Computer (Laptop) Recommended Specs?

[Rob_L]

I'm looking into a solid, decently powerful, new Windows laptop for our lab to use.  

We currently have a host of macbooks that work fine, as we do a lot more educational work (elementary to pre-college and university classrooms, teaching engineering, robotics, etc.).  However, we are starting to do more work with FPGAs, cRIOs , and the Robotics Toolkit and could really use a nice dedicated Windows machine.  As one of the few PC users in the lab, my 5-year-old Qosmio (Toshiba) and the current standard of dual-boot macs or VMWare solutions only get us so far.

SO, I was looking for recommendations on what features are important in purchasing a capable LabVIEW Windows Laptop.

So far I've only found a (not too) old thread: http://forums.ni.com/t5/BreakPoint/Recommendations-on-Laptop/td-p/1385166

and a LAVA discussion: http://lavag.org/topic/13983-what-are-the-real-system-requirements-for-labview/

... but what I am really looking for is more current-day information.

Perhaps LabVIEW users using modern, "top of the line" systems (or maybe just a bit below) could share what systems they like or what specs they find actually seem to matter?  

It's easy to find specs for the "hot rod" gaming machine - can anyone help me figure out what makes up a "hot rod" LabVIEW machine?

Thanks everyone!

[Ben]

You answered your own question.

A "hot rod" gaming machine will work fine with LV.

I got mine about a year and a half ago and I purchased the top-of-the-line minus 1 laptop from HP. It has eight cores many gigs of menory and a huge screen.

Ben

[SnowMule]

How much do you want to spend on a 'doze box? 

You can get a desktop workstation for sub-$500 anymore.  Laptops under $1000. 

This little Dell D630 i've got @work has been pretty decent.  2x2GHz, 2GB RAM, had an 80GB now a 250GB HD.  It's eaten two batteries now, and the bluetooth card doens't work real well... but it's also 4-5 years old.

If you don't need latest-and-greatest, and a refurb'd corporate upgrade machine is enough, usanotebooks.com has pretty good deals.  D630 for ~$300.