So IT took away all but one of our laptops because they’re not worth updating anymore.
I’ve been given permission to order two more so long as the price is “reasonable”. I’ll have to hand in a quote by Wednesday.
I haven’t kept track of specs in a long time so I’d like a second look to see if this would be a good purchase.
We use VS code and Onshape so I’m not worried about graphics. Haven’t done anything with vision stuff, but would like to down the road.
I checked out previous threads and the main things I looked for was SSD, ethernet port and touchscreen (driver station convenience)
Enticing price. My team is using 6 year old laptops for programming. They’re… worn out.
Kids use Onshape on crappy Chromebooks fairly well, this would be fine for that.
As for VSCode, shouldn’t be an issue. Most vision stuff is handled on the robot if you’re using Limelight or a RaspberryPi solution. So doubt there’s any issue there either.
My team typically uses old Dell Latitudes and 2012 MacBook Pros. Both work really well, although we are not asking much of either; we run a light Arch Linux on all of them! Our primary driver station is a Lenovo Thinkpad, and I could not be more pleased. Good choice!
I would skip the touchscreen and upgrade to 8GB of RAM and the i5 CPU for the same price. 4GB of RAM is really not enough these days, and the i5 doubles the number of cores and threads over the i3 along with better integrated graphics.
touchscreens are bad. If this is doubling as a driver station, I wouldn’t want to accidently disconnect your robot by touching the screen.
8 gigs of ram will make your user experience so much better.
bigger batteries are a must on competition days. I know you will have an outlet at the drivers station but there are many places at events that won’t have a plug handy.
It looks like this has a compact/folding ethernet port. If you can find a full sized port, I’d highly recommend it.
Drop touchscreen (just bad idea all the way around)
Up to min of 8G of RAM
Ethernet - alternative is to get one with a good USB 3 (A or C) and use an external USB dongle with up to 3 USB ports for controller and an ethernet port. This way the ethernet port and the 2 controllers would always be plugged into this single external.
i5 or higher
Win OS - don’t get Home edition, get the Pro edition.
If they will let you, see if you can trade in 2 new computers to 3 or 4 used computers (as long as Intel gen 8+ you’ll be able to run Windows 11 - of course make sure the MB has the TPM 2 as an option). [You can typically get a new computer for the price of 2 used ones, especially ones about 3-4 years old].
Most important features are sufficient RAM and a large SSD. Neither can be skipped at this point if you want a pleasant dev experience.
The Thinkpad you’ve linked is a bit short on RAM (I wouldn’t go less than 8GB on a modern computer), and the SSD is too small. I also do not endorse touchscreens on laptops, though this is personal taste.
I would strongly caution against this approach as a “Plan A”.
These adapters are great to have on hand in a pinch when the Ethernet port dies, but a full sized ethernet port and 3 USB-A ports on the driver station laptop itself is basically a must in my book. I have tested a number of these adapters and have found some that prioritize ethernet traffic over USB traffic, so for example, if you max out the ethernet bandwidth, the USB devices stop communicating with the computer, so you lose joystick input until some bandwidth is freed up. Not something you want in the middle of a match. One of these dongles now also introduces a single point failure where before there were 3 separate failure points (if you have 2 controllers and ethernet going through it)
This is getting very hard to find. If separating the ethernet and USB traffic is critical, consider two dongles as well. But this will conflict with usbC power delivery on some chassis as well.
It actually is the precise reason that you rather to break 1 internal USB at a time then to break more than 2 (or 3) through all the connect/disconnect that’s why we’re going to an external approach (we have 2-3 old machines that very loose USB connection).
If you worry, your dongle might die, bring a spare. In a pinch, Walmart, Bestbuy, Staples, etc all most likely would have some form of those dongles as well during competition if you can’t find some team with them.
Bitlocker being one. Not able able to setup Remote Desktop client as another (for us at least). And not able to potentially join domains/active directories further makes it less attractive (all are for easier management).
If you can afford it then go up to Pro for Workstation (or Enterprise) and then you don’t have to mess with register key/back-n-forth with MS from automatically downloading and installing all those App-Store games.
Definitely look at the number of ports: Ethernet, USB, HDMI, etc. How many ports can break before it can no longer be used as a driver station?
Also, I love having an HDMI that I can connect to a bigger monitor/TV. Helping a student with code/cad become a lot easier on a larger screen, and can allow multiple students to look at code/cad.
Make sure the ethernet port is a permanent port and not one of those flap doohickey deals. Lenovo ThinkPads of the T and P variety are true business class machines, are made sturdily and able to be repaired easily. Stay away from “consumer” level or gaming systems. They will not survive.
this is why I always run a windows update check on Wed/Thurs before each official event. Full reboot before event and never connected to anything to the Internet until after the full event weekend.
Us too. Lately though, updates have been disabling drivers. So I cannot use things like USB or HDMI until I get an updated driver (one or two updates down the road, or, if I am lucky in a forced additional update). Going through that with USB on an event week is a potential annoyance I would rather we avoid. Of course, there is always the old roll back and snooze updates for a week trick. That still works (even on home edition).
. The less I need to worry about my driver station performing a windows update right before a match, the better!