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Laptop for AMX devel

maxifoxmaxifox Posts: 209
in AMX General Discussion
I am going to get a new laptop primarily for AMX development and troubleshooting onsite. Anyone could please share his AMX specific experience with laptops and recommend a model?

For the last two years I used to have HP 9010 and got rather negative about it. It has no RS-232 port, it is heavy, overheat sensitive and has relative short lifespan for the touchpad.

Comments

  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    I use a Compaq Presario R3000. It's a WXGA machine, and I use the HP dock and a second monitor when in the office. I've had absolute no complaints with it; it's an excellent machine and has held up under a fair amount of abuse. It does not have an RS-232 port, except on the dock, but I have had no trouble at all using a Keyspan USB-RS232 adapter.
  • Spire_JeffSpire_Jeff Posts: 1,917
    I use a Dell Refurbed Lattitude D610. It's fairly light, has a builtin 232 port and has really good battery life. I even got a second battery in the deal. Even the boss has a D610 now. The only problem he had was with the built-in WiFi card. But, Dell sent out a replacement overnight and it's been great.

    Jeff
  • annuelloannuello Posts: 294
    I use a Toshiba Satellite with XP Pro. It has no RS232, but I use a PCMCIA card from www.quatech.com. Once the drivers for the card are set up properly, it works without a problem. The built in WiFi is great when you are at your home base, but may not be as useful when out on site. My only issue with batteries is when colleagues are finished with it they put it into standby rather than shutting it down. :mad:

    Having dragged it around on trains between jobs on other campuses, I'd suggest going for something as light as possible. Once you start carrying it with other tools the shoulder takes quite a beating.

    I'm still looking forward to the day where I can run Studio on an Intel Mac, even if it is in XP. :) Anyone actually had a play with it?

    Roger McLean
  • pdabrowskipdabrowski Posts: 184
    I used to run on a Dell (can't remember the model) - the wide screen made working in studio very easy, I now have a Asus A4L (Centrino 2.9Ghz, 1Gb RAM) and apart from the lack of RS232 connector it's now my preferred laptop except for the battery life because of the hungry and hot processor!

    I have been looking around and Toshiba have a Tecra M5 that has nearly everything needed when doing AMX except for a widescreen aspect display.
  • Cameron DCameron D Posts: 31
    I had a Sony wide screen with a Intel Moblie Processor it was very light and the wide screen was great.But when i got all the AMX software on it and compiled a small Netlinx program on it , It took over a minute to compile which was Cr*p.So i took it back to the shop and got a Toshiba Equium Pentium 4 it compiled the same program in under 4 seconds.

    Has anyone had any luck in the new processors and are they fast at compiling.
  • Peter KnappPeter Knapp Posts: 20
    I have been using a Dell D800 laptop for years in all my programming and TP interface design work. I love the wide aspect screen (1680x1050 - who came up with that?). It also has a built-in com-port as well as built-in WiFi. I have not had a problem using any AMX device or software with it. I know the D810 is available with a higher res screen, but for my over 40 eyes this resolution is fine.
  • JohnMichnrJohnMichnr Posts: 279
    I just bought a Dell Latitude D810 - built in 232, & wifi. Been using it for 3 month - works great. has the WXGA screen which I am wondering how I got along with out that in the past. I use the dock and extra monitor at home. Before that I had a Dell Insiron 8000 for over 4 years that worked well too except for that motherboard crashing thing... oh well. make sure you get a 3 year next day onsite replacement warranty. I won't buy a work laptop without that.
  • perm182perm182 Posts: 15
    Dell

    Dell M4300 Works great. Nice video card for CAD and RS232 port.
  • jjamesjjames Posts: 2,908
    I had a Dell D620 - LOVED IT!!

    Now I'm using a crappy Sony Vaio. Ugh - I hate it. Only does 1280 x 800. So not cool.

    Hoping to get a free Gateway some day from the old man (perhaps in a few months.)
  • Travis_RTravis_R Posts: 5
    I have a Dell Latitude 630, it is working well. I am running AMX software, a varity of DSP software, Autocad, Visio, Design Cad, [the other control system software], and D-tools. My laptop works well and is not too heavy.

    It has a serial port, but ocasionally I have to disable and enable it to get it to work. A minor problem, since it is holding up to D-Tools.

    over all, not too bad.
  • PhreaKPhreaK Posts: 966
    +1 for the dell M4300's
  • chillchill Posts: 186
    I have a Dell D820 and am happy with it. The 1920x1200 resolution is a wonderful thing for those of us who have 30 windows open at a time, and it has a real RS232 port.
  • ericmedleyericmedley Posts: 4,177
    Ha! I'm so old skool they had to tear the skool down...


    My laptop is an old IBM A21M (PIII 800mhz 512Mram 120G HD) Windows XP Pro. It still works just fine and gets me through the gig.

    Now my desktop is what I do most my programming on. It's a Dell Quad 3.1GZ with oodles of RAM and all that stuff.
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    I have a Mac Book Pro w/ parrellels but I tend to always boot up in Windows using bootcamp. I can't stand using it since the mouse pad doesn't support both a right & left click. You really only have the option for left since if you change the mouse click function to right then you really can't do anything at all. It boggles my mind how a company that's supposed to be so intuitive with it's design can produce a product that is unusable IMHO.

    The MacBook now sits on a shelf and when I need to use a laptop I'll use my old Fujitsu that the Mac was supposed to replace.
  • bcirrisibcirrisi Posts: 148
    We swapped from Dell to HP Pavilions, we've had the HPs for about 3-4 years now and they have been flawless. We were breaking Dells left and right. The Pavilions aren't light, they are more like a portable desktops, but it's just nice have the bigger screen.

    Plus, we work next to a computer repair center and get a killer deal on the refurbs.
  • Spire_JeffSpire_Jeff Posts: 1,917
    vining wrote: »
    I have a Mac Book Pro w/ parrellels but I tend to always boot up in Windows using bootcamp. I can't stand using it since the mouse pad doesn't support both a right & left click. You really only have the option for left since if you change the mouse click function to right then you really can't do anything at all. It boggles my mind how a company that's supposed to be so intuitive with it's design can produce a product that is unusable IMHO.

    The MacBook now sits on a shelf and when I need to use a laptop I'll use my old Fujitsu that the Mac was supposed to replace.

    First, maybe they have added it since you last used the MacBook, but right click is easy to do. Just put two fingers on the pad and click. Maybe this is something new on the newest laptops? On my previous laptops, I almost never used the track pad as I found it to be a horrible experience. On my MacBook, I rarely connect a mouse as using the track pad is very efficient for me. As a side note, I cannot use a regular track pad anymore as it feels even more unnatural, as I find myself trying to push the pad to click and wonder why nothing happens :)

    If you like, I know they normally charge like $50 to recycle a computer, I'll recycle it for free and even pay for the shipping! ;)

    Jeff
  • edgelitocedgelitoc Posts: 160
    + 2 with DELL D620
  • jjamesjjames Posts: 2,908
    Spire_Jeff wrote: »
    If you like, I know they normally charge like $50 to recycle a computer, I'll recycle it for free and even pay for the shipping! ;)

    Beat me to it! :D
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    Spire_Jeff wrote:
    First, maybe they have added it since you last used the MacBook, but right click is easy to do.
    It's possible. I haven't done much with it in a while so at some point when I catch my breath I give it another go. Are you running in parallels or bootcamp? I think the problem was in bootcamp where the windows drivers didn't support it but in parrallel using Mac drivers it did.
    Spire_Jeff wrote:
    If you like, I know they normally charge like $50 to recycle a computer, I'll recycle it for free and even pay for the shipping!
    It's a nice 17" MacBook Pro maxed out with ram and drive space too. Unfortunately I wouldn't toss it even if it didn't work. I think I still have every laptop I ever bought and the kid's laptops too since I don't have the heart to throw them away. They all still sort of work, at least good enough to access the hard drive.
  • dmenkedmenke Posts: 25
    It's a nice 17" MacBook Pro maxed out with ram and drive space too. Unfortunately I wouldn't toss it even if it didn't work. I think I still have every laptop I ever bought and the kid's laptops too since I don't have the heart to throw them away. They all still sort of work, at least good enough to access the hard drive.[/QUOTE]

    Honestly,

    Get a bluetooth mouse, and configure it with all the clicks you want. I hate trackpads.

    Don't let a MBP sit...They are phenominal computers.

    I've had this one for 3 years, and never had a lick of trouble with it.

    Doug
  • Spire_JeffSpire_Jeff Posts: 1,917
    vining wrote: »
    It's possible. I haven't done much with it in a while so at some point when I catch my breath I give it another go. Are you running in parallels or bootcamp? I think the problem was in bootcamp where the windows drivers didn't support it but in parrallel using Mac drivers it did.

    I have run it in both Parallels and bootcamp without problems. I normally run Parallels. I know they have released new drivers for bootcamp that increase functionality, and I still haven't installed the newest updates, but mine havw worked for the last few months.
    vining wrote: »
    It's a nice 17" MacBook Pro maxed out with ram and drive space too. Unfortunately I wouldn't toss it even if it didn't work. I think I still have every laptop I ever bought and the kid's laptops too since I don't have the heart to throw them away. They all still sort of work, at least good enough to access the hard drive.

    Don't think of it as tossing it, think of it as recycling. Better yet, think of it like sending your dog to relatives that live in the country with LOTS of room to run and play. Your laptop will get a chance to run and play every day! (I would even give it a steady diet of digital movies to encode to DVD format! :) )

    Jeff
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