Laptop recommendations

[Dallin]

I have used the Dell Toughbooks with the regular HD and I am now using the Newest Dell Toughbook with the SSD. There is no comparison. The SSD blows the other one out of the water for speed and most important "Toughness". My company purchased 4 toughbooks wit convensionall drive for the automation department. Within 2 year 3 out of the 4 had to have the drives replaced due to failure not once but 3 times in each. The 4th was stolen so we do not know if it needed to be replaced.

The new Dell has a small SSD but comes with an E-Sata port so you can connect an external Drive to it. I currently have what is refered to as a legacy module that replaces my CD drive nd gives me a Second serial port and also a second ethernet port. The second ethernet port is so handy to have. My last job I was able to connect to a PLC (Quantum) and also an NOE card in he rack that communicated with the MCCs TeSys modules.
In the Office I was able to do the same as well as connect to wireless internet and also for fun I connected to a device via Serial just to say I did it

They are pricey and the resolution is not as high as I'd like but I have taken it to places so dust and hot that I could not read the letters on my keyboard and it did not bother it at all.

 

[electrodynatronic]

Work just gave me a Toshiba Tecra. It has a real serial port, and an Express Card slot. Woops just checked, it's been EOL'd.

I have an old RedChief PCMCIA Cardbus RS232 and Parallel port card that worked well in the past. Got it here. They have ExpressCard versions as well.

, dropped it facedown on a concrete floor.

Apple, and Lenovo (some models, old ThinkPad series) carry accelerometers and shut the HDD down when they detect a fall. Not as good as solid state though.

 

[electrodynatronic]

http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/fully-rugged-laptop-toughbook-31.asp#

 

[tomalbright]

"Dell Off Lease is 30% off any item with Coupon Code: "30%250up" (Exp 10/4). Free Shipping (Normally starts at $18). Some instant discounts on many desktops & laptops new to Dell Off Lease. Tax in most."

A D630 for 200 bucks-ish including tax. An amazing deal, but alas, I have no credit. And the Dell account doesn't work on DFS.

 

[arkyny]

Dell ATG 6200, aluminum case duo core 2 processor, 4 usb ports, and 7 hours battery life. Love it