Which Laptop for Contracting?

[fiisch]

Per title, what laptop do you use for your current gig? (Assuming you've provided your own equipment).

Most recently used client devices, and prior to that have used my own MacBook for contracts. Considering a new contract role with bring your own device requirement, and thinking I should maintain separate work/personal devices (if nothing else, to avoid my various WhatsApp groups from getting leaked in a work environment and getting me permanently cancelled from modern society).

I am unashamedly an Apple fanboy, which are good at what they do but less flexible - so what's a good mark to buy purely for Citrixing into a client's environment? Current thinking is a SurfacePro - is this man enough?

[hobnob]

If you're just doing Citrix then it can be a low spec device, because the apps will be run in the VM. I've seen some organisations that use Chromebooks for this.

Will you need to use the built-in keyboard/mouse/screen, or will the client provide a docking station for that? That might influence which model of laptop you get.

[agentzero]

I'd like to put Ubuntu or Mint Linux on a laptop, dual boot if really necessary with windows or macOS. Mac hardware is sometimes good, but the newer generations are difficult to get working with Linux.

Lenovo hardware is said to be ok, but it seems like junk to me. Any lenovo work or personal laptop I've had has fallen apart, cracked without much effort and does show that it's now cheap made in China junk.

Any recommendations for a normal to lightweight normal windows laptop to mainly run Linux on is appreciated. I never buy new retail, as I don't need anything expensive as I'm not doing graphics work.

[sadkingbilly]

I got a refurbed Dell Win11 netbook (12") from amazon, maxed the memory (32Gb) and NVme(1Tb),, and got preloved docking station (£15 Ebay).
<>£300 the lot.
works a treat. - or take a look at DELL outlet for refurbed.

[vwdan]

If you're connecting via Citrix, honestly just use your normal laptop. It's half the point of it!

[ladymuck]

I maintain a separate laptop for client work. It's a Dell Latitude. Works just fine. Had it for three years and can see it lasting several more. I clean it up between clients to make sure all data, logins, etc. are removed.

As hobnob says, if you're only ever going to connect to a citrix instance then you don't need something with any grunt. However, that also makes me think you don't really need a separate device as the citrix environment should be properly configured to prevent 'leakage' to/from the local machine (if the client is properly security minded).

However, if you think you'll use the dedicated machine with other clients and need to actually use it in anger, then you may want to spec something that is more suitable to the type of work you do on a day to day basis.

[courtg9000]

If you are going to be doing a lot of travelling consider a Microsoft Surface Pro.
Very lightweight and excellent performance. Keyboard is a bit Marmite though.

[WTFH]

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad for emergency use situations like that.
It's origin is a bit interesting - a project I was working on during covid and the client's HR felt that if consultants returned computers at the end of the contract there was a risk it would spread covid and also the expense of having to be deep cleaned (I mean the exterior, not just the hard drive). They decided it would be cheaper and no risk if we held on to the machines.
I fire it up every few months to check for windows updates etc.

My bigger issue is that my 2017 27" iMac is starting to feel a bit slow when photo editing (even with 40GB of RAM), and I really don't want to fork out a few thousand for another one.

[northernladuk]

If only we had a Technical section of the forum where this has been asked before...

Oh.. hang on a minute....

[northernladuk]

What does Suity use?