Laptop recommendations for a trucker

[Gummy]

Hello everyone, 

A friend of mines father asked me for help in finding a laptop that he can take in his big rig with him. He's worried about the bouncing around as he might use the laptop to display his maps while he's driving. I assume anything with an SSD should be fine to take a bit of a rough ride? And maybe something with good hinges. It will not be used for anything more intensive than watching movies so a GPU is not needed, and I was thinking an i3, i5, or ryzen equivalent will be plenty. 

 

15" screen minimum, 17" preferred 

1080p or higher

Touchscreen would be preferred

Backlit keys preferred

Disc drive preferred

SSD drive

i3 +

$1300 CAD / $1000 USD budget 

 

What would you fine folk suggest? 

[TheBean]

why not get a tablet? those are going to be much easier to use inside a vehicle and are also usually easier to avoid damage because there is no hinge. 

[Radium_Angel]

16 minutes ago, Gummy said:

What would you fine folk suggest? 

Panasonic ToughBook line.

[Doug_Dangger]

Like someone mentioned, a tablet would do a great job.

Ipads have great battery life.  Get a 64 or 128GB model so you can load up a lot of music and movies.  If you need a keyboard, you can get them as cheap as $20 from Amazon.

Ipads are the gold standard in tablets.

[Wilbur Cobb]

Mounting an entire laptop on the dash board would make for a bad blind spot (speaking the passenger side is already a horrible blind spot for a semi), and putting it on the passenger seat is just too distracting and far apart (most modern semis have wide interiors). I just use my phone with a Steelie magnet mounted on the vent. If that is too small he can also buy a big GPS so you can mount it away from blind spots, they also usually come with map software to avoid non-truck accessible routes.

 

Honestly if he just watches movies through a streaming service, a tablet is the best option.