Help buying a laptop for programming purposes

[mryoyo]

My laptop of about 5 years is now pretty much worthless, so I need a new laptop now. I have been looking around and have found three. Now I know AMD processors are nowhere near the intels, that much I do know, but would it make a difference if I'm just going to program(not heavy intensive 3D game programming) Anyway I'm not up to speed on hardware so if you guys have better suggestions I would love to hear them. Thank you in advance.

Lenovo Thinkpad e555 for $664
Processor: AMD A6-7000 Dual Core Processor (1M Cache, 2.2GHz - 3.0GHz)
15.6-Inch HD Antiglare LED-backlit Display 1366 x 768
Hard Drive: 500GB Solid State Drive
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz
Optical Drive: SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW Dual Layer

Lenovo 20DH002TUS ThinkPad E555 $699 (799 for 500gb SSD)
15.6-Inch HD Antiglare LED-backlit Display 1366 x 768
AMD A10-7300 Quad Core Processor (1.9Ghz - 3.2 GHz, 4MB cache)
AMD Radeon R5 M240 Graphics / DVD-RW Drive / 720p HD Webcam / 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Up to 6.3 Hours
250GB Solid State Drive
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit pre-installed / Windows 8 Pro 64-bit Upgrade Ready

Lenovo Y40-80 and for around the same price $679.00
Processor: 5th Generation Intel Core i7-5500U Processor (2.40GHz 1600MHz 4MB)
Hard Drive: Hybrid 500GB 5400 RPM+8GB SSHD
Memory: 8.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3L 1600 MHz



1. What is your budget?
$800 max
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14 inch screen or larger

5. How much battery life do you need?
At least 4 hours
6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Gaming isn't important, it would be nice but this will be a laptop for working

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Normal functions like watching movies browsing internet.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500gb or more, would be nice to have an SSD but those can raise the price.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I don't have a specific brand preference, not very knowledgeable on whats a quality brand so if you guys can steer me in the right direction it would be appreciated.

 

[Hat In The Cat]

First things first. If your not planning to bring your laptop anywhere then don't get a laptop. If you are going to bring it places then obviously get a laptop lol. Basically what this comes down to is what languages your going to be using. C++ is very CPU intensive but something like Python or Java is less. Also if you want to go into app development then you will need to get a Mac(macs are terrible by the way). What I'm getting is the surface pro 3 for light programming. I use a Mac for swift(iOS), my desktop for hardcore programming, and soon I will be using my surface on trips. But out of the choices I would suggest e555 out of the three. Unfortunately I can't really recomend any laptops because I'm a desktop guy. Sorry.

I hope this answered any of your questions!