We are looking to purchase a new laptop to designate as our Drivers Station specifically. What recommendations are there for a laptop specifically as a drivers station? Thanks in advance!
- durable
- late gen i5 or better (or similar amd)
- at least 8gb ram
- onboard Ethernet port
- SSD is a must (thanks @Bmongar ) (vibration/shock resistant, and boots faster during the inevitable fieldside reboot)
Iâm partial to thinkpads- you can get used ones for pretty reasonable prices and theyâre usually built pretty tough.
Ideally you use it only as a driver station- no day-to-day programming, cad, media, etc. Keep as few programs on it as possible .
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Make sure itâs AMD Ryzen or later if you go with AMD, preferably a Ryzen 5 or better
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Also SSD for the drive is preferable because it is less subject to shock/vibration failure than a spinning hard drive.
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Ryan pretty much nails it here!
Also partial to Thinkpads, but HP and Dellâs Business-Class Equivalents would probably be as good. I usually start by searching Thinkpad i5 8gb on Ebay to see what models at which price-points are available and go from there.
About 5 years ago I bought 10x ThinkPad T440p laptops for 3468 all with 4th gen i5 CPUs, 8GB RAM, SSDs, and I upgraded all the trackpads to the newer model with the physical buttons for the trackpoint and less spongy physical âclickâ on the trackpad. IIRC it averaged out to ~$250 each buying them off Ebay from mostly Recycler/Refurbisher companies.
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HP and Dell business class wonât be AS good as a Lenovo Thinkpad, but theyâll be better than the gaming level - one offs.
Also, immediately invest in right angle USB extenders, and a short Ethernet extender. Install them, hot glue them, and tape them in place.
If youâre like us, we are very budget concious and want our driver stations to last a long time. What most people donât consider is that itâs not the software or processor thatâs a problem. Itâs a broken Ethernet or USB port from all the plug-unplug cycles that an FRC laptop sees.
Also - some Lenovos have internal batteries as well as the ânormalâ battery. Iâd recommend that if you can. The extra battery life can be a lifesaver at competitions.
In the past I would buy ârefurbishedâ laptops. They worked great - except the USB ports wore out in very short order. Now we go new, and we protect the USB and Ethernet ports as much as we can.
THANKS for the info thus far. We were going to look for a laptop that has a docking station as well to prevent the issues with the LAN port and USB ports after certain use. Also would allow for using small external monitors for driver and operator for cameras and such.
Funny enough the price on those hasnât dropped all that much. Last month I built myself a T460s for under $300- $105 for the laptop (eBay sniping, âfor partsâ but not actually), $40 for a 16GB DDR4 module (I wanted the max 20GB, not the stock 8GB), $80 for an SSD (Sk Hynix P31 Gold 500GB, yes it can do NVME), $10 for a power brick, and $40 on a replacement battery (one of the two internal batteries had puffed up, oops). For a DS you wouldnât need the RAM upgrade⌠but otherwise such would be a killer setup. I get 6+ hours per charge (plenty of âforgot to chargeâ buffer) and it boots nearly instantly.
It replaced a T440s with a bad 3.5mm jack (I read theyâre a common failure, Iâll eventually solder in a new one); in terms of performance itâs night and day (I had it maxed at 12GB DDR3; I think most of the improvement on the T460s is from NVME vs SATA). Unless one is using headphones for audio cues, the 3.5mm jack isnât an issue for DSâs⌠T440(s) isnât bad for DS either.
(And to think Iâm generally more partial to Dell Latitudes and Precisions⌠go figure).
Any of the Enterprise Class laptops from Lenovo or Dell are amazing.
(If not for cost, I would recommend every team buy a Dell Latitude 7424 Rugged)
In addition, do a clean install of Windows (or at a minimum remove any third party anti virus software), Enterprise Class laptops almost never ship with âBloatwareâ but its always good to check.
and look for laptops that have extra USB ports, External USB Hubs are just another point of failure.
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As someone whose work laptops are Latitude Ruggedâs (Primarily a 5414, but I also used a 7414 for a bit), there is a couple of downsides⌠mainly size/weight (7000 series is metal cased and a lot worse in both regards compared to the still-chunky plastic 5000 series) and low screen resolution (both are 1366x768âs, no 1080p option AFAIK) . They are Dellâs version of a Toughbook after all. But, said models can be had for around $300 (My boss has been eBaying them lately as replacements for the even older toughbooks used by our maintenance crew).
We lived on a 300-500$ lenovo thinkpad
- 8gb ram
- onboard ethernet
- i5
- multiple usb ports
- 10 foot drop resistance (sadly accidentally tested)
- rain proof (also accidentally tested)
- step proof (yet again)
- kicked while running proof (sigh)
- slammed at 5m/s robot proof (idk how this could happen)
later on business accidentally bought a Zephyrus m16 with an i9, 3060 because they donât understand software people sarcasm
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Driver Station Best Practices â FIRST Robotics Competition documentation represents the current consensus on driver station needs.
You donât need a particularly powerful CPU for the driver station.
+1 to that. No rotating disks in the driver station laptop.
Great choice!
USB ethernet ports work great. Docking stations wonât hold up well to the abuse that the driver station gets.
Most important of all.
Absolutely agree with this. Do it at the start of each competition season.
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Not for the driver station itself, but shuffleboard can get pretty resource intensive, especially with a lot of telemetry.
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If you canât find a Thinkpad, and are looking for used, check out the HP Zbook 15 G3. You can get it with great specs for under $400.
Also, I like to run the Windows 10 âDecrapifierâ on any new Windows 10 machine. Works great.
There are a bunch of scripts that optimize Windows 10, but if you have a dedicated drivers station, I would advice against running any of those scripts. They can destabilize the OS and cause crashing issues. I would prefer to take the small performance hit from background tasks than make the laptop any less stable. If your driver station needs the extra performance, you should probably get another drivers station.
That being said, those kinds scripts are great for machines that arenât as critical, like a programming or media laptop.
Iâve never had an issue with the Windows 10 Decrapifier on several machines, including those used as driver stations.
Take it from someone who manages Windows in the Enterprise.
All these âOptimizer Scriptsâ and âDecrapifiersâ cause so many more problems then they solve.
If you want stable Windows, donât use these.
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I can vouch for business class laptops - I do not recommend personal laptops at the low end, since you canât really get any decent ones from the big players, but used business laptops are usually really good.
Any i7 since about 6th gen will work quite well, and any AMD Ryzen will do very nicely.
Iâd recommend 8gb ram, but generally you can upgrade RAM and storage, so just get something with the right processor that isnât an Apple.
I also canât stress this enough - Do NOT get a touchscreen. For a driver station, you wonât be using it, and theyâre a pain to fix, as well as generally adding at least $100 to the cost.
TL:DR; Used Business laptops with at least 6th gen i7 or AMD Ryzen - Upgrade to 8/16gb ram and a 250/500gb ssd, and youâll have a nice laptop thatâll serve you well.
Just donât get any new non-business class Dell/HP/Apple laptops (those are the biggest offenders of useless features for stupid amounts of money, there are plenty more)
EDIT: If you need a graphics card, again check Dell/Lenovo business class laptops, but a driver station laptop shouldnât need one - thatâs more of a CAD thing.
Itâs not likely to cause issues, but in some rare cases it can. When it comes to something as critical as a drivers station I would prefer not to take any risks, but itâs such a minor risk Iâm not surprised youâve never had an issue. Iâve also never personally had an issue with these kinds of scripts, but when using an older program like Drivers Station, you never know what they might rely on that the script could remove.
Oh also, anything with auto-updates, turn it off. Messed up one of our matches
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