[appophylite]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaxilus /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I also hate chiclet keyboards.  My desktop keyboard sucks compared to my Thinkpad.  You can't get all that for less than $700-$800.  Just a fact of life.
 

Hear, hear! Another big reason I still haven't given up my X200. The full size keyboard keys just feel right to me. I still haven't quite gotten use to the chiclet keyboard on my Desktop machine, though it has gotten easier with time.

 

[purrin]

 
Quote:

... work because my work laptop is so crippled and locked down that it is not even worth my time carrying it into the field...

LMAO. I totally understand that. Do you work for the government, a pseudo-secret agency, or a paranoid corporation? You don't have to answer. Increasing security so much that you end up losing security because employees end up using their own equipment. That's not too different from people posting passwords on their computers because the password rules are overly onerous.  I definitely see that often.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaxilus /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
The slowest smallest thing I could tolerate would be the Dell Alienware M11...

I evaluated Alienware about a year ago. They seemed to be really well built, a little heavy. The laptop stayed cool running serious computational programs. The downside - the ancillary components such as the touchpad and the touchpad buttons failed on two of two machines. Maybe we just need to bite the bullet and go for Panasonic Toughbooks. I don't know anything about them or how much of their marketing is BS.
 

 

[melomaniac]

well, it's a little like giving up on people... some maintenance is always going to go into making things work

 

[appophylite]

Quote:

 

LMAO. I totally understand that. Do you work for the government, a pseudo-secret agency, or a paranoid corporation? You don't have to answer. Increasing security so much that you end up losing security because employees end up using their own equipment. That's not too different from people posting passwords on their computers because the password rules are overly onerous.  I definitely see that often.
 

I evaluated Alienware about a year ago. They seemed to be really well built, a little heavy. The laptop stayed cool running serious computational programs. The downside - the ancillary components such as the touchpad and the touchpad buttons failed on two of two machines. Maybe we just need to bite the bullet and go for Panasonic Toughbooks. I don't know anything about them or how much of their marketing is BS.
 

Hehe..far from it. The company I work for provides field personnel for tasks and decided several years back that all field personnel and office personnel will be provided laptops so they can work in a mobile fashion. Problem is, to make life easy for their IT personnel, they locked all the computers with specific images and then further lock personnel out of administrative rights so you can't even install your own programs on it. Most of the other field guys I work with bring two laptops with them - their personal laptop for personal stuff, and their work laptop for work stuff. However, my field job requires me to keep an array of Desktop computers active at almost all times. Since these desktops are also work computers that have the same image on them, I usually just use them for immediate work purposes. Since I go back to school in my spare time not in the field, I have to be able to install programs I need for school on a laptop, and since my office laptop does not permit me to do so, I just leave it in a corner and fire it up whenever I am home and need it for a couple of minutes of work.
 
With regard to your consideration to use the Panasonic Toughbooks, a couple of guys for another company I've worked with use Toughbooks for their operations in the field and all I have to say is that it took roughly 20+ roughnecks roughly 2 years to finally bust that thing. I think the do try their best to deliver on their marketing.
 

 

[purrin]

Quote:

well, it's a little like giving up on people... some maintenance is always going to go into making things work

Haha! Sort of. Small firms like the one I'm in don't give up on people, we fire them, if they are not trainable. Overall I'd have to say that our people have been more a lot reliable (including typical turnover) than our current machines. Our employees make few make mistakes, and when they do, it's because they've been thrown a curveball - and that's management's mistake for putting them into a situation where they would get into trouble. I just find it odd that these ancient Toshiba's, Fujitsu's, and even HP's we purchased in 2002-2004 have lasted for so much longer with fewer issues.
 
Quote:

, they locked all the computers with specific images and then further lock personnel out of administrative rights so you can't even install your own programs on it.

Yeah, I've thought about telling our IT guy to restrict local admin, but that presents another set of issues which you just mentioned. We've resorted to policies and procedures which we periodically manually certify. A few years ago, I found out one of our guys was running some sort of music player with Limewire built-in. When one of our clients (not us!) detected this crap on this laptop, I almost pulled off a Darth Vader on him, especially since he claimed he didn't know and that he only listened (err, illegally downloaded) to latin and classical music. It was made absolutely clear to him during his annual performance review (which I hate doing and almost always just sort of throw away,) that he would be fired if he ever violated computer policy again. Since then, it's been trouble free.

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

Hehe..far from it. The company I work for provides field personnel for tasks and decided several years back that all field personnel and office personnel will be provided laptops so they can work in a mobile fashion. Problem is, to make life easy for their IT personnel, they locked all the computers with specific images and then further lock personnel out of administrative rights so you can't even install your own programs on it. Most of the other field guys I work with bring two laptops with them - their personal laptop for personal stuff, and their work laptop for work stuff. However, my field job requires me to keep an array of Desktop computers active at almost all times. Since these desktops are also work computers that have the same image on them, I usually just use them for immediate work purposes. Since I go back to school in my spare time not in the field, I have to be able to install programs I need for school on a laptop, and since my office laptop does not permit me to do so, I just leave it in a corner and fire it up whenever I am home and need it for a couple of minutes of work.
 
With regard to your consideration to use the Panasonic Toughbooks, a couple of guys for another company I've worked with use Toughbooks for their operations in the field and all I have to say is that it took roughly 20+ roughnecks roughly 2 years to finally bust that thing. I think the do try their best to deliver on their marketing.
 

If i had $4000 to spend on a laptop with sub par specs i would buy a toughbook.
 

 

[purrin]

Quote:

If i had $4000 to spend on a laptop with sub par specs i would buy a toughbook.

It's a tradeoff for reliability. I remember in the 80s when the i386 chip just came out and my professors (many of whom worked at LLNL) told our class most "high-tech" military gear was still using 8080 and Z80 CPUs. As young students, we were stunned. (I think the US military may have worked up to hardened P3 Pros or P4s by now.)
 
As an aside, my dad was in QA with high-end manufacturing. I remember going to his company and seeing these Transformers robot sized coolers and ovens connected to huge power couplings. They would throw these PC boards in the oven and bring them from below freezing temperatures to several hundred degrees in a few minutes, repeat this a few more times, and then test them to see if they still worked. Hmm. I wonder what those boards might have been for.

 

[ozz]

When i worked for Harley Davidson we used Panasonic ToughBooks and I will say it lived up to its name they are well built,heavy and bulky but none the less very durable.
My personal choice MacBook Pro and I have an HP running Win7 and Ubuntu 11.04 but by the end of the day my go to is the MBP and on that note I will use a Harley pun " if
i have to explain you would not understand".

 

[appophylite]

Quote:

If i had $4000 to spend on a laptop with sub par specs i would buy a toughbook.
 

True, they are pricy - and the specs for money aren't the greatest, but it's a fine laptop for beating the elements
 

 

[bcasey25raptor]

I feel computer reliability has taken a nose dive in the last 5 years. Not surprising considering how cheap computers are now.

 

[Anaxilus]

We had Toughbooks in the military too.  Durable but pretty slow and weak.  Basically used as a glorified scan tool and word processor.

 

[appophylite]

The one's I saw used in the field were just connected to the internet to transmit data back to town collected by the faster computers like my desktops.

 

[purrin]

The semi-rugged 52 and 53 with the 2.5GHz Core i5 w/ the 7200rpm drives come under $1900. The i5-2520 is definitely not a slow processor.

 

[Anaxilus]

Intel didn't even have the 'i' series when I was in so it seems like they ramped up the procs a bit.  i5 is still slower than what I'd want if I bought a new Laptop today.  Nothing like the desktop i5 at all.  I would need an i7 for portable use at least especially w/o dedicated graphics.  But yeah, we aren't talking Netbook Atom speed for sure.

 

[appophylite]

Quote:

I would need an i7 for portable use at least especially w/o dedicated graphics.

Dang, you would hate my portable rig then! ;D We're talking Centrino vPro!