Armored Laptop.

[martin007]

99% of today's laptops are delicate and fragile.
However, there are a few that are built to last.
I start this conversation to introduce armored laptops.


Getac B300[b]

> https://youtu.be/Bo2hm4r8evw?si=i0rd1RLQUtTth4Ei

[b]Dell Latitude 5420 Rugged

> https://youtu.be/DfjTw3UVUpo?si=RPnBegYiWn0sYSjX

[Burgerman]

I know. I have two 5420 rugged laptops. But these are available in massively different specs. Making the same looking 5420 laptop either basic or a powerhouse with every trick added.

[Burgerman]

Are you looking for one?

Because I tested about half a dozen of the fastest laptops recently beloning to a freind who is trying to buy one capable of doing some movie editing. So far its a no go. They just dont have the horsepower whatever you do.

I do this on my PC as its got crap loads of CPU cores all overclocked to hell as well as a 3090 nvidia card to crunch the numbers. That does it. Its fans sound like a jet taking off as you do it. Then it goes silent again.

But at least it has enough testicles to do it. Laptops just die a death and you wait. Wait. Wait. Wait and eventually lose the will to live. So its just not practical. So I use laptops via remote desktop to drive the real computer on my bench. That way its effortless. To give you an idea a 22 minute movie from my Z8 camera in highest quality and raw, it a full TB. And you need to read all that, edit it in memory, and write a new file when you save... Just scrolling through the timeline makes the fans go mental. If you do serious edits like noise reduction it can take a very long time at around 900 watts... Its all a bit crazy when you are to eventually downscale it to 4K which is 1/4 the resolution, and as a non raw file which is around 10 to 50 times smaller again! (file size).

These pro movie editing labs but murder hard disk space and memory and have huge racks of processors and GPUs. The camera itself is writing its data at around 800MB per second to the rediculously fast cards. The cards get a "hot card warning" on screen and will actually burn your fingers!

[martin007]

Are you looking for one?

No.

[slomobile]

Maybe this isn't what you had in mind, but for $150 I picked up a perfect condition used MIL-STD 810G Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 5th gen made in 2017. I think the current gen is like 11 or something. But this is plenty fast for me. Its real "armor" is that it was cheap so I don't care too much if it breaks. I take it places I wouldn't dream of bringing a new $3,000 fully rugged computer.

Lacking any spinning hard drive, it just doesn't require the same level of shock protection that laptops used to require.

It is super light so when it gets dropped, there is less momentum. It is stiff so you can pick it up from 1 corner and it does not flex. The keyboard is excellent and spill resistant. Fingerprint reader, trackpoint, trackpad with buttons above, not below. The ethernet port is a stupid mini form factor, but at least it has a real port, not a USB adapter. 2 thunderbolt 3 ports, 2 USB A, HDMI, headset jack, micro SD, cellular modem.

Also rugged, but not laptops, Fanless Lenovo SE30 Ubuntu w/cellular modem, Lenovo M75N IoT Win10IoT, both with IOBOX which adds 2 serial ports, 2 POE ethernet ports, DIO, 9-36v DC power input. I put one on my chair, other in the van. Also used for under $200 each. Just wipe anything on the drive, or add a new drive. Modern mini PCs are probably as good or better, but I like the chunky tall aluminum cooling fins.

But if you like Getac B300 https://www.ebay.com/itm/256484379179 here is 290 of them.