Search for the best Developer’s Laptop: Lenovo Yoga2 Pro i7?

I have been searching for the perfect developer laptop.  For the last year I have travelled with a Apple Mac Book Pro Retina i7 and remote into my office workstation while traveling. 

This has worked really well expect when I need location access to resources, don’t have internet (on an airplane) or need to have a touch interface.

These have driven me to searching out a new Windows 8.1 touch device.  I want it to be powerful with a great screen, but light, thin and with great battery life.

I researched a lot of laptops and came up with a couple contenders.

The Lenovo Yoga2 Pro and the Samsung ATVI Book 9 Pro.  I visited a local Best Buy and and really liked the Yoga2.  Thin and light, quad HD screen, powerful (i7, 8GB, 256GB SSD).  Nice screen and great felling keyboard.  However, the layout of the keyboard is odd.

I retuned after thanksgiving to purchase the device after confirming they had one in the store.

I am not a fan of Best Buy.  I arrive and wait 20 minutes to be told they never had one.  This after the sale person ensuring me that the i5 4GB version was what I wanted.  So I ordered the laptop for a Monday delivery. 

$1200 dollars and a couple days later it arrives a day early.  I pick it up and spend the next 24 hours trying the device out with the installed OS.

There is a lot I like about the laptop.  The feel is great, performance good, screen is really nice (for applications that support quad HD  resolution.

However, every 15 minutes the wifi would go out.  This occurred at my office (twin Cicso WAP4400 access points running N, B & G) and at home (Apple time capsule 2011).

I start to research and there is a lot of issues with the laptop and wireless.  However, I figure it might be the drivers and many forums indicate.  I reload windows clean and get the latest recommend drivers both from Lenovo and Intel.

The issue gets a little bit better but after a week of trying to make the solution work I decide to move on. 

If it was not for the WIFI issue I would have loved to have kept the Yoga2 and just returned it to Best Buy.  Customer service is aware of the issue and have had many returns.

The bottom line is stay away from the device until Lenovo confirms that the issue has been resolved.

I purchased from Newegg the replacement Samsung ATVI Book 9 Pro i7 and will provide a detailed review in my next post!

Apple Mac Air 2012 with Verizon (Pantech) UM175 USB

Verizon does not offer a manager application that will run on OS X 10.8 64bit for the Pantech modem.  Here is how you can use the device on Mountain Lion.  Make sure you have the devices phone number before starting;

 

1. Install device

2.  Go to system preferences, network and select device

3.  Phone number = #777

4.  Account number = ##########@vzw3g.com

5.  Password is vzw

6.  Click advanced

7.  Under modem tab select vendor sierra

8.  Model CDMA

9. Check error correction and compression in modem

10. Ignore dial tone when dialing

11. Dialing = Tone

 

Complete!

IfixIt

This is a great website that provides free repair manuals for electronic devices. 

http://www.ifixit.com/

If you ever need to repair one of your devices this can be a great resource.

FreeAgent® GoFlex™ Pro Ultra-portable Drive

Seagate is offering a great new portable drive.  I like the new design better then the previous slanted FreeAgent drives.  This device has not only a 7200RPM drive but support separate cables that provide USB 2.0/3.0 , Fire wire 400/800 and eSata just by swapping the cables.

There is also a NAS attachment for it.  They pro version 1TB are on preorder at Amazon and I look forward to there release. 

CradlePoint CTR500 Review

I was able to get the CradlePoint CTR500 up and running in about 10 minutes.  This included upgrading the firmware to the latest release.  I am very impressed with the performance and expansive settings on the router.  It supports several configurations and the web interface was very easy to use.

This is a definite keeper for anyone needing shared WiFi access via Verizon, Sprint & Att mobile data cards. 

http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/ctr500-mobile-broadband-router

CradlePoint CTR500

I have a Verizon UM175 USB wireless card I have been using for a few years.  I really like it and get great speed from it.

I just purchased a CradlePoint CTR500 wireless access point that allows you to connect the USB device to it and share the connection.  It also allows you to connect to a wired network and setup a wireless network.

I am often working in an area with a few people and we all need internet access and the local network does not have it.  Or simply need to share a single network port across a few workstations.  Either way this seems like a great device for these situations.  I will update you on how it works for me.

Link to the device manufacturer;

http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/ctr500-mobile-broadband-router

Here is a review;

http://www.evdoforums.com/thread9562.html

Your Visual Studio 2010 Dream Machine

Here is a link to a great post on configuration recommendations for development environments.

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2010/04/29/your-visual-studio-2010-dream-machine.aspx

Development Demo Machine Recommendations (Laptop vs. Small Form Factor Workstation)

As part of my discussion on development environment recommendations I wanted to review demo workstation recommendations also. First, the key is virtualization. Unless you have a compelling reason not to virtualize (USB support was an issue with Virtual PC 2007, however, Windows Virtual PC within Windows 7 has great USB support). Second, choosing the right virtualization configuration is a critical decision. There are two main options a laptop or small form factor workstation. While the laptop is the clear choice for portability the unique requirements for virtualization bring some factors into questions beyond portability.

In the virtual environments you need lots of RAM with 4GB being shared between the host and client (2GB each) and a secondary hard drive to the primary host OS drive. While secondary USB hard drives are ok they generally lack the speed to really be effective.  I have found huge variations between drive models even with the same vendor and interface.  A better option is eSata external hard drives and the best are SATA internal drives. Both eSata and secondary internal drive bays on a laptop are reserved for the higher end workstations.

Originally I purchases an Iomega Max Drive 1TB eSata external drive for my virtual machines, however, I have had constant issues with the drive and would not recommend it for VPC. It is a great drive for storing files and the price and speed is good.

While a high end laptop will meet the requirements another option is a small form factor workstation (from Dell’s mini towers, all-in-ones and mini desktop units). These are relatively inexpensive and easy to add additional lower cost desktop Ram and hard drives. A laptop that will work well for this will run around $4000 while a comparable small form factor solution will cost in the $2000 range.

The bottom lines is the laptop solution is the best (when cost is not a factor), however, if your use your primary development workstation as a demo unit you can reduce the overall cost and with the virtual demo machine your note jeopardizing your development environment. You can also have the demo virtual machine on standby for when you need it and it is easy to share. The small form factor is really only an option when cost is a major factor. You can stretch your dollar a lot more with these units, however, you suffer in portability which can be critical if you travel a lot.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic so be sure to comment…

Visual Basic Hardware & Software Configuration Guidance - Introduction

I recently purchased a new development laptop and prior to buying did a great deal of  research on the best hardware and more importantly best software configuration.  First, i was looking for more detail then the fastest CPU, most RAM and biggest 7200 RPM hard drive.  Second, I am committed to Visual Studio 2008/2010, so my questions we more about deployment options such as partitioning between primary and secondary hard drives, to run the IDE in a virtual machine or not and best OS (Server 2008, Windows7) options.

While i found a lot of general suggestions there was little specific guidance.  While i moved on and purchased my replacement development workstation and followed some of the advices i gleamed from the web I was left with the feeling that I cannot be alone in these questions.

So this will be my introductory post in a small series on the hardware and software configuration guidance for visual basic development environments.

To begin I have listed my current hardware for review and will address the decisions behind there purchase as we progress.

Primary workstation

My new primary workstation is aDell Precision m6500 mobile workstation.  It has an i7 CPU, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD primary drive (factory samsung), a 500GB 7200 RPM secondary drive (data, program files and virtual machines) and have it loaded into a docking station with two 24in Samsung HD monitors.

I don't remove the workstation from the docking station very often.  Rather I connect via remote desktop from my portable laptop, mac or home workstation.

My previous workstation (for about 3 years) was an Alienware m9750.  This was the best workstation available at the time of purchase and I still take it on trips when i need a large screen and a backup development environment.

Portable Laptop

I carry a Dell Mini9 (2GB RAM, 64GB SSD and Verizon USB EVDO wireless card) which I use to connect to the workstation while traveling.  Having been in the IT field for so long I have always been provided hardware by my employers and this was the first laptop I purchased with my own funds.  It came with 1GB of RAM and a 16GB hard drive with WinXP loaded.  I update the memory and hard drive and put WIndows 7 Beta 1 on it and have been very pleased with the performance.

Home

With the exception of my current home workstation (primarily for the family) I have custom built every personnel workstation I have ever owned.  About 2 years ago I was busy working and broke down and bought a Dell Inspiron 530S  slim tower, 2GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, Nvidia Geforce 8200GS (which just died on my yesterday).

Phone

I stated really using and carrying smart phones/PDA's when compaq released the IPAQ.  It was a great device for its time.  I have used about every device since then (mostly windows mobile devices) and switched to an iPhone about two years ago.  Sometimes I miss tweaking with the PocketPC/Windows Mobile platform, however, the iPhone just works.  There are a lot of things I would change but It does a good job at calls, email, SMS, web and other applications.  

I do miss being able to develop for the device.  Recently I was forced to purchase a MAC (MacBook) to address some Silverlight issues on workstations running MAC/Safari and in the process have downloaded and started to review the iPhone development platform.  So expect to see some posts on that endeavor in the near future.

While now that full discloser on my current hardware status is documented we can move on to my current software configuration.  Then on to discussing better informed decisions on these topics.

Until next time...