Minimum laptop spec for astro software

[lucid]

I have a nice retina macbook pro, but I don't want to take this out to get battered when I head over to the darker sites in the New Forest, so I'm looking at second hand Panasonic Toughbooks (or something like that, Dell maybe?). Handily these would run Windows (preferring XP myself) and have built in serial ports (unlike my macbook). I'm just not sure how low a spec I can get away with. There are quite a few listed on ebay at the moment, with centrino dual core, 2GB RAM... but does that cut the mustard?

I'm aware that second hand laptops come with second hand batteries, but I'm hoping I will be able to find suitable replacements without too much difficulty.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[red dwalf]

i have a dell d610 ! runs astro gear fine, windows xp 2 gb ram, it`ll run  stellarium, phd, apt, all at the same time, although i would proberly say get a d630 if you can as it has dual core processor, a friend of mine uses one without difficulity, as if your thinking of a windows 7 os and maybe faster ram then the IBM lenovo t400 is a good choice for the money. 

[Alien 13]

The problem with XP is getting the drivers now that is unsupported although once configured it can run most stuff although graphics heavy programs like stellarium might struggle (my dell with ATI graphics only manages 1FPS)

Alan

[swag72]

For just running the obs stuff I have an elderly Toshiba Satelite running Vista. I upgraded the memory to 4GB and it made a real difference. It will potter away all night quite happily and there is no issues with any drivers that I have found so far.

[Skipper Billy]

I used a Panasonic Toughbook for years to run 'in the field' programmes for adjusting paramaters and reading telemetry on my model aeroplanes without any issue and thought it would be great for astro stuff - waterproof etc etc but sadly it wouldnt run Stellarium at all - it was a CF18 with the max RAM it would take.

So I sold it and bought a Dell Latitude D630 with 4 gig of RAM - flattened the drive and clean installed Windows 7 64bit and it runs everything - Stellarium, PHD, ASCOM/EQDIR, Canon interface, Atik camera etc etc all at the same time without breaking into a sweat.

Its also a very robust computer, spares like batteries are cheap and plentiful.

They are all over eBay for about £100

If this one dies it would be another without a second thought.

[Mark_C]

I was in exactly the same situation, I have a retina MacBook that I refused to take outside as there's always the risk of dew or bumps causing damage. I'm now running a Core 2 Duo based Dell Latitude D630 with 4gb ram for my astro work and have found they're well built laptops that can stand a bit of knocking around. I installed a cheap 128gb SSD in mine and it runs very nicely, especially when doing high frame rate captures with the QHY5L-II. You should be able to pick a reasonably decent specced one for around £120.

[Jonk]

Same issue here - when I bought my kit it came with an HP laptop that was 1.8GHz and 1GB of RAM. it's fine for the most part, but as soon as stellarium is running, this consumes most of the CPU. The 1GB of RAM isn't really an issue.

I would suggest at least a dual core laptop with 1GB+ of RAM and this should be fine for Stellarium running alongside the other programs such as stellariumscope, ascom, phd, sharpcap etc.

[pete_l]

I'm just not sure how low a spec I can get away with. There are quite a few listed on ebay at the moment, with centrino dual core, 2GB RAM... but does that cut the mustard?

I use a refurb'd Lenovo X60. It was classified as "Grade B" - that's a handy search term )

It doesn't have any serial ports, but I find that if I have all my astro connections wired into an external hub and always plug this into the same port I have no troubles with it.

I'd advise running W7 rather than XP. It's faster and more robust. Despite what some say, it's perfectly capable of running in 1GB of RAM. If you want a performance boost, you can also get everything loaded on a small 60GB SSD - no need for anything larger. Even with all my "stuff" installed, there's still 48GB free.

[lucid]

The CF18 is fairly low spec, in terms of any laptop, toughbook or otherwise. I can understand why that wouldn't run stellarium. If I went for a toughbook I would look at something higher spec.

I'll be looking into the latitude 630 and lenovo x60, as suggested, but i'll keep my options open to other possibilities too.

How much astro software makes any use of the graphics card? Just stellarium?

Thanks for the advice so far - I've shifted my search to windows 7 only now.

[Christopher Davenport]

Search eBay for a x201, these are old tough IBM business laptops, everything you need for £200.

[Yoddha]

I'm using old my x200 for observing machine for 2 or 3 years without any problems. I takes the dew and cold like soldier

Few weeks ago got a second one for a project from eBay Paid only 70 GBP for machine in top condition.

[Carina Lass]

I Use a 10 inch atom powered xp notebook.

I use a 19 inch monitor with it and it runs stellarium and apt and phd2 at the same time.no proem at all. I even connect to the web while I'm imaging on wifi

[MattGoo]

I currently have an eMachines EM350 10.1" Netbook, 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 2Gb RAM, 64Gb SSD, Win 7HP. It runs everything I need, but the small screen resolution can be off putting/a problem for some.

[Skipper Billy]

As well as outright performance - storage capacity is something else to consider.

I seem to end up with some MASSIVE files saved - I always transfer to another more powerful machine for processing and to a portable hard drive for backup then delete the original files but you still need to be able to store them in the first place.

Thats what put me of a SSD.

[Vanilla]

A decent work horse laptop is a dell inspiron 1520. (4 Gig)

They sell on Ebay for around 150-200 US dollars

[Ibbo!]

I use a 10" netbook with xp on low brightness,not only does it run my mounts both ccd's the sky or CDC it can last up to 8 hours on the internal battery.

My faster Dell lasts about 90mins on the battery if I'm lucky.

I do processing on a faster PC at home.

Steve