Powerful Travel Laptop recommendations.

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danielparker

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#302788 20-Dec-2022 16:34

Hi,

I'm looking for a laptop for traveling.. and looking for recommendations based on the following criteria:

Small and light (Thinking 13" screen or so). Laptop form factor. Non Touch screen.

Powerful Intel CPU. Lots of cores..

SSD should be replicable NVME (As I will replace it with a 2TB one)

16GB or More RAM

4 USB Ports (Either Type A or C.. or a mix.. doesn't matter) (USB Ports are for attaching card readers to take photographs from SD / CF cards.. multiple cards at a time)

Discrete GPU *NOT* needed

Ideally with built in Ethernet, and Thunderbolt.

It will run Ubuntu 22.04.

Budget $2K - $4K.

Suggestions please :-)

Daniel

gehenna

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#3012419 20-Dec-2022 17:24

Small and light maybe doesn't suit your i/o requirements. I would say a Surface of some kind with usb-c hub.

danielparker

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#3012420 20-Dec-2022 17:29

I guess I need to define 'small and light'.. As small and as light as I can get without resorting to hubs etc.. (i.e <1.5kg.. 13" screen form factor)

The moment I need to carry dongles, hubs etc any weight advantage disappears (I already have to carry various card readers..)

michaelmurfy

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#3012422 20-Dec-2022 17:37

Seriously consider getting one of the Apple Silicon MacBooks. They're solid in build quality, the OS is very snappy and being a Unix based OS you can run most things that Ubuntu can run including things like the Adobe suite of apps. Also, if you want to run Ubuntu you can do that too in a VM at the same speed as running it on full hardware...

They're really impressive laptops. I personally have had powerful Windows / Linux laptops over the years and now have a base model M1 MacBook Pro (with 8gb of ram) and it is crazy quick, doesn't heat up and runs everything I throw at it while lasting close to 20hrs on battery and not even heating up or blasting the fans. In-fact, I swear I have not heard the fan on my 2yr old M1 MacBook ever...

For a SSD - you don't need this storage all the time. I normally don't opt for a huge amount of storage and instead use external NVMe storage or network / cloud storage depending on what I am doing. This can save you some serious coin and means you've got less to lose in case of a hardware failure. The Samsung T7 SSD's are tiny if you want extra fast storage or you can even build your own with a NVMe caddy.

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lxsw20

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#3012502 20-Dec-2022 18:49

Lenovo X1 Carbon?

Thin and light, plus loads of ports isn't really a thing. You'll need some sort of USB-C hub I suspect.

Something like this: https://www.myanker.co.nz/premium-usb-c-hub-with-ethernet-power-delivery.html

danielparker

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#3012511 20-Dec-2022 19:10

michaelmurfy:

Seriously consider getting one of the Apple Silicon MacBooks. They're solid in build quality, the OS is very snappy and being a Unix based OS you can run most things that Ubuntu can run including things like the Adobe suite of apps. Also, if you want to run Ubuntu you can do that too in a VM at the same speed as running it on full hardware...

...

For a SSD - you don't need this storage all the time. I normally don't opt for a huge amount of storage and instead use external NVMe storage or network / cloud storage depending on what I am doing. This can save you some serious coin and means you've got less to lose in case of a hardware failure. The Samsung T7 SSD's are tiny if you want extra fast storage or you can even build your own with a NVMe caddy.

You are right.. they are good laptops (I own one).. but..

Moving data off the cameras SD / CF / Random other cards onto the laptop, and resizing the images with our custom software (Ubuntu) is its primary job.. I need to be able to collect and process up to 1TB photographs (can be 600K+ images), and store them in one location in a short (4 hour) window typically.. So I do need the storage space.

michaelmurfy

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#3012587 20-Dec-2022 21:45

It sounds like this software given it is custom may be rather easy to port over to MacOS and would be the route I'd personally take - most things that run on Ubuntu / Posix based operating systems can run rather happily on MacOS with not too much work. If you use an external SSD for storage then you've got a very quick way to offload this onto another host later on.

Most Linux based tools can be found in Homebrew (https://brew.sh/).

mdf

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#3012589 20-Dec-2022 21:59

I've been running an HP Zbook Firefly for the last ~12 months and have been super impressed. They are marketed as a 14" screen in a 13.3" form factor (and mine fits in a 13.3" notebook bag snugly). The screen is it's crowning glory - I stare at text all day and it looks great.

I've got the previous generation (G8) so you'd need to double check your requirements against the current model, but I think it ticks most of your boxes. Possibly one downside is that they are very solidly built, so do have a little bit of heft compared to the ultraportables like a Surface Pro. The big Z on the side was also less than ideal following Ukraine invasions, but a sticker fixed that.

https://www.hp.com/nz-en/workstations/mobile-workstation-pc.html

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Lias

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#3012624 21-Dec-2022 06:52

mdf:

I've been running an HP Zbook Firefly for the last ~12 months and have been super impressed. They are marketed as a 14" screen in a 13.3" form factor (and mine fits in a 13.3" notebook bag snugly). The screen is it's crowning glory - I stare at text all day and it looks great.

I've got the previous generation (G8) so you'd need to double check your requirements against the current model, but I think it ticks most of your boxes. Possibly one downside is that they are very solidly built, so do have a little bit of heft compared to the ultraportables like a Surface Pro. The big Z on the side was also less than ideal following Ukraine invasions, but a sticker fixed that.

https://www.hp.com/nz-en/workstations/mobile-workstation-pc.html

Also run a Z-Book and can +1 this.

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danielparker

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#3012661 21-Dec-2022 10:38

Thanks.. I have purchased a Z-Book..

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NBKHNB5572409/HP-ZBook-Firefly-14-G9-Mobile-Workstation-14-i7-12

Daniel

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#3012668 21-Dec-2022 11:01

I just bought myself an OLED Lenovo Yoga, with the fastest mobile ryzen and 16GB memory and 1TB hdd. I paid $2600 for it, and it's easily the fastest portable I've ever used.

It wipes the floor with everything.