Originally Posted by
Erickson187 How good are the integrated graphics cards when it comes to handling programs like Visual Studio 2012 that allows for the phone 8 emulator. I am looking to buy one that will be able to last at least 3 years and be good for mainly programming and not much if any gaming.
The IGP isn't that important. Far more important is that the CPU supports VT-d and that you can enable SLAT in the BIOS. Without those two you will not be able to run the phone emulator on Windows 8. Also remember that you must have Windows 8
professional. Anything below that won't run the phone emulator either.
If you are serious about development, don't get a cheap laptop. It will ruin your experience and your productivity:
- Make sure you get a high contrast, glare free and high resolution screen (1366x786 just doesn't cut it for development). You will thank yourself later, because you will spend a lot of time reading text on that thing.
- I personally couldn't use Visual Studio on a laptop screen. The display sizes are just too small to layout all the Windows as required to work efficiently with Visual Studio. Generally, Visual Studio is always better on bigger screens.
- Having Windows and Visual Studio installed on a SSD can make development a bit snappier, but you can get by without it.