The Serious Laptop Thread

[doodab]

I would tend to buy a lower spec one with the CPU, screen & graphics I wanted and upgrade the RAM & SSD myself. The model DP posted is particularly expensive because of the top of the range NVidia Quadro pro grade GPU. If you aren't running Autocad or something for a living you can probably get away with a lower spec one.

HP ZBook 17 Mobile Workstation - 1... | F0V52EA#ABU | £1,631.99 | Insight UK

looks more like it, add another £600 for 32GB RAM upgrade and a 1TB SSD and you have a pretty mean machine.

[Bacchus]

That's not a tremendously portable solution.

I'm moving towards tremendously portable these days - getting old and fed up with lugging all the power round with me, it makes sense (for me) to run everything in the home office and just terminal onto it from an ultra lightweight.

I guess if ClientCo is locked down and you're on their network it might not work, but if you're in isolation even a good 3G connection is fast enough, 4G would walk it

[MasterBlaster]

How about one of these with all sliders to the right?

http://mysn.co.uk/xmg-p724

[doodab]

I'm moving towards tremendously portable these days - getting old and fed up with lugging all the power round with me, it makes sense (for me) to run everything in the home office and just terminal onto it from an ultra lightweight.

I'm for meeting in the middle. I have a powerful desktop at home and then a reasonably beefy 14" laptop that will let me run most of what I need standalone. I can't go any lighter than that as it tends to come with an 8GB RAM limit and / or unusably tiny screen. I do have a lightweight convertible laptop as well and it's OK for meetings and watching TV in bed but I can't do serious dev work on it.

[vwdan]

After much looking and with the cash burning a hole in the bank I found a refurbished (transit damaged - it has three indentations on the lid) laptop that was £2000 below the retail price (£1600 instead of £3600).

Core i7 - 4900MQ
16GB RAM
K4100M Quadro GFX
500GB SSD
500GB 7200 RPM Drive
DVD R/W

Very very happy with it - I'm not really a Dell fan and they were never a first choice, but the cost has just blown everyone else out of the water. It's a really nice machine, very sturdy and it looks the part (I.e., dull and corporate). Plenty of connectivty with HDMI, DisplayPort, USB 3.0 and a card reader - just can't fault it really.

[SimonMac]

I have a MBP for carrying around, 8GB ram, Core i5 512GB SSD, I use this to RDP via VPN back home where I have a pimped out desktop for anything that needs a bit of grunt

[vwdan]

I have a MBP for carrying around, 8GB ram, Core i5 512GB SSD, I use this to RDP via VPN back home where I have a pimped out desktop for anything that needs a bit of grunt

I've tried working like that in the past, but it just doesn't do it for me. Crap wi-fi (Probably my biggest issue - hotel wireless is tulipe and 3 Mobile have now limited tethering), needing a PC turned on at home, bothering with Dynamic DNS etc. Not knocking it if it works for you, but I'd rather just have everything I need on the road with me.

[SimonMac]

I've tried working like that in the past, but it just doesn't do it for me. Crap wi-fi (Probably my biggest issue - hotel wireless is tulipe and 3 Mobile have now limited tethering), needing a PC turned on at home, bothering with Dynamic DNS etc. Not knocking it if it works for you, but I'd rather just have everything I need on the road with me.

NOIP for the DNS stuff is rock solid app on your host system that comes on at boot up, have to verify it ever 30 days but that's not a biggie.

Alcatel Y800 with a three SIM card, 15gb a month for £15 and 4g speeds where available

No problem

[CloudWalker]

job done

[Churchill]

NOIP for the DNS stuff is rock solid app on your host system that comes on at boot up, have to verify it ever 30 days but that's not a biggie.

Alcatel Y800 with a three SIM card, 15gb a month for £15 and 4g speeds where available

No problem

Verify every 30 days? You're an effin skinflint, it's only a few dollars a year for the full version!