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01-09-2020, 09:17 PM | Topic Starter |
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Advice on a new laptop
I use a laptop for the farm. What I've been doing is buying a small laptop and using a docking station at both the home office and at the farm. I started out with those Dell Latitude docking stations that clipped into the mobo. Then went to a USB Type C adapter. Now I have a USB 3.0 adapter for a Surface Pro 4. Don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other but I do currently have the 3.0 adapters at both locations.
I like the Surface Pro. It's been pretty reliable, but the battery is starting to have issues and it's a pain in the ass thing, but if I hook to bluetooth it nukes the wifi because it's the same frequency (I guess). I was going to buy a different router but then the battery started getting a little wonky so I decided to just go a different route on the computer front. Does anybody have any recommendations? I'd been a dell guy up until the Surface. Probably go that way again, unless there are some other known issue things like the whole bluetooth shit. I don't use a ****ton of horsepower. I've got some pretty giant ass spreadsheets, and sometimes a lot of them at the same time. Working with Deere's GIS shit takes a pretty healthy amount of computing power depending on the amount of data on the card. Typically I don't cheap out because I don't want to have trouble for a few bucks. One thing I do have to support is two screens through the docking stations at both locations. I'm so far removed from the computer industry I barely know what to look for. Any advice up front? Thanks in advance. |
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01-10-2020, 10:29 AM | #2 |
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I'd probably recommend another Surface Pro. I've not heard of the bluetooth/wifi issue, but I suspect there's a way to resolve that.
If you're interested in a Dell, look at the Latitude 5290, or its big brother the 7200. Those are both decent machines similar to the Surface.
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01-10-2020, 12:03 PM | #3 | |
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Credit to DaFace here, I was too stupid to figure it out myself, but apparently if you have a router that operates on a 2.4 Ghz channel, it is either the same as bluetooth or a harmonic or something and it nukes the network connection. The solution is to buy a router that runs on 5Ghz. I did that at the house, but I haven't yet at the farm. There's some more shit going on there with shared devices that I'm not sure I can install without ****ing up. And quite frankly, I'll drop some coin elsewhere to not dick with networks that I'm a functioning reerun on. |
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01-10-2020, 12:37 PM | #4 | |
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I'd recommend replacing that old 2.4Ghz router, sounds like that was the problem. The Surface is capable of using both at the same time. That must be pretty old. Routers are cheap and easy these days. Good luck.
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01-10-2020, 12:52 PM | #5 | |
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Thanks for the help. |
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01-10-2020, 12:55 PM | #6 |
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Post the model of router here, and we'll walk you through it...
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01-10-2020, 12:04 PM | #7 |
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I'm just really trying to avoid the whole, "you bought a nice laptop but you should have bought this other one if you want to do that." Noise, like the whole bluetooth Network thing.
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01-10-2020, 12:12 PM | #8 |
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I got a Dell 13" XPS. Easily the best laptop I've ever owned.
Avoid Lenovo like the plague. I purchased one that was a BEAST as far as horsepower, but little parts of it broke in the 2 years I used it. |
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01-10-2020, 12:17 PM | #9 | |
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RE: Lenovo - Serious question. Did you own this laptop on either the Luck game or the Forward Progress game? That's a game changer in terms of durability. |
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01-10-2020, 01:03 PM | #10 | |
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I use it in my pickup, office, and home. Feels solid as hell, but I'm not testing it in the farm environment to find out how far she can go. Yes, I owned that mother ****er during the forward progress game, but I was hoisting Bud Light instead of that laptop. If I had a Panasonic Toughbook on my lap during that game it would have ended up being spread from one end of my house to the other. |
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01-10-2020, 02:26 PM | #11 | |
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My buddy has a reasonable cover/keyboard for his iPad. That may be an easier solution than my old laptops, a power inverter and charging block |
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01-10-2020, 02:32 PM | #12 | |
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