Our classmate died - laptop suggestions?

[Gdeaver]

The market is saturated with used laptops coming off of lease. You could find a 1 or 2 year business laptop with sufficient specks in the 200 to 300 $ range.

[GrinningFool]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

The market is saturated with used laptops coming off of lease. You could find a 1 or 2 year business laptop with sufficient specks in the 200 to 300 $ range.

Check out precision laptops from Dell refurbished. They are built rugged and with good specs.

Search for coupons, they usually have them for 40 to 50% off bringing I7 machines with dedicated video cards and 1920 X 1080 screens for 400 to 500 dollars.

[FrankJ]

For driver stations without heavy vision processing, I have been buying small laptops with a 802.11 A wireless card. Generally the B, G, N specs are included in a new wireless card that comes with A. The A spec insures the 5 gig band that is less crowded in public areas than the 2.4 band. The DS and dashboard aren't really hardware intensive. Laptops with this spec can be found in the $250-$350 price range. The few we have bought have been Acers, but other brands are equally good.

It is best to keep the driver station laptop completely clean software wise. Software Developers like to put code it start up that help their program to run faster & check for updates. This stuff can cause sporadic com issues with the robot that is hard to diagnose. For the same reason it is better to have a separate computer for programing.

[Taylor]

I was very concerned about this thread.
Then I realized you were talking about a computer.

[MrRoboSteve]

Taylor and I were thinking the same thing.

Our team bought four used Dell Latitude D830s as our programming machines a couple years ago. They've been great. We are thinking about putting SSDs in them next year.

If I was buying a machine to use as a DS today, I'd be looking at a 3-4 year old used Thinkpad -- for example, a well configured T430. They are very durable and there are tons of parts available.

[ImMoMo]

Originally Posted by Taylor

I was very concerned about this thread.
Then I realized you were talking about a computer.

Yeah, when I looked at the thread, all I could think of was, "Oh my, how awful, this is very depressing.."
Haha, talk about dramatic titles!

[markgryzwa]

Yes. This might be the worst headline ever. I felt awful till I pause and re-read it.