[Opensim-users] current recommendation for laptops

Sat Apr 7 00:27:22 UTC 2012

Hi,

For workloads involving OpenSim and/or Second Life derived viewers,
you will definitely want a discrete graphics card in the laptop. This
increases cost, weight and size of the unit, as well as reduces
battery life, but it's well worth the downsides. Using integrated
graphics with a simulator is just unwise; the experience will be...
unpleasant. Maybe Ivy Bridge CPUs will change that, but don't count on
it.

I personally have a very low opinion of the build quality of all
currently-available retail laptops except for two brands which really
stand out: the Panasonic Toughbook, and the Lenovo ThinkPad (notice:
*NOT* IdeaPad!).

Notice I said *build quality*. This says nothing about:
-Value/price
-Weight
-Battery life
-Performance

What IS build quality? Build quality is a trait of a laptop which is
measured by judging how well the laptop withstands the pressures of
typical use and typical accidental damage / misuse. To me, build
quality goes far beyond the physical characteristics of the unit.
Build quality encompasses things such as:

-The reliability of the parts. Will your HDD last 2 years, or 8? This
is a build quality question.

-The robustness of the firmware and drivers for all of the parts. Will
your wifi card have a bug that randomly hangs the entire system when
it scans for new networks? Will your BIOS have a bug that refuses to
boot from USB flash drives? These little annoyances can add up to a
completely unusable product, if build quality is not a constant point
of attention by the manufacturer.

-The ability of the hardware to survive in more extreme environments.
Is your laptop only going to survive if you keep the internals
completely clean of all dust and dirt, and keep it on a flat,
heat-conducting table at all times? Or will you be able to hold it at
odd angles against your knee (both a poor conductor and a small
surface area) for extended periods while running intensive
applications? Will the unit overheat if the temperature in your house
or lab is over 80 Fahrenheit? If you accidentally drop the unit, will
it shatter into a million pieces, or will it sustain a dignified scuff
mark on the case? All of these are build quality questions.

-The degree to which your hardware was tested during development,
believe it or not, is a build quality question. The more well-tested a
device, the longer its time to market; but at the same time, the end
result will be far superior in reliability and will be able to support
more general use cases than products that are rushed to market only
expecting the top few most common use cases.

Personally, I think there is a tragic disease in the laptop and
embedded device market today, that build quality is being thrown out
the door, in favor of other factors, such as:

-Reducing cost
-Reducing time to market
-Reducing weight
-Reducing the labor-intensive parts of product development
-Increasing the "raw stats" (MHz, number of cores, amount of RAM, etc)
in the unit without increasing price

This disease is as damaging to the overall satisfaction with a device
as it would be to eat a diet of pure sugar with no nutrients. Build
quality is the nutrients, fiber and protein of computing: it makes the
device *usable* in the same way that protein allows you to *survive*.

I won't disagree directly with Nebadon, but let's just say that I
definitely, positively would not recommend Toshiba as a laptop
manufacturer, especially with the target of a "lab" environment where
people who may not have your organization's best interests at heart
(or whom may not care about accidental or purposeful damage they might
attempt to inflict upon the units) will have regular access to the
PCs.

It is for these reasons that I encourage you to think carefully about
build quality, and not just cost and specifications, in your selection
of laptop; and I urge you to look at Lenovo ThinkPads and Panasonic
Toughbooks should you be interested in a unit with very rugged build
quality which I can proudly recommend from years and years of personal
experience.

Aside from that, chances are good that, getting down to specs, any
unit with >= 4GB of RAM, >= 200GB HDD, >= 2 cores, a discrete (and
current-generation!) GPU, is going to be more than enough to enjoyably
run a workload such as OpenSim alongside a Second Life derived viewer.
For such a unit, you might look at the ThinkPad T-series laptops.
They're even fairly price competitive these days, if you omit frills
like fingerprint reader, bluetooth, and an SSD.

Best of luck to you.

Sean

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Dr Ramesh Ramloll <r.ramloll at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey there,
> I am a little sheepish when it comes to buying laptops. Couple of
> years ago, I bought about 24 alienware latops for a lab based on the
> recommendation of a hardcore gamer that I trusted. Within a short
> period,  about 50% of the machines developed various issues from basic
> cracked screens because of over tight hinges, failed hard drives
> etc..., over heating.
> Now am on the market for some more. What are your recommendations?
> Needless to say am staying clear of Alienware ...
> Thanks for your time.
> R
>
> --
> 'Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin.'
> Rameshsharma Ramloll PhD, CEO CTO DeepSemaphore LLC, Affiliate
> Research Associate Professor, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID
> 83209 Tel: 208-240-0040
> Blog, LinkedIn, DeepSemaphore LLC, Google+ profile
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