Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamHeard
On further thought, isn't a laptop with no keyboard or ethernet port an awful choice for programming and driver station use?
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Agreed. The surface isn't really an ideal choice for either a programming laptop or driver station. Plus, the specs listed are way overkill for any of the programming environments we use. We've gotten away with an i3 (and before, a core 2 duo) with both LabVIEW and Java, and we've run vision dashboards on the laptop too.
I'd also be scared of using a surface as an operator console, and I wouldn't recommend it. Most importantly, it doesn't have an ethernet port. If you come up with a solution to this, realize that FTA's won't be well equipped (and may be unwilling) to solve your problem. USB to ethernet adapters really don't work well with the FMS (in fact, many do not work at all), and using a single USB port to power/connect to a keyboard, USB to ethernet adapter, mouse, and three joysticks may not work well. We've ran into USB current draw issues when using two xbox controllers and one joystick on the same port.
Personally, I'd recommend something like a lenovo thinkpad. They are really strong, which is a major plus for a robotics team. Also, if you get one with integrated graphics (they're more expensive than they used to be a few years ago, but it's still in your price range), you can get a pretty solid computer for SolidWorks.