Lightweight Laptop for Lightweight Duty 2

[hititfaster]

I have a Dell M4600 15" laptop. It's a reasonable spec. (i7, SSD, 16Gb RAM, etc.) and runs SW nicely. Trouble is it's a BEAST... After a long day out this week, several train rides, cabs and walking around with it all day the size and weight were annoying me. It's impractical on a train, the battery doesn't last long (OK, a little unfair as it's probably due a new one) so on a train with no plug I'm stuffed after 15min. I know it's a good CAD laptop but I could sacrifice power for portability because typically when I'm out for meetings and site days I'm not doing heavy CAD work: it's typically opening assemblies, interrogating and reviewing designs with customers and Word/Excel/internet/email. I do the heavy work in the office on my CAD workstation. Plus I'll still have the 4600 should I need it.

I quite like Dell and looked at a new XPS 13 this week. They look fantastic and that's the sort of size/weight I'd like to be at. I know it's a subjective question, but would a decent spec. (i7, SSD 16Gb RAM) one manage some light SW duties?

 

[SBaugh]

If you think M4600 is heavy, try carrying the M6800 around and the brick that comes with those! Far heavier and the brick is much larger than the 4600. I did that for 2.5 years at my last job and about 4 years prior to that at my job before that. I sacrificed the weight to have a PC to run SW well.

If I were shopping for a laptop and weight and performance was a big deal I would recommend:

http://www.boxx.com/products/mobile-workstations/goboxx-slm

If you don't care about performance that much and you just want to lose all the weight you can, then look at the laptops lenovo offers. I never found their pc's to run SW worth a darn, but they don't weigh much.

Scott Baugh, CSWP
CAD Systems Manager
Evapar

http://www.evapar.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[hititfaster]

Ha - I can relate! I had one of those at a previous employer. Great machine but what a chunk! That's why when I set up on my own I got the 15" version. Power supply isn't any smaller on the 15" version though!

 

[PatCouture]

If you want an approved GPU then you may look at the Lenovo Thinkpad P40 Yoga. It's a bit pricy for the performance but you'll get better support from SW. Other solutions almost all excludes the use of an approved GPU so your mileage may vary. I've read testimony's from user working with a surface book or surface pro. Some with gaming ultrabooks such as the Razer blade (Even some tested an external Quadro card in the Razer Core but that's another subject).

From my personnal experience with the Surface Pro 3 (I5, 8gb ram, 256 ssd), It runs fine for an hour or two and after that it looks like the integrated gpu is unable to clear his memory and suddenly freezes. I would say it's ok for consultation work but I would not want to use it all day.

That's my 2 cents.

Patrick