New laptop - what screen size? 14" or smaller??

[furrysocks2]

I'm looking at getting a laptop as I don't have one.

I'd want to be able to have Stellarium or similar to hand, eventually goto with scope. I'd like to do webcam imaging primarily and while I'd probably do most processing in the warmth on a larger monitor and/or beefier PC, it would be nice to do the odd stack in the field - live stacking perhaps, too.

Standard size seems to be 15.6" but I've seen 14" and 12.5" also. For convenience, portability and generally not carting around something full size, I think I'm tending away from 15.6". I imagine it might get securely mounted onto a platform, quick-release mounted onto a tripod, but equally well it might be a small table as I've two EP/misc cases.

For completeness, I've been looking closely at the Elitebook 2570 and 8470 - 12.5" and 14" respectively - not super hi-res screens but workable, the latter can certainly be upgraded. Plenty enough grunt, too - i7-3520M 2core/4thread, 2.9GHz, 4M cache - alternatively i5 at 2.6/2.8GHz, 3M cache. CPU is socketed, and can be upgraded to i7-quad! Both have USB 3.0, I'd look to put OS on SSD and have HDD in secondary caddy for long-term storage.

 

Ignoring the spec of the machine, anyone use 14" or smaller? How do you find it? I've a 14" sitting in front of me and I don't think I'd need 15.6" for what I want it to do...?

[Charic]

I'm after a new laptop but their very costly, especially the Macbook Pro compared the  Dell XPS, Ouch!
I 'm wanting to setup a digital Audio Workstation primarily, and the MBP gets all the raves, but at £2k its not worth it, to be honest, just for that one task?
I also have an old Acer Aspire 5633WLMI thats past its sell-by-date, it was running Vista? and  used mainly by Mrs Charic!
However that laptop  was recently installed with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS  Linux which appears to run on any system, even very old ones? This may be an option if you come across a cheap computer that someone else may be losing for some reason or another! I also  read something the other day about the Raspberry Pi  computer and telescope control, but cant find that at the moment?

I doubt my present laptop  has the speed or memory capacity to run my DAW, Ableton Live or Pro tools First! but its an option that I will investigate for my self.
Whatever the outcome, a laptop would favour me with the portability and speed/capacity with their latest incarnations, and my second PC ( identical to the first - yes I have two the same?) is more than likely going to act as my home recording studio, for now, when all the hardware is in place, which it is, with my recently acquired 2nd Gen Scarlett 2i4 ?

 

Like everything these days, buying the best you can afford may be the better option during initial purchase. Laptops do not have the expansion that a full case PC can offer should you need to upgrade anything, I think laptops are limited here!
You could not have a bigger screen if you needed one at a later date, unless there is an option to run a cable to an external screen. Get the biggest screen you can afford. 

[furrysocks2]

35 minutes ago, Charic said:

I'm after a new laptop but their very costly ...

I got my first 64bit processor just 2 years ago, first time with more than one core, too - £180. I'm looking to keep my laptop spend to £250, but double that and you start to see laptops with quad-core and 16GB ram.

 

35 minutes ago, Charic said:

Laptops do not have the expansion that a full case PC can offer should you need to upgrade anything, I think laptops are limited here! 

True. But they can complement a desktop setup, if they each fulfil a slightly different role. You can share data and peripherals easily enough. In terms of upgrading CPUs and RAM, any system laptop or desktop will have its limits, so it's the case with either that you'll eventually replace it I imagine. I shouldn't need too much in a portable astro laptop, anyway.

 

The resolution of the two I'm looking at is 1366x768. I could try to approximate that on my desktop, but there's the scale of the screen as well. Just wondering how small I can go and not regret it - is 12.5" too small to be a usable scope-side laptop? I'm hoping the answer is "no" because I like most everything else about the 2570.

I understand the limitations of small size and low-ish resolution in principle, just never been there yet so hoping someone has.

[D33P]

I'm currently using an 8" tablet for imaging (mount control, guiding, image capture) and never found the size to be too restrictive. I've never used it for processing or live stacking, it simply hasn't got the oomph for that. Mostly I setup and then use RDP or VNC from the comfort of indoors.

I've just upgraded my laptop (13.3" i5 Samsung) to a Dell XPS 15. So the Sammy is going to replace the tablet for scope duties and I'm looking forward to live stacking outside, kinda like a slow EAA setup. The Sammy is only an inch larger than the machine your thinking of and the same res. It's certainly going to be more than enough for me scope-side!

Obviously your mileage may vary, but I think 12.5" is plenty for outdoor duties.

[nightfisher]

You might want to look at referb win 7 machines, you would get pretty high spec that would more than do what you want and for a lower price

[Alien 13]

As Jules has mentioned you could get a nice refurbished laptop like the Panasonic Toughbook i5 with SSD for similar money, perfect for outdoor use.

Alan

[furrysocks2]

4 hours ago, D33P said:

I'm currently using an 8" tablet for imaging (mount control, guiding, image capture) and never found the size to be too restrictive. I've never used it for processing or live stacking, it simply hasn't got the oomph for that. Mostly I setup and then use RDP or VNC from the comfort of indoors.

I've just upgraded my laptop (13.3" i5 Samsung) to a Dell XPS 15. So the Sammy is going to replace the tablet for scope duties and I'm looking forward to live stacking outside, kinda like a slow EAA setup. The Sammy is only an inch larger than the machine your thinking of and the same res. It's certainly going to be more than enough for me scope-side!

Obviously your mileage may vary, but I think 12.5" is plenty for outdoor duties.

Thanks for that.

I read a few "is 12.5 too small?" discussions on the web and of course it's very subjective. At 1366x768, pixel density on the 12.5" would be 125 ppi and 112 ppi on a 14". For some, 100 is too low and things become visibly pixelated. Lots of folk complaining about viewing web sites (news headlines, images, etc) or multitasking documents etc on 1366x768, but Stellarium, PIPP, Registax and AS!2 all appear ok to me if reduced to only a representative portion of my screen.

I've just now checked my 14" laptop and it's actually set at 1366x768 already - don't know why I thought it was higher, but I'm fairly happy with the idea of running my apps at that resolution and would certainly prefer something modestly smaller in size than that, at least that's what I have in mind at the moment.

 

3 hours ago, nightfisher said:

You might want to look at referb win 7 machines, you would get pretty high spec that would more than do what you want and for a lower price

 

3 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

As Jules has mentioned you could get a nice refurbished laptop like the Panasonic Toughbook i5 with SSD for similar money, perfect for outdoor use.

Alan

 

The machine I am looking at - HP Elitebook 2570p - is a refurb'd win7 machine, or at least many are win7 and I'm avoiding looking at the listings offering 8.1 or 10. I'm not used to modern PCs, but it feels pretty high spec to me for what it is.

It's described as a business-class laptop with a milspec-tested chassis, has a membrane and drain hole below the keyboard for "spills" and seems to pack quite a punch. There's an interesting thread here discussing mods - the screen is not upgradeable, but there are some interesting things in there. There's a banner at the top of the page citing the 14" Dell E6430 as an alternative, but I prefer the 2570.

The listings I'm looking at are around £190/£210 for 4/8GB RAM and a 500GB HDD. If I add to that £40 for a 120GB SSD and £5 for a caddy to carry the HDD in place of the optical drive and aim for 8GB, then I'm about my £250. Docking station for £10 giving a few more ports on the back. It has a build in SD card reader, can fit a 3G/GPS expansion card, a GPU (!) and is i7-quad capable - it even supports RAID! I was looking around the £100-mark and there are lots of Core2 and i3's at that. I started looking at 1st-gen i3/i5 but quickly switched to a minimum of 2nd gen. As with researching anything, I tend to creep up on something I like and miss a lot, too. The Elitebook started to stand out - 14" i5s at £120-150, then I thought the extra cache of the i7 might be just a little more impressive, though I would never notice the difference I'm sure. So 3rd gen i7 with 8GB ram, dual SSD and HDD with the slightly smaller 12.5" is where I'm at just now.

 

Not as rugged as the Toughbook, but not flimsy either. From what I've seen, the Toughbooks come in at a little more money.

I'm not disagreeing with what either of you are saying, I guess I'm just convincing myself by typing out loud. Perhaps also, I shouldn't have put "New laptop" in the title... Is it still your impression that I can get more for less? I will almost certainly have become a little blinkered during my late-night window shopping...

 

[RayD]

To answer your original question, I have a Surface Pro 4 which I tried to use originally.  Very high resolution screen, so everything fitted on there perfectly, but at 12" I felt that you needed a magnifying glass to see it everything was so small.  As I don't do that much in the field, and wanted to do some other stuff on the machine as well such as time lapse processing, I ended up going with a 17" HP Envy.  Aside from it being very large for carting about it is about the worse laptop I've ever bought, and would advise people to give it a very wide berth.

Short of it is I now have a brand new MacBook Pro 15", and the screen size is absolutely perfect.  However, you do need a balance of screen size which is usable and portable enough for you, against the resolution of what you can actually fit on that screen.  No good having a 15" screen with a resolution meaning you have to scroll every window you're going to use.

Personally a high resolution (Mac is 2880 x 1800 Retina) wins the day for me.  This isn't to say get the Mac of course as the price is ludicrous for what it is, but high resolution generally wins my vote when using several apps at once, but you need the slightly bigger screen (15" and up) to really benefit from that resolution, as I found with the surface Pro.

[bottletopburly]

what ever you get make sure its one with a SSD  dont bother with a standard HDD  lightning start up ,i have had one fitted a while now and windows hasn't slowed down like what happens with a conventional hdd 

[StuartJPP]

I bought a 2nd hand Lenovo Yoga 3 11" for £250 for my astro work. I love it, does everything I need. The touch screen comes in handy for things like Stellarium (pinch zoom) but also comes with a decent track pad and keyboard. The screen can be flipped over fully to be used as a tablet PC...

I use it for image acquisition (APT), guiding (PHD2), polar alignment (SharpCap or PoleMaster), focusing (APT) etc. I can even run PixInsight on it but of course it isn't the fastest.

It as got 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD drive which is more than enough for this type of work.

I power all my USB devices (camera/mount) from an external hub and as such the internal battery lasts an entire imaging session.

I'd buy another (or at least something very similar) instantly if this one packed in...

I also use it for holidays etc. Small enough to fit in hand luggage etc. I specifically wanted something small(ish).

Your milage may vary of course...(I.e. it may not fit your needs).

 

[furrysocks2]

Thanks all for your comments.

 

16 minutes ago, RayD said:

To answer your original question, I have a Surface Pro 4 which I tried to use originally.  Very high resolution screen, so everything fitted on there perfectly, but at 12" I felt that you needed a magnifying glass to see it everything was so small.

I've read that some OS's have a high-dpi feature that lets you scale components up to compensate for this - I don't think I'm going in that direction, but it's a valid point.

 

18 minutes ago, RayD said:

As I don't do that much in the field, and wanted to do some other stuff on the machine as well such as time lapse processing, I ended up going with a 17" HP Envy.  Aside from it being very large for carting about it is about the worse laptop I've ever bought, and would advise people to give it a very wide berth.

Oh, dear. Folks' definitions of "portable" vary - I'm definitely wanting something I can manipulate safely in one hand when setting up. For me, I'd love it to be punchy enough for processing so that I don't have to move data around too much and an external monitor should accommodate this fine.

 

Certainly aware of 12.5" being at the smaller end of the spectrum - I may regret it and wish I'd stuck with 14", but only if the resolution was higher than 1366x768 I think - which would mean either an LCD upgrade or a different laptop - higher resolution is one of the reasons that the 2570 thread I linked recommends the Dell E6430 as an alternative. But I'm still drawn by the reduced size of the 12.5" over a 14" - I keep looking at the one on my desk and thinking "smaller..."

 

12 minutes ago, bottletopburly said:

what ever you get make sure its one with a SSD  dont bother with a standard HDD  lightning start up ,i have had one fitted a while now and windows hasn't slowed down like what happens with a conventional hdd 

Yes! Both. I could RAID two SSDs, but I'll stick with SSD for OS and HDD for storage. Can use the SSD (or RAM) for capture/working storage and power down the HDD when it's idle. Fragmentation I guess then is less of an issue with SDD?

 

11 minutes ago, StuartJPP said:

I bought a 2nd hand Lenovo Yoga 3 11" for my astro work. I love it, does everything I need. The touch screen comes in handy for things like Stellarium (pinch zoom) but also comes with a decent track pad and keyboard. The screen can be flipped over fully to be used as a tablet PC...

I'd seen that, same resolution too. There's also a swivel touch screen version of the Elitebook. Nice features on both. Glad to hear you get on well with something of that size and that it's suits you well. Hoping it will me, too.

I'd been considering a handheld trackball for slightly more casual use, but haven't used one before. Touchscreen was one of the features that I thought about but moved away from.

 

[Davey-T]

I use a Toshiba Kira 13" non touch screen, bought just for image capture, SSD and the battery lasts all night.

Dave

[furrysocks2]

2 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

I use a Toshiba Kira 13" non touch screen, bought just for image capture, SSD and the battery last all night.

Dave

How do you find using it, size wise? Guess there's not a great deal you need to see on screen at once if you're just previewing and capturing?

 

Edit: first review I clicked described it as comparable to retina Macbook pro - what resolution are you at, then?

[Davey-T]

Just the right size, once up and imaging using Maxim I just shut the lid and let it get on with it.

Win 10 which is OK and you need to delve down the menu settings to stop it hibernating as per Rays advice a while ago 

Dave

[AKB]

5 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

As Jules has mentioned you could get a nice refurbished laptop like the Panasonic Toughbook i5 with SSD for similar money, perfect for outdoor use.

Alan

Great suggestion, thanks! ...  My Dell laptop just packed in the night before last (after I had set everything up, of course.). The Toughbook looks like a great option.  Just about to order one.

[RayD]

1 minute ago, AKB said:

My Dell laptop

It was all going so well, a whole thread with no mention of the "D" word, then wham! 

Rugged ones for outdoor use make great sense, just look at the ones the AA use, look like mini tanks!

[furrysocks2]

1 hour ago, AKB said:

Great suggestion, thanks! ...  My Dell laptop just packed in the night before last (after I had set everything up, of course.). The Toughbook looks like a great option.  Just about to order one.

Nice one!

I do like these, too... will research them properly a bit later before I hastily order a 2570. There seem to be plenty under £100 that would do the job just great - just that personally, I'm trying to avoid 1st gen cpus.

Edit: also wanting USB 3.0, which some models may not have.

[AKB]

18 minutes ago, RayD said:

It was all going so well, a whole thread with no mention of the "D" word, then wham! 

Rugged ones for outdoor use make great sense, just look at the ones the AA use, look like mini tanks!

I think those ARE Toughbooks?

...and um, er, so sorry about the D.. word.  What a gaffe.

[AKB]

12 hours ago, Charic said:

I'm after a new laptop but their very costly, especially the Macbook Pro compared the  Dell XPS, Ouch!

 

1 hour ago, RayD said:

It was all going so well, a whole thread with no mention of the "D" word

...Ah, see, you missed it.  I wasn't the first... so you're obviously not THAT sensitive to it.

 

[RayD]

Just now, AKB said:

 

...Ah, see, you missed it.  I wasn't the first... so you're obviously not THAT sensitive to it.

 

Lol. Yours must have stood out more as you confessed to actually owning one 

[LukeSkywatcher]

I used to own a Dell. Died pretty quickly (about 2 yrs after i bought it). Ive had my Acer Aspire i5 for about 5 yrs now and its as good today as it was the day i bought it.

[Alien 13]

I own three Dells all laptops, perhaps I am mad 

Alan

[Gina]

My MacBook Pro has finally died after a while of misbehaving   I won't be replacing it - at least not with a Mac.  May find a second hand cheapo and put Linux Mint on it - only wanted for browsing, email and sometimes listening to music.

[dannybgoode]

I have a Dell XPS 13 which is a lovely lovely thing. Screen is pretty much bezel-less so it's a 13" screen in something the size of everyone else's 11.3"

Extremely powerful too with a ridiculously long battery life. 

Not so lovely is the price and whilst I've got the thing set up for astro work I may end up using my much older HP Toughbook as I'm not sure I dare take my Dell out on a cold night. 

[RayD]

Dell do make some nice looking kit, but they don't have a good reputation for reliability or customer care. I've had 2 Dell servers @ £9k a pop give up the ghost all on their own and they couldn't care less. One even went with a proper bang and smoke from the mother board, which went down well.  

Some people have laptops from them and they're fine, but many have the same experiences I've had over the years with them, which is after a few years they just slow up and give up. 

In the early days when they just bought components and basically just assembled the machines they were pretty good, but since they started making their own kit and clearly trying to drive down manufacturing costs, it seems their quality and reliability really suffered.

This is of course only my view and in no way a professional review or a blanket statement for every machine Dell make.