Help finding the most power in a small laptop?
July 16, 2015 7:15 PM Subscribe
I am working in data science (genetics) and am looking for a small but powerful laptop, here is what I have found, is there a "perfect" option out there? Thanks!
Everyone loves the new 13" Dell XPS 13, but I need more than 8gb ram.
The 12.5" Thinkpad x250 (a similar small laptop from Lenovo) has 16 gb, but the Intel HD 5500 could be better.
The Alienware 13 sounds incredible, but just a little too big for just the inclusion of a dedicated graphics card.
I had this issue and, balancing all compromises, actually decided to go with Apple hardware. The previous generation of Macbook Pros might be worth a look. You should be able to install your OS of choice, and maybe will have the power you need in a convenient for me factor. Second hand, if you're willing to play the eBay sniping game, you don't even necessarily need to pay over the odds.
posted by turkeyphant at 7:37 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by turkeyphant at 7:37 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
My wife is in a similar situation and has settled on having a good quality but fairly low powered laptop and a very powerful workstation that she does the bulk of her computational work on, accessing it remotely when she is not at her office. Besides being fairly rare, the problem with powerful laptops is that they run hot and break down more often, which is a real hassle when you need to give a presentation. That said, perhaps something from Eurocom will meet your needs.
posted by Poldo at 7:53 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Poldo at 7:53 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have the Gigabyte P34G V2. It's 14" but quite light and thin for the size. Not clunky. Lots of power (real quad core i7 and good dedicated graphics) and you can upgrade to at least 12gig ram.
Cons: Gets a bit hot but it's not that bad. Fan gets loud. But these things are going to be true of anything small and powerful. A bit more of an issue is that build quality is mediocre--it's held up fine so far but I feel like I need to baby it more than I'd like. No touchscreen.
posted by ropeladder at 8:11 PM on July 16, 2015
Cons: Gets a bit hot but it's not that bad. Fan gets loud. But these things are going to be true of anything small and powerful. A bit more of an issue is that build quality is mediocre--it's held up fine so far but I feel like I need to baby it more than I'd like. No touchscreen.
posted by ropeladder at 8:11 PM on July 16, 2015
There is a dell xps project sputnik or some such that takes 16gb ram? There's an HP elitebook that takes 16gb, but it's an HP, and an expensive one.
posted by mattoxic at 4:11 AM on July 17, 2015
posted by mattoxic at 4:11 AM on July 17, 2015
fwiw i have the x220, i think, and i'm not very impressed - it's more and more a copy of apple. and i used to buy thinkpads because i wanted something better than apple. but then everything else seems worse. have you checked if there's anything that's japanese market only? panasonic toughbooks used to have a small laptop with a high spec that you had to import from japan, iirc.
posted by andrewcooke at 5:39 AM on July 17, 2015
posted by andrewcooke at 5:39 AM on July 17, 2015
ah, nope, sorry, it's still stuck on 4gb - http://in.panasonictoughbook.asia/computer-product/introducing-the-full-toughbook-range/business-ruggedized-toughbooks/cf-sx2
posted by andrewcooke at 5:40 AM on July 17, 2015
posted by andrewcooke at 5:40 AM on July 17, 2015
It's worth bearing in mind that both the Thinkpad x220 and x230 support 16GB of RAM (the x220 may officially state only 8GB). Why they went down to 8GB for the x240 is anyone's guess.
The X series machines are damn powerful for their size, and if you look closely at the processor benchmarks, there's precious little to choose on the performance side with each new iteration. And when they often come with 3 year warranties, it's not hard to see why buying a used model of the last iteration makes sense.
If you go the Thinkpad route, you may want to try the new chiclet keyboard out first. It's not to everyone's taste. I use an X201 at work with the old style (more travel in the keypresses) but I have an X230 at home (chiclet). I'd choose the X230 over the X201 any day.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 6:41 AM on July 17, 2015
The X series machines are damn powerful for their size, and if you look closely at the processor benchmarks, there's precious little to choose on the performance side with each new iteration. And when they often come with 3 year warranties, it's not hard to see why buying a used model of the last iteration makes sense.
If you go the Thinkpad route, you may want to try the new chiclet keyboard out first. It's not to everyone's taste. I use an X201 at work with the old style (more travel in the keypresses) but I have an X230 at home (chiclet). I'd choose the X230 over the X201 any day.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 6:41 AM on July 17, 2015
This will be difficult.
The "premium" lines are all 13 inch now. The budget line of 11.6 inch don't have the CPU or RAM you need.
I was thinking MSI S12T but that's only got AMD A4, not the best of CPUs. It can take up to 16 GB of RAM though. And it is 11.6 screen.
http://us.msi.com/product/notebook/S12T.html#hero-specification
Some are suggesting Macbook Air, even the older models.
posted by kschang at 8:55 AM on July 17, 2015
The "premium" lines are all 13 inch now. The budget line of 11.6 inch don't have the CPU or RAM you need.
I was thinking MSI S12T but that's only got AMD A4, not the best of CPUs. It can take up to 16 GB of RAM though. And it is 11.6 screen.
http://us.msi.com/product/notebook/S12T.html#hero-specification
Some are suggesting Macbook Air, even the older models.
posted by kschang at 8:55 AM on July 17, 2015
At this recent programmer-heavy phylogentics meeting, the couple of workshop leaders that I asked said that one should log in to a powerful server and carry a cheap lightweight laptop running Linux. However, I noticed that in a room of 80 people, many of whom work with large sequence datasets, 75 were using a mac (mostly powerbook pros), some were running Linux on a non-macintosh laptop, and a frustrated few were attempting to use Windows. So it appears that the preference for biologists who program is Mac.
posted by SandiBeech at 1:16 PM on July 17, 2015
posted by SandiBeech at 1:16 PM on July 17, 2015
I'd look at the Mac Pro 13". The Airs max put at 8GB. Alternately, ssh or VPN into a beefier machine and then you won't need > 8GB. I've worked in both modes and personally prefer the light machine/beefy server option.
posted by zippy at 7:58 PM on July 17, 2015
posted by zippy at 7:58 PM on July 17, 2015
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posted by lunastellasol at 7:26 PM on July 16, 2015