What laptop y’all using

[jrgreene1968]

What laptops are y’all using?
I’ve got a Panasonic toughbook cf-31 I’ve had for several years, it’s been decent, but has its flaws. Mainly it runs hot, and the intel software is constantly throttling the speed to slow it down so it can cool. What should be a 2.70 mhz is actually 798 most of the time
So I’ve been looking at buying another. Don’t have to be new, but I want something that’s not gonna break in half just from opening the lid . I’ve had a couple dells through the years, and they didn’t last long before the lid broke.
So what’s a good one?

 

[Walker1]

What do you use it for?

 

[jrgreene1968]

I keep it in my service truck. I work on gas compressors a lot and use it for doing performance runs, also have several equipment programs. Deere advisor, Volvo, recently added cat. So a lot on the hard drive. Ive got a 2 tb drive and only has 50gigs free. some days I don’t use it at all, then other days it’s open all day

 

[Mike L]

I run a dell latitude. It was a refurbished unit I bought from eBay. I basically use it to run cummins insite and quick books. My only complaint is that it has a short battery life but honestly I’ve never had a laptop with a battery that lasted very long if I was working it.

 

[jrgreene1968]

Yes I have the same problem with short battery life. I bought the wife a new hp last year, now that battery lasts all day, but then again, I’d break that laptop before I got to the truck with it.
1 reason I think I’m so hard on them, I keep it in a ram mount in my truck. Of course going into rough locations, oilfield lease roads etc, it’s taking a beating. It’s held firmly in the mount, but the whole truck is taking a beating
What finally pissed me off and got me looking to buy another, this one locked up 2 times today. I spent half a day updating drivers etc, only to find it was due to internal temp. The toughbook s run hot anyway, but this one I believe is done. It’s showing 18,900 hrs in the bios, so I’m not spending no money on it

 

[CM1995]

MacBook - we run our entire business on Macbook's, iPhones and iPads. Apple hardware products have worked well for us.

I run MS Office for Mac in order to use Excel, Word and Outlook for email. Can't stand the Apple version of Office, numbers sucks. Wife runs Quickbooks for the office in addition to Office for Mac.

The problem I've run into with Mac is some specialized software only runs on PC such as some estimating and takeoff systems.

 

[skyking1]

I have an old XP dell with serial port for some really old programs, another newer one with Win7 for slightly newer programs, and I run a Lenovo Chromebook for day to day.
That win7 dell was the last model to ship with true serial ports. Sure you can use a USB to serial dongle, but it is one more layer to mess with. I use serial for digital phone systems, big network switches and routers that have a serial console.
I have not been compelled to get a win10 machine going.

 

[JLarson]

Yea our full rugged toughbooks have to live in the trucks with ac on in the real heat of summer. I also have like a mid grade 52 that's been pretty good along with some HP pro and elite books.

 

[JD955SC]

Our IT Dept issues us Dell business class laptops and they seem to hold up OK. Worst part is using USB for the Diagostic adapters USB takes a beating but usb receptacles and plugs are garbage anyway for durability no matter what PC they are in.

I’d buy myself a couple refurbs If I was you and use one for backup

 

[AzIron]

I run an hp I keep it in a bag does pretty good my wife's hp holds up to the 3 year old so I was convinced

 

[jrgreene1968]

I ended up finding another Panasonic toughbook. Used very little. Hopefully I can get all my software from this pc to that one without losing any of it. Gonna try to clone the disc