Laptop Engineering Workstation

[Uberseehandel]

Guys

 

I've just picked up an exciting new gig designing, developing and implementing the autonomous ride/flight height control system for a zero-emissions foiling water taxi, and marine services craft.

 

Fortunately, I'm working with a friend who is a naval architect (designs boats) and hydrodynamicist (how fluids flow round aerofoil surfaces and structures), as part of the overall development team, its quite a big deal.

 

This will involve a lot of travel so I need a portable workstation.

 

What will I be running?

 

Solid Works (the whole enchilada)

Visual Studio with all the IOT stuff (Node Red, Arduino IDE, Eclipse etc), telemetry logging, MQTT,  Android/IOS app development, Cloud hosted services, MongoDB, Pentaho, R and related stuff. Office plus Project plus Visio. Various bits of discrete comms software.

 

So lots of software tools, many hosted out of Visual Sudio, if only for overall project simplicity.

 

I'm addicted to big 4K second monitors and would live with a 17" laptop as well. I don't think I'll be travelling with the big second screen, but I will take my proper mouse and keyboard (Bluetooth) and get the project to buy extra monitors at the development/testing site. Buying TVs as monitors is problematic, some are OK, most are not.

 

So lots of memory, SolidWorks friendly graphics, probably 500 MB+ NVME M2 SSD. I like the idea of the Surface Book, but not the reality/specification. I don't think I need a touch screen (I'm not designing the foils or control surfaces, just the controls).

 

And whatever I get, it must be discrete.

 

I know some of the games laptops make excellent workstations.

 

All suggestions considered, I'd be most grateful for a steer in the right direction.

[The Sloth]

i suggest an Aero 15 

[brob]

Have you considered remoting into a fixed desktop system?

[Uberseehandel]

3 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

i suggest an Aero 15 

That does look to be a very suitable option, I'll go to the nearest proper computer store later this week and look at the difference between 15" and 17" laptop screens. Personally, I find it more comfortable to have bigger screens and less extreme spectacles, than the other way round. This is one of the realities of a life spent in Information Systems, one ends up with stuffed eyesight, really the long days are the problem. If I can live with the 15" screen, that would be a plus. My 13 inch screen laptop screen is definitely too small these days.

 

Although I am the best part of a 1,000 miles away from the test site, both it and home are on high speed rail links, so I would choose to travel between sites by rail and the 15" would be far better for that.

[Uberseehandel]

5 minutes ago, brob said:

Have you considered remoting into a fixed desktop system?

I'd considered remoting for when I am not at the test site and the IOT kit needs updating, on the fly. But given that the test site is a charming old French port on the Mediterranean, I suspect I'll be there, quite a lot. At the end of my involvement in the project, I expect to hand the development workstation onto one of the staff development engineers.

[brob]

@Uberseehandel, you might take a look at the Microsoft Surface Book. The Surface Studio.is probably too large, nice as it is.

[The Sloth]

2 minutes ago, brob said:

@Uberseehandel, you might take a look at the Microsoft Surface Book.

overpriced with shitty battery life, i wouldn't buy first gen product for work use. 

 

25 minutes ago, Uberseehandel said:

. If I can live with the 15" screen, that would be a plus. My 13 inch screen laptop screen is definitely too small these days.

i agree, 13 inch is way too small for things like CAD, 15 inches will be better, also aero 15 has excellent battery life relatively for the specs, look at XPS 15 if you need something professional looking. 

[Dragunzonline]

Do you need professional certified drivers? What is your budget?

[Uberseehandel]

10 hours ago, brob said:

@Uberseehandel, you might take a look at the Microsoft Surface Book. The Surface Studio.is probably too large, nice as it is.

As I indicated above, I like the idea of the Surface Book, but the reality is that it is under powered and over priced. An old-spec core-lite CPU, no T3 port, and the SSD is retro-chic.

 

Perhaps by the next gig, there will be a better specification Surface Book.

 

 

[Uberseehandel]

10 hours ago, Dragunzonline said:

Do you need professional certified drivers? What is your budget?

SolidWorks can be quite particular as far as drivers go, and the interaction with the underlying hardware.

 

Price is less important than capability. 

[Uberseehandel]

11 hours ago, nerdslayer1 said:

 

 

 look at XPS 15 if you need something professional looking. 

The XPS 15 is pretty good too, and a black Aero-15 would be discrete.

 

You certainly have some good suggestions - I'll check with SolidWorks as to whether these two have been tested for compatibility.