Which laptops are ideal for onsite working conditions? What do you guys use?

ajish.raju

I am planning to upgrade my laptops for offsite and onsite use. It needs to be capable for rough use and be of good configuration. What type of systems do everyone use in the AV industry.

Let me know.

ericmedley

... one that you wouldn't weep over if a worker dropped a ladder on it. (this from experience...)

Seriously, my advice is don't spend a ton of money on a fancy laptop. By definition, the worksite is a dirty filthy place with dust and crud everywhere and you often find yourself away from your machine and they have a way of getting stolen. Just get something powerful enough to get the job done. (after all, it doesn't take a crazy-powerful machine to run AMX software) Pick something that works and buy a backup for emergencies. IMHO the only reason to get a fancy laptop for the jobsite is to impress upon the neophyte workers that you are a badass programmer.

That's my advice...

vining

The bigger the better IMHO which is why I hate working on a laptop but still I typically get a 17". Like E said it doesn't need to be fancy, just big and as light as possible.

ajish.raju

Thanks guys. I used to have an IBM Thinkpad which could be dropped from a floor and still be working. The recent ones don't have the durability like before.

Danny Campbell

Brand-wise, I've always used HP. I'm about ready to buy another and am looking at HP and Dell. I am tough on laptops so I generally I get the cheapest that I can get by with, but the latest was a 17" screen with an Intel i7 processor and I was hoping it would last at least a couple of years. The wide screen was nice for being able to see more, but the laptop bag does get kind of heavy with the various cables and devices. I did drop it going into an office one day. It was a federal building with a metal detector that I had to go through but no room to do anything. It hit on the corner and sprung the case. A couple of weeks later I got an overheating warning. When I opened it up, I discovered that the fall had done quite a bit of damage to the case. There are little nuts embedded into the plastic that the screws go into. These had all been blown out and when I opened and closed the screen the hinge on one side caused the case to split open about 1/2 of an inch. A loose piece of plastic got lodged in the fan which caused the overheating. I got the junk cleared out of the case and now hold it together with a 2" binder clip. Still works great just looks like crap. I've never had a ladder dropped on a laptop, but I have had them get jerked off of the table several time by people tripping over the cables. The new on has some kind of driveguard feature that is supposed to lock down the hard drive when it sees it is falling. Not sure how well this works.

Otherwise, most new laptops haven't had a serial port for several years now. The latest now don't seem to have VGA ports either. So in addition to the USB-serial adapter I now have to lug around an HDMI-VGA adapter. The busted laptop also has a touch screens and runs windows 8.1 64-bit. The touch screen is nice for when I do the VNC thing with a touch panel. In the past I would always try to press the buttons on the screen with my finger, Now it works when I do that. I also use the free classic start menu program to make the system look more like win 7. So I no longer have complaints about win 8.

Getting the AMX programs loaded actually seemed easier with windows 8 than it did with 7. The only major issue that I have is with Netlinx Studio, If I go into the help menu and try to enter something in the index field, it locks up NS completely. But if I highlight a function name or whatever and press F1 it works fine.

My biggest complaint with getting a new laptop is not the size, weight, or features. It is getting all of the crap loaded onto it that I can't function without. It generally takes me a couple of weeks to get the new system configured and then a couple of months to find all of the seldom-used but smaller programs or files that I discover I forgot to move.

DHawthorne

I had an HP Presario that I loved ... they had a docking station for it that I left at the office for a second monitor and all my USB drives, etc. Unfortunately, after 6 years of being an absolute workhorse, it had a cataclysmic mainboard failure, and I needed something the very next day, so I had to grab what I could at Best Buy. I got a Lenovo, which is a decent machine, but I am wearing out the ports after only a year of service, plugging in and out all my office peripherals every day.

ericmedley

I'm currently using a Samsung NP-QX that I like a lot. It doesn't have a very big screen but it gets the job done. I, like Dave, use it as my main machine in my office. I have a big monitor plugged into a 36" screen.

PhreaK

It's a tool you are using 8+ hours a day. Make it something awesome. The definition of awesome will vary based on your personal preferences but don't ever waste time using crappy tools.

Auser

PhreaK wrote: »

It's a tool you are using 8+ hours a day. Make it something awesome.

Couldn't agree more. The small extra investment will more than pay off over the life of the tool and will result in less aggravation over that time.

The last four or so machines I've had have all been HP ProBooks and EliteBooks and have been solid as a rock. I carefully chose my current machine as a core i7 with an SSD. It has been bashed around a bit, however it is now 4 and a half years old and it as fast as any machine I could buy today for all work related purposes including CAD.

I did stuff 16GB RAM into it for the princely sum of $100 which allowed me to disable the page file which adds an extra layer of snappiness.

For a machine that's being dragged around job sites and bumped and knocked, I highly recommend solid state drives. Pure (not hybrid) SSD's provide a performance benefit as a bonus to the reduced risk of crashed heads and are worth every bit of the extra money in my experience.

vining

Auser wrote: »

I highly recommend solid state drives. Pure (not hybrid) SSD's provide a performance benefit as a bonus to the reduced risk of crashed heads and are worth every bit of the extra money in my experience.

+1

PhreaK wrote:

It's a tool you are using 8+ hours a day. Make it something awesome.

If I had to use a laptop 8+ hours a day on a regular basis I'd go insane. I can't deal with a small screen or even a single screen. In my office I have 4 monitors and a 12 core i7 liquid cool machine with SSD and 4 TB hard drive, 32g of RAM and a Rampage IV Black Edition mother board. Totally overkill since I don't game. I prefer to work in the office and do a lot of work remotely which I understand most folks can't for security reasons and when I have to I drag out my P.O.S. (piece of crap) laptop, 17" i7 HP and go to the job but I can't stand working on it.

GregG

Danny Campbell wrote: »

Getting the AMX programs loaded actually seemed easier with windows 8 than it did with 7. The only major issue that I have is with Netlinx Studio, If I go into the help menu and try to enter something in the index field, it locks up NS completely. But if I highlight a function name or whatever and press F1 it works fine.

I'm gonna add a "Me too" on this one.
It's not usually an issue, since I've tapered off using the help system over the past decade and using the highlight-F1 thing gets me 99% of what I need.

But every now and then I get a brain-freeze moment and could use the ability to search for a function that I know exists but can't quite remember.

Danny Campbell

vining wrote: »

+1


If I had to use a laptop 8+ hours a day on a regular basis I'd go insane. I can't deal with a small screen or even a single screen. In my office I have 4 monitors and a 12 core i7 liquid cool machine with SSD and 4 TB hard drive, 32g of RAM and a Rampage IV Black Edition mother board. Totally overkill since I don't game. I prefer to work in the office and do a lot of work remotely which I understand most folks can't for security reasons and when I have to I drag out my P.O.S. (piece of crap) laptop, 17" i7 HP and go to the job but I can't stand working on it.

I use my laptop 8+ hours every day. I have a home office and hate to sit at a desk. My preferred seat is a larger than normal Lazy-boy recliner where I have the laptop on a lap tray that has legs so it doesn't set directly on my lap. The wireless mouse goes on the chair's arm. The good thing about this setup is since I am getting old (63) I can be working and doze off for a quick nap at any point. Then after 10 or 20 minutes when I wake up again I'm right back to work. The only thing that is bad about this setup is having to get up for bathroom breaks and more coffee.

vining

Danny Campbell wrote: »

I use my laptop 8+ hours every day. I have a home office and hate to sit at a desk. My preferred seat is a larger than normal Lazy-boy recliner where I have the laptop on a lap tray that has legs so it doesn't set directly on my lap. The wireless mouse goes on the chair's arm. The good thing about this setup is since I am getting old (63) I can be working and doze off for a quick nap at any point. Then after 10 or 20 minutes when I wake up again I'm right back to work. The only thing that is bad about this setup is having to get up for bathroom breaks and more coffee.

I think if I were to go for comfort I'd built a special room so I could lay down slightly inverted on my "Hang Ups" table and then have my multiple monitors mounted upside down at the proper angle to match my table and then a flat surface for the keyboard and mouse.

NZRob

I use a top of the line 14" HP EliteBook laptop with a its own simcard, SSDs, I7 blar blar - have a docking station at home and another one at work connected to multi monitors/keyboard etc. Works really well had it for 3 years now and no problems - will be getting another one of the same. I bit backup all my computers every night and drop box work files so always have local copy and remote copy of everything.

Thorleifur

I have a Dell Precision M4500. Had it for 4, 5 years now and it just started to start to become a little buggy. i7 and two SSDs, Win7 but only 4 gigs of RAM and it has never been formatted
I picked it mainly because Dell made a Legacy port replicator that fits under the laptop and connects to the docking port. No USB to serial thingys for me.
I started a couple of days ago to search for a new computer. I like the high end Lenovos and HPs, but I think I will go back to Precision when the time comes. I really like the M3800 but I think is not rugged enough for travel and onsite working conditions ( and no physical RJ45 port ). So the M4800 is probably going to be the one for me. I can still use my docking stations and the Legacy port replicator with the M4800, so that is a plus and some money-saver.

fogled@mizzou

Am I the only crazy one who does almost all my development work in VMWare on a Mac? It's a high-end Core i7, 1TB SSD, 16Gig RAM, so... no lack of horsepower. There are a few USB things that won't work right in the VM, and some networking things that are really clunky or weird, but otherwise it works pretty well. I've got a large external 1080p display at my desktop, but when I hit the road, the Retina display on the laptop causes the VM to think it's sending native to a nearly 4K display, so it's a huge virtual desktop, but shrunk down onto a 15" display. As long as I'm close enough it's sharp and readable though, and I work close when I'm on just my laptop so it works out for me. I've never had any real problems with the VM as far as AMX development goes, except for a while Keyspan USB-Serial adapters wouldn't work right (but they do now with current versions of everything).

As far as physical sturdiness goes, I've always had pretty good luck with MacBooks, especially since the TiBook. I beat the piss out of them, and they just keep on running.

pdabrowski

Currently running a Toshiba Satellite Z30 , not the best performance wise (Core i5) but lightweight, has an SSD and I get a whole day of work on a single charge - and well priced ($1200AU)

Was also the only ultrabook I found with VGA, HDMI and a proper gigabit NIC.

On the software side, Windows 8 x64 has been a breeze to work with - after I installed Start8 and then found the Windows+X god menu - but the usual legacy issues with AMX sotware apply (No IRedit!) so I still have an XP VM for that.

Screen res on this one (1366x768) is a little bit of an issue with studio and tpd and when I look for my next one in a couple of years I will definitely be going for a 1080p display.

EDIT:
On the sturdiness issue, we standardised these on site for our field techs when troubelshooting video and controlling the building and I haven't had one back for repair yet - same can't be said for the previous hardware from ASUS.

bwestlake

The SSD is great for the laptop. Shock is not an issue and there's no need for sleep mode. It powers up quickly. I also keep an AOC 16" portable monitor in my bag. It uses a USB cable for power and video. It works great for a dual monitor setup and only costs about $90