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John W Kercheval · 12-13-2014, 09:16 PM

Our company is getting new laptops next year. right now we used Eurocom laptops as they are the most powerful we can find.

Does anyone know of a brand that outstrips them? Cost is no object.

My hp 110+ was the best for its time!

John

Steve Simpkin · 12-13-2014, 09:24 PM

I don't know the specs of your laptops but Dell's Alienware line is pretty powerful.

Jim Horn · 12-14-2014, 06:08 AM

Depends on what is meant by "most powerful". Is your emphasis CPU throughput, screen resolution, amount of RAM, amount of storage, speed of storage, size and weight are no concern, size and weight ARE a concern, battery life is no object or is important, touchscreen is needed or not, since used for business a solid support network and immediate turnaround is available or of little concern...

All that said, the aforementioned Alienware units are up there. I had the pleasure of using a well loaded Dell Precision "portable workstation" (list was US$3600) two years ago - the 17 inch (43cm) 1920x1080 screen, fast i7 quad core / 8 thread CPU, 16G of RAM, 256G of solid state drive, Windows 7 Pro was remarkable. FPGA compiles that had taken 15 minutes on its predecessor ran in 2.3 minutes. From power-on to stable and useable desktop took 22 seconds total. And it would go 8 or more hours on a charge.

Of course, they're even better now (Moore's Law is our friend!). But for business or engineering use, search for "portable workstation" or "laptop workstation".

I'm in the market for serious horsepower as well but limited to a ~US$1k budget. The above isn't available for that price but it's amazing how close one can get.

Best to you in your search. Do let us know what you end up with if you don't mind.

John W Kercheval · 12-14-2014, 06:43 AM

Yes We are looking at Aienware. I'm not sure we want a pic of an alien head on our company pcs for professional reasons. Ditto for VooDoopc. [/align]

Dave Frederickson · (This post was last modified: 12-14-2014 05:11 PM by Dave Frederickson.)

I have a Dell M6700 with two 500GB SSD's. It's heavy, though.

I was a guest of Getac at the Miaramar Air Show. They have some pretty badass looking machines.

Steve Simpkin · (This post was last modified: 12-14-2014 06:33 PM by Steve Simpkin.)

(12-14-2014 06:43 AM)John W Kercheval Wrote: Yes We are looking at Aienware. I'm not sure we want a pic of an alien head on our company pcs for professional reasons. Ditto for VooDoopc. [/align]

I see your point. I guess it depends on what you company does. If you were a professional alien investigation company then it might be quite appropriate Smile

BobVA · (This post was last modified: 12-14-2014 07:52 PM by BobVA.)

(12-14-2014 06:08 AM)Jim Horn Wrote: ...I had the pleasure of using a well loaded Dell Precision "portable workstation" (list was US$3600)...

I bought one of these (Precision M90) as my main machine in 2007 that I'm typing this on today. Pretty well bullet-proof and, other than requiring a reflow of the graphics card a couple of years ago (it had the famous solder problem), it's been entirely trouble free and is still very fast to boot. The only upgrades have been more RAM and moving from XP to Win7.

I should replace it, but I can't come up with a convincing reason why (not for lack of trying, I'll assure you!). If I had to, another Precision system would be high on my list.

Bob

Steve Simpkin · 12-14-2014, 08:28 PM

I have a work-issued Dell Precision M4600 mid-level laptop from 2011 that has been very reliable over the past 3.5 years. It does well with FPGA compile times and schematic entry/PCB routing tasks. I've always had good experiences with Dell computers both at work and at home.

kusmi · 12-15-2014, 09:53 AM

(12-13-2014 09:16 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote: Does anyone know of a brand that outstrips them? Cost is no object.

Have you considered buying an Apple MacBook Pro? They get good reviews PC-Mag Reviews and you can install Windows instead - Apple also offers optimized drivers for Windows for all the components.

For business use I have seen people just covering the Apple logo with their own company-logo, if that is an issue ;-)

I have such a MacBook and the build quality is great - Although I have MacOSX running on mine, from time to time I also boot into Windows.

Elite · 12-15-2014, 04:28 PM

Have you considered Thinkpads? Especially the W series which is supposed to be a portable Workstation?

I don't know about their build quality nowadays but they used to be pretty durable.

SteveConr · 12-15-2014, 08:19 PM

The new Alienware laptops aren't supporting the Nvidia 9XX graphic cards. Eurocom is already shipping systems out with Nvidia 9XX series cards. Something to consider.

Jake Schwartz · 12-16-2014, 03:03 PM

I used a Sager with a 1920-by-1200 screen and when it got long in the tooth, I went to Eurocom back in 2012, since it seemed to be the only option for a 17-inch screen (still with 1920-by-1200) which didn't drop its screen resolution DOWN to 1920-by-1080 like everyone else. It is interesting that we now see a proliferation of higher-resolution laptops, but only in the 15-inch-class displays and nothing yet in the 17-inch category. Perhaps the industry doesn't think the 17-inchers will last? I'd love to keep 17-inches and move up to 3200 by 1800 or even 4K (3840 by 2160). If anyone knows of a machine with higher res LCD in the 17-inch form factor, please do tell.

Thanks,
Jake