New Laptop Time what to get

VM on Mac

The Mac Book Pro runs all day on a battery charge.
I think the official number is 9 hr but reports of 10-12 hrs can be found. I haven't run out of power. I don't take my charger to the trade shows or to the field. I am truly portable and mobile.

Hi Peter,

Do you run VM on Mac and Battery life is still same, if so?
 
  • 15in for portability (17in is cumbersome and more fragile)
  • Numeric keypad
  • 1080p resolution (you don't want to be doing HMI work on anything less)
  • 16GB RAM. PLC software has small user bases, so they have bugs and memory leaks. Fight this by having tons of memory.
  • SSD, big enough for OS and PLC software. HDD for archives/graphics editing.
  • Extended battery or generally battery life in excess of 2 hours.
  • Wifi AC compatible, preferably MU-MIMO capable
  • USB 3 ports
  • Back-lit keyboard to see in dark plants
  • Ethernet port, everything is ethernet and a wifi only laptop is just being silly.

For road warriors:
  • Nice web cam to stay in touch with the family
  • Discrete graphics for a touch of video game action so you don't just get drunk at the hotel bar every night.
  • HDMI port and cable to connect to hotel TV for streaming

Things you don't need:
  • DVD/BlueRay, just dead space that at best drains your battery
  • The fastest CPU, disk and memory speeds are the bottle neck these days
  • Serial port, just get a dongle and stop letting people buy things that use serial communication. Dell people can get that legacy dock thing with serial and parallel port if they are maintaining ancient ****.


My recommendation is always the MSI Apache family. Tough enough to do CAD, fraction of the price of Dell, great cooling, but battery life is on the lower end.
 
I Dont like Apple products, as they have always limited my capabilities to me. But also i am talking about ipad, iphone, etc. havent used a Mac computer in a long time. that battery life makes me think maybe i should give it a try... hmm
 
I Dont like Apple products, as they have always limited my capabilities to me. But also i am talking about ipad, iphone, etc. havent used a Mac computer in a long time. that battery life makes me think maybe i should give it a try... hmm

Used to be that way, now nothing but iPhone, iPad (mini) for me for portability. Love my mac mini I have at home (can run ESXi ;)). I just want stuff that works and has battery life. Dismissed the MacBook Pro for years because they sold them with a 5200 RPM HD at a premium price. SSDs/Retina display have flipped the table. Hard to justify a Macbook Pro right now, given the current model's age and unknown release time of the next model you're buying dated technology. Granted you can get good discounted deals on current models from some places, B&H Photo is where I had planned on buying one last year but then rumors of a refresh and I've been waiting....waiting....waiting....

I've upgraded my wife's 2011 Macbook Pro with a 1TB SSD, 16 GB of Ram. I've used it in job interviews to run multiple VMs at the same time to show work I have done and it hums along just fine. Battery is showing it's ago though.
 
I Dont like Apple products, as they have always limited my capabilities to me. But also i am talking about ipad, iphone, etc. havent used a Mac computer in a long time. that battery life makes me think maybe i should give it a try... hmm

My MacPro was great for industrial use. Used Fusion an VMs. I used their Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter to communicate to plant networks. Also had a third party USB to Ethernet adapter. Both could be used at the same time.
 
But I can't stand that it has no numerical keypad, which means I that cannot enter extended ASCII characters using Alt + numerical code, or Ctrl +Alt + numerical code for Dell style 'numbers superimposed over alpha keys", as shown below, with the numerical keys in blue

I typically use extended characters like
241 ± (plus minus)
248 ° (degrees)

I had issues with my latest Dell that came with no numeric keypad... I found happy with this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/131893235000?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true
 
Lenovo E540 Think Pad
Sleeper model (extinct)
16 ram
3 ghZ clock
1 tera byte hard
quad processors
3 USB, 2 @ 2.0 1 @3.0
2 Ethernet
a numbers key pad.
I've gotten 3.5 hours out of the battery when it was new.
Retails for about 500 upgraded for 200
Installed
LabView
rsLogix 500
rsLinx
Rs emulator
Vijeo designer
Idec
Step 7 Professional
ABB Robotics Studio
Easy soft PRo6

And still only weighs 4.5 LBs.

10 sec start up
Runs Win 7 Pro OS 64 bit.

Damn thing's fast

Can run Vijeo designer and Lab-view at the same time, answer e-mails, stream music on YouTube, Video chat with boss, host a "go to meeting" and transfer money into the checking account, and never has lagged yet. Haven't been able to slow it down .
 
Can you not use the thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor?
Whilst it is not 'direct', is pretty much the same thing

You don't have to, sure, but if the WiFi access point you're connected to doesn't reside on the same subnet as a control system and a route isn't provided to the remote subnet, you would need a physical adapter.
 
We are using Lenovo P50's now.

i7-6820HQ processor, 16GB ram, 256 GB + 512GB SSD, NVIDIA Quadro 2GB dedicated graphics.

Solid, built like tanks with excellent backlit keyboards and full numpad. Excellent battery life with 6-cell unit, around 5+ hrs.

If I can offer any advise it is to avoid 'entry level' performance laptops designed for the home user as even though performance/price is good typically build quality on these are poor and not suitable for field service use.

Aim for mid-high end business level or mobile workstation level laptops. Generally excellent build quality, better battery life, but obvious increase in price which is well worth it in our industry IMO.

Can't comment on MacBook Pro suggestions.. wouldn't catch me dead using one though. :ROFLMAO:
 
Last edited:
Have used the Dell's, HP's and Lenovo's. Over the last 4 years, the Lenovo's have been the most stable for me.

Use a W541 now- believe it has been discontinued- but it's a solid i7 processor with SSD and 32GB RAM. It's been more than a year and the system still starts up quick, runs multiple instances of VM's and some heavy PLC environments at the same time.

Question for the folks using VMWare Fusion- is the main benefit of Fusion the part where it is 'more autonomous' from the host?

If that statement is not accurate, then, what are the benefits of Fusion over just the Workstation or Player product?

_________________________________________
http://www.drivesandsystems.com
 
Question for the folks using VMWare Fusion- is the main benefit of Fusion the part where it is 'more autonomous' from the host?

If that statement is not accurate, then, what are the benefits of Fusion over just the Workstation or Player product?

Fusion is just VMWare's OSX offering.
 

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