Need advice on a laptop

[mikeporter]

I have suddenly found myself in need of buying a laptop on which to run LV. I have spent some time looking at reviews and performance numbers and my head is spinning...

SO, any recommendations or anti-recommendations?

Mike...

[altenbach]

How good is you eyesight? LabVIEW loves tons of pixels, but laptop screens are typically small.

[crossrulz]

For a middle-ranged laptop, I found that Toshiba had the best price for the power.  My wife has been abusing hers for a couple of months now with no issues.

A long time ago when I started grad school (2008), I ended up going to a gaming PC company (CyberPower).  Absolutely no regrets from that.  That computer lasted me through grad school (3.5 years at night) and quite a bit more punishment until the video finally went out.

[mikeporter]

I hear you about laptop screens! There must be some sort of quantum thing going on: The screens get bigger, but the bigger they are the harder they are to read. 🙂

Thanks for the Toshiba recommendation. I will look into them.

Mike...

[tst]

I'm quite happy with my Dell Latitude E6510 which I had for the past four years. With a 15.6" display and a 9-cell protruding battery it's not what I'd call small, but the screen is matte (which I recommend) and has a decent native resolution (1600x900) and the battery life is reasonable (I think it was 4+ hours when it was new and I had to replace the battery about a year ago). The multiple i7 cores certainly don't hurt performance. My only real issue with it is the hard drive, which has grown slow. I would suggest an SSD.

[Thoric]

Regarding resolution: DO NOT go for something with high pixel density. Windows uses font scaling in a way that does not work well with NI software, and to prevent the scaling you need to ensure your pixel density is low.

I bought myself an IdeaPad this year with a 13.3" screen at 720p (1280x720). That's not a lot of pixels for a modern laptop, but they're just the right size when spaced across 13" to see LabVIEW code nicely. At NI Week there was an NI chap there with the latest IdeaPad that comes with 3200x1800 pixels crammed into the same 13" screen - everything was so small that it was literally impossible to use with LabVIEW!

On my work laptop I have 1080p (1920x1080) in 17" display, and that's fine too. Anything smaller than 17" for 1080p and I think I'd struggle to use LabVIEW on it.

[LV_Pro]

Yes, 1080P is legible on my laptop, but it has an 18.4" screen. Great for using as a portable desktop machine, but as those who saw me with it at NIWeek will attest, to d*%n big to be carrying much. It too is a Toshiba, been running well for 3 years of toting around. But it has poor battery life. The other issue is OS. Not much experience with Windows 8.x, mostly bad (wasn't able to resolve my Dad's issue with his new 8.1 machine connecting with his home wifi, but IT guy here suggested reloading the wifi drivers), this machine is running Win7.

So why the sudden need, NIWeek too much for your current one?

P

[Ray.R]

I have an ASUS G73GW with 17in screen and i7 (4-core) CPU.  Dual boot with Win-7 and Linux.   SSHD for both OSes and for applications.  Storage is to a normal HD.

It was a toss between the ASUS and the Toshiba.  When I see Putnam lugging his laptop, I think I made the right choice....  LOL!!  Although for travels like NI week, I carry something smaller and lighter.

We'll be in touch,

RayR

[mikeporter]

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@LV_Pro wrote:

Yes, 1080P is legible on my laptop, but it has an 18.4" screen. Great for using as a portable desktop machine, but as those who saw me with it at NIWeek will attest, to d*%n big to be carrying much. It too is a Toshiba, been running well for 3 years of toting around. But it has poor battery life. The other issue is OS. Not much experience with Windows 8.x, mostly bad (wasn't able to resolve my Dad's issue with his new 8.1 machine connecting with his home wifi, but IT guy here suggested reloading the wifi drivers), this machine is running Win7.

So why the sudden need, NIWeek too much for your current one?

P

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No, it wasn't NIWeek.

Mike...