Hello.
I'd want to ask you which of the reasonably inexpensive laptop brands are ideal for programming (I'm still a beginner). I'm now using a computer that my school has loaned me, but I'll have to return it shortly.

So, I was considering purchasing a laptop. I'd prefer less expensive solutions because I'm a youngster who can't afford to spend a lot of money.

What are your thoughts on the HP Pavilion 14 (https://productz.com/en/hp-pavilion-14/p/GD4dE)? ? Are these laptops adequate, or do I require something more powerful?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

it depends on what you mean by "programming". some of it requires nothing more powerful than being able to run the equivalent of notepad

You can certainly program if you use a gaming laptop, I have ran four VMs simultaneously on a ROG laptop. They are however quite expensive.

You don't need a powerful laptop to program. Assuming you're just writing code, a half decent CPU, integrated graphics, preferably a SSD with at least 250GB on it and at least 8GB RAM would do.

Anything above that improves your experience but when you get to like, above the $1000 mark it probably makes ~0 difference.

I've been doing a project lately and in my opinion the bottleneck for serious work is 16gb ram. assuming you have a real graphics card. The thing about 8 gb ram is its harder to stream or run multiple digital software on , things take longer etc. I have an old macbook air with 4gb ram and things like xcode , games etc run poorly on it. You can do it all with 8 go ram but it sucks.

If you're just learning how to code(like me in my spare time with some friends) none of that matters. you're almost better off with a cheap old linux machine.

Not sure whay you would have a real graphics card in a laptop for programming. An Intel chip with integrated graphics is plenty.

I would never go below 16GB for any PC right now. If you buy a PC with less, make sure you can expand the RAM when you receive it (check the motherboasrd specs). An 8Gb stick costs 20-25€ on sh market.

The specs for a programming laptop increase with the work you're performing. Anywhere from an i5 with 16GB to an i9 with 64GB can be indicated. It really depends on your projects and programming environments that you use.

An exception might be ML work as it's very computationally intensive and as far I can remember the GPU can be utilized to support efficient working.

This is all correct, my primary opinion is that a lot of people going for a cheap laptop to do stuff might buy a 4gb ram or 8gb ram laptop when really they should go for 16gb ram, and in that price range so they can comfortably do all the things they want to do. Also removing ram cards on laptops, especially mac books is hard and I can say without any ego that I don't actually no how to do it. A relatively cheap lap top in the 900-1100 usd range ( with 16gb ram or in theory more) is probably the way to go.

The other thing i'd say is this: one of the programmers working for my dad learned to program this way:
They worked 12 hrs a day 6 days a week for 1.10$ an hour in china and spent time at the library. He didn't have a computer but knew someone who did and wrote his code on paper and had his friend run it. A determined person can now learn code w/o money.

True

I created word500.com after viewing YouTube tutorials about HTML, JavaScript and CSS

It is all about the effort you put into it

I have a 2 year old HP Pavilion with 12 GB RAM. I only program in Excel VBA, which is not the most sophisticated software. I’ve had no memory problems and some of the programs are relatively complicated but probably don’t use much RAM.

Another exception would be C++ if you are including libraries that make heavy use of templates (eg: Boost). Even smallish projects can end up taking several minutes to compile.

Juk

The first question is "what are you programming?". Second is "what is the purpose / use?". If you're learning basic python programming then any laptop will suffice - though my personal preference for coding is to never going below a 15" screen size. If you're going to be optimising the low level c++ code in an ML library or working with large neural nets then you'd want something with sizeable RAM and a good dedicated graphics card. I'd think most learning stages fall within the "any laptop will suffice", maybe with the stipulation of at least 8gb RAM. Even with ML at the learning stage I'd just get a cheap laptop and be looking at something like Google Colab.