Why limit yourself to a $1,000 budget? If you're writing code, that's a small percentage of your yearly income. If a more expensive laptop makes you 5% more productive, it's worth buying purely for economic reasons.
Sometimes there are cashflow issues and opportunity costs.
Perhaps saving $200 on a laptop and investing it in advertising would give an even better return? Or perhaps the OP already has a desktop computer to use for the majority of coding work?
Besides, unless you are doing something especially intensive; once you get past a certain threshold (decent screen,disk and RAM) the returns start to diminish.
Is having a laptop that is half an lb lighter, has an i7 instead of an i5 or an nvidia GPU vs an intel GPU really going to help you ship rails applications faster?
What the OP doesn't say is this going to be a desktop replacement or not which makes a lot of difference.
Remember most professional code writing is going to be done on a full sized desktop with 2 or 3 screens - a laptop is a second machine is for when you are out and about.
Good point, but I'm not sure I agree with your second sentence. At every place I've worked at since 2008, most devs used laptops and plugged them into monitors and keyboards. I'm sure other places are different, but it makes a lot of sense to go laptop-only.
Except for GPU performance, modern laptops are pretty much on-par with desktops. Laptops cost more, but people with desktops usually own laptops. Having two machines creates the annoyance of switching between them. It's small, but it's there. For most devs, it makes more sense to buy one really nice laptop instead of a nice desktop and a mid-range laptop.
My current set-up is an 11" Air that I connect to a 27" screen. If I want more real estate, I could buy another 27" display and chain it. It's stupidly fast: 2Ghz Core i7, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD.
Oh and while I enjoy using big screens, I find my most productive times are when I'm on a plane. The lack of distractions and the knowledge that I won't be interrupted for hours helps me stay focused.
I don't want to come across as insulting the intelligence of everyone who doesn't buy expensive laptops. The right combination of environment, mindset, and knowledge are worth more than any fancy hardware. When it comes to tools, use what you love and don't pay much attention to cost.
Well different strokes. The problem with desk top replacement laptops is that you need to spend more on the laptop and all the docking station kit takes up desk space where as a midi tower can go under the desk.
And whilst Mac airs and displays are nice "hand on heart" I could not justify the extra expense to an employer or the share holders (whose money it is) when compared to an equivalent PC and a cheapo laptop (shared between the team) for the times when I need to be mobile.
And the problem for going mac air only is that people will stereotype you as hipster wannabe if you not careful.
Besides, unless you are doing something especially intensive; once you get past a certain threshold (decent screen,disk and RAM) the returns start to diminish. Is having a laptop that is half an lb lighter, has an i7 instead of an i5 or an nvidia GPU vs an intel GPU really going to help you ship rails applications faster?