gaming or video rendering on this laptop)
• Budgeting around £500-£1000 for a starter machine (all going well in time I would quite happily spend more on a more powerful machine if ever needed)
• Windows compatible (I’ve always worked on Windows, so went with familiar)

Confusion from the Outset

Looking into different Windows laptops proved quickly to be confusing. As someone who is far from a hardware enthusiast I found it overwhelming.

Researching the model numbers for every Intel and AMD processor. Learning about the many different screen types. Discovering that NVMe slots exist and that at some point they became the standard. Wondering what the special new terms like E/P cores on Intel mean. Trying to remember all of the different versions of every model of every brand at every price point while comparing. It all got very heavy very rapidly.

This put a bit of a damper on the search. However, with some help from our good friend ChatGPT I had shortlisted a Lenovo Thinkpad or an Acer Aspire. But for the time being I decided to sleep on it.

A Fresh Perspective

With a new day came a new idea to start fresh and broaden the the scope of my search. I wanted a better foundation of understanding of what I needed for a coding-first laptop. The idea came up after some research that unless doing something very Windows specific, Macs are the popular choice these days for coding. Allegedly, Apple Silicon blasts the competition out of the water in terms of cost/performance value. Plus, I’ve heard many times over the years that they just feel really nice to use. Not to mention Apple’s famous design quality and the ease of use of Linux based software on MacOS if that is ever needed.

I realised that I have access to a small community of dedicated developers through my work. I respect the opinions of these people, so it seemed like a good place to get some guidance. I posed the age old question to them: Windows or Mac (or Linux…)? This did initially give some helpful insight when some personal anecdotes, preferences, and benchmarks were shared. This all pushed me further towards the Mac camp. However, after just a short few messages, a full blown culture war seemed to fire up. When the argument started getting really heated I took my new information and left before blood began to spill.

Narrowing it Down

After looking into some options online I’ve found that Macs are probably pushing the budget to meet my requirements. MacBook Pros are the choice being pushed the hardest online, and the most basic option costs £1599 from Apple. However, the more I looked into this and the more I thought about using a Mac, the more it appealed to me. The novelty of learning a new OS and the new software that would be available. The sleek look and feeling, with everything working at maximum performance out of the box without any manual tweaking. It just started to feel like the easy, fun, efficient, and exciting choice. I even toned down the maximalist in me and decided that a MacBook Pro would be overkill for what I need now. Especially as this is supposed to be the “starter” project laptop.

And so I finally had some semblance of direction in this mad search: a MacBook Air.

Finding “The One”

Checking out pricing from different new stock retailers revealed only small variance in cost. I then found that there are some well respected refurbished laptop sellers out there with some high value offers. Searching around (both manual Googling and using Perplexity) gave me a lot of options to check out.

Apple’s official refurbished store seemed to be on the high end of the price scale. eBay gave me a bit of a dodgy feeling, and I didn’t feel street-wise enough to tackle this. LDLC’s refurbished section was lacking in choice, with only 5 options at the time of writing. Eventually I landed on Back Market. It seemed to have a good system of quality grading and very competitive prices, making things a bit easier.

Then I came across something which seemed to tick all the boxes.

Finally, I’d found my laptop.

A MacBook Air from 2025 which hits all the minimum specs. The M4 processor certainly passes the loose “good” check. While 16GB is the bottom end of the range for memory, I believe it goes further than the equivalent 16GB of DDR5 on a Windows machine. It is the larger of the MacBook Air sizes at 15″ (1″ larger than the screen I’m writing this on). It is the highest level of refurbished quality. It comes in a colour I wouldn’t normally have chosen, which oddly enough made me like it even more, the tame burnished gold “Starlight”. It comes with the latest processor, meaning it will likely be supported for longer. And it only just broke the budget, at £1088.99 after adding the £9.99 service fee from Back Market.

Here’s a price comparison chart generated by Perplexity to confirm the value of this offer:

The Back Market refurbished warranty is 1 year, so it does alright in that department too.

Elation and Rounding Out

It’s been about a week of searching and researching, but I am extremely happy with my choice. I also feel like I’ve learned a lot about hardware and the current market for it, which is a nice bonus.

Words cannot express my excitement to get my hands on this laptop. In 2 days time (hopefully) I will be learning MacOS for the first time, one step closer to starting this journey for real. Passive income streams, fun new projects, and eventual financial freedom, here we come!

At the same time I will be trying out another big change which I’m excited about. I will be making the shift over from Visual Studio to Rider. I’ve wanted to try this for a while. I have a lot of respect for JetBrains, I’ve long loved IntelliJ Idea (in the rare instance I have to dirty my hands on Java) and ReSharper. Now that Rider is free for non-commercial use this seems the perfect opportunity to give it a go. Especially given that Visual Studio for Mac is supposed to be, for lack of a better word, a mess.

In time the Agentic IDEs will be explored, as that is part of what I am hoping to discover on this journey. But for now my .NET bread and butter will be my well-learned point of reference for getting a feel in this new world.

Another blog post will be made reporting my findings and opinions about this new ecosystem I’m venturing out in to.

And then we begin the journey for real, on to the first project!