Build Me A Laptop Worthy Of Mordor!

Okay, so here's your mission.

I have $3000. Well, actually I have a good deal more than that, but I have $3000 I am willing to spend in December or so for a laptop that meets my needs. My needs, of course, have skyrocketed with this cert stuff and with needing a self-contained, portable platform for running VMs. Right now, my perfectly serviceable but not quite up to the task laptop serves me well, but I need something with:

- Hardware assisted virtualization.
- TPM support (In case someone bad steals my stuff)
- As much RAM as one can squeeze into a laptop (most I have seen is 16GB)
- 1080P resolution with appropriate output
- eSata output (2 would be great)
- Wireless, bluetooth, all that jazz.
- SSD because, I mean, dude.

I'd like this in a 15" or less package.

I've been looking on AvaDirect. Do you have other ideas?

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Comments

eMeS

I don't like the idea of TPM, but hey, to each his own.

Only advice that I can really give here is that you will probably find that a 15" screen is smaller than you will ultimately want. I made this mistake with the last laptop I purchased a couple of years ago, bought a 15". Just last week I ordered a new one with a 17" display....

MS

Devilsbane

I agree with eMeS, 15 just seems too small.

I also think you are going to have trouble finding a 15'' screen with 1080P

tpatt100

I have an Alienware laptop that is 17inches but it sits in my closet and I use my desktop primarily now. I spent probably 2400 for it and I now use the 1200 desktop I bought a few years ago. It was too loud, it had SLI and the fans went into overdrive when I did anything remotely intensive. Now a days if I had to do it again I would probably just buy a Dell or Apple laptop that has a 17 inch screen,decent battery life and light weight.

Synthros

eMeS wrote: »

I don't like the idea of TPM...

Why don't you like it?

eMeS

Synthros wrote: »

Why don't you like it?

I believe the potential is there for copyright holders to have way too much control over how their content is used. In fact, if I remember correctly there was an allegation that Apple was using this to prevent its OS from running on non-Apple hardware. Not sure if that was ever substantiated or not, but it was alleged. WTF should it matter what hardware I choose to run something on? It's not as if I expect them to support it on that hardware....

My experience with DRM is less than stellar. Not that I am against protecting copyrights or anything, I just think that all of the approaches we've experienced to date have been somewhat poorly handled. Again, this is an opinion, and I'm not really sure what the "correct" alternative might be.

Also, if I remember correctly TPM has already been overcome.

MS

MentholMoose

Several Lenovo Thinkpad models are available with 15.6" 1080p screens. Back in June I picked up a T510 with:
Core i5-520M (2.4GHz Dual Core w/ Hyper Threading)
4GB PC3-8500 DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA NVS 3100M 512MB Video Card
320GB 7200RPM HDD
15.6" LED Backlit LCD (1920x1080 resolution)
9 Cell Battery
Intel ABGN 6300
Bluetooth
DVD±R
Windows 7 Pro x64
3-year Depot Warranty

Including FedEx next day air the total was US $1350. I replaced the 4GB RAM kit with an 8GB kit from Mushkin ($200) and the HDD with a 120GB Corsair Force SSD ($300, now about $200, same as the OCZ Vertex 2). So overall it was around $1900. Upgrading to 8GB or an SSD direct from Lenovo would have been much more expensive, and there's no way I'd want a unknown brand SSD anyway.

The T510 has an eSATA port built-in, along with VGA, DisplayPort (with a DP to HDMI adapter you can get audio over HDMI), FireWire, SDHC, a bunch of USB ports, and it supports a docking station. The T510 is no netbook, but it is fairly portable, and it feels solid and has a great keyboard like all Thinkpads. I like the understated appearance, and prefer it over the MBP, plus thieves will skip it and go for the nearest MBP.

Performance is fantastic, the SSD totally changes the experience versus a regular HDD. It takes everything I can throw at it without breaking a sweat. 120GB is currently enough for me... sure I can't put a 200GB iTunes library on it, but I wouldn't do that anyway. I can easily store 10 VMs (and run them concurrently!!), a few movies, my current favorite MP3s, every book I want and all the documentation I need. However, the 240GB SandForce-based SSDs are coming down in price so that may be my next upgrade.

Sabalo

Devilsbane wrote: »

I agree with eMeS, 15 just seems too small.

I also think you are going to have trouble finding a 15'' screen with 1080P

I've not had issues finding a 15" with 1080P thus far. Understand that unless I am sitting in an airport or on vacation, I have no intention of using the actual laptop display. I output to my 27" in my CHU* and to my 23" at work. I currently have 17" and I like it, but it is a bit too bulky.

I don't like the idea of TPM, but hey, to each his own.

I need it to support effortless Bitlocker. I am in what one might consider a hostile environment, so I prefer that my personal data stay personal. Otherwise, I'd not care so much.

Now a days if I had to do it again I would probably just buy a Dell or Apple laptop that has a 17 inch screen,decent battery life and light weight

With where I am and what I do, I need something that is light enough to carry around, but contains the power of a desktop. I'm testing the interactions between multi-domain forests through VMs, and I need to be able to do that out here. Were I in "civilized" territory, I'd just set the VMs up at home and run them remotely but my internet connection is an awesome 128K... when it works at all. So alas, I have to run everything on a machine that has to be able to slide into a backpack or I have to deal with studying when I can get a connection. I prefer to spend the money to run the stuff locally.

I promise, this is the exception to the rule. I don't LIKE to buy superpowered machines unless I need them for a project.

Several Lenovo Thinkpad models are available with 15.6" 1080p screens. (etc)

Nice! I'm going to have to peek at Lenovo. I've been an HP person recently, but they do not ship to APO and I can't be bothered with middle men.

I've been looking at gamer laptops, mainly because they tend towards the ridiculously overpowered... pretty much what I need.

Paul Boz

Why don't you set up a dedicated server platform to do this for a fraction of the cost and buy a laptop to interface with it remotely?

I understand wanting to have a mobile lab but you really don't need half of what you're specking out and will wind up wasting a ridiculous amount of money. My laptop has a quad-core intel processor, eight gigs of ram, a terabyte of on-board disk space with another TB over eSATA. I've run virtual labs with over 20 machines in the past and have had zero performance issues. What are you intending on labbing? Does your lab environment really need more than 256-512mb of memory per machine? If so, do you need more than 7-8 instances of machines that require more? I've never NOT been able to do something I want to in a virtual environment on my $1100 factory refurb Studio XPS16. I just think that spending top-dollar for equipment that will be obsoleted in a few years is pointless.

tpatt100

My Powerbook made it through a tour of Iraq, I went up and down and left and right numerous times. The Air Force crushed it on my plane trip back.....

Really now a days I think the RAM is the most important when it comes to doing VMs.

za3bour

tpatt100 wrote: »

My Powerbook made it through a tour of Iraq, I went up and down and left and right numerous times. The Air Force crushed it on my plane trip back.....

Really now a days I think the RAM is the most important when it comes to doing VMs.

I think it is , the more memory you have the more VM you can have

azjag

Dell precision m4500 Mobile workstation.

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i7-840QM Quad Core 1.86GHz 8MB
VIDEO CARD NVIDIA® Quadro FX 880M Graphics with 1GB dedicated memory
MEMORY 4.0GB, DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS Expandable to 12gb for $260 or 16gb for $520 through Crucial.
LCD 15.6" Full HD (1920 x 1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED Display
HARD DRIVE 128GB Encrypted Mobility Solid State Drive
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD™, Bluray for $500
BATTERY OPTIONS 9-cell (90Wh) Lithium Ion Battery
WIRELESS CARD Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 802.11a/b/g/n Half Mini Card
FINGERPRINT READER OPTION No Fingerprint Reader and No Contactless Smartcard Reader- this just shows it has the option $45 - $115.

Price $2100.

You can add a second harddrive to this as well for increased storage. Add in a multiport esata express card for $30 - $70 or usb3 for the same price.

Yes it is a little bulky, but it packs enough power to do what you want. Trade offs have to come from somewhere. Starts at 6lbs but some of the options, 2nd hard drive, larger battery will increase this.

Good luck on your decision making and let us know what you decided.

Forsaken_GA

All I'm going to say is to remember that, for all it's pomp and grandeur, Mordor ultimately lost, so I'd set my expectations a little higher!

Therhino

Paul Boz wrote: »

Why don't you set up a dedicated server platform to do this for a fraction of the cost and buy a laptop to interface with it remotely?

I completely agree here. Why not just throw a 6 core amd up 2 1.5 tb disks 16gb ddr3 and place it at home or (home in us). From there install a thin os and install virtualbox with the pHp frontend to access it from the web. You would then be able to provision, snapshot, and build machines on the fly. Using s.s.h/s.c.p/w.g.e.t to add disk images to your system you can set up an amazing set up while modifying and learning from a sub par laptop wherever

Sabalo

Why don't you set up a dedicated server platform to do this for a fraction of the cost and buy a laptop to interface with it remotely?

completely agree here. Why not just throw a 6 core amd up 2 1.5 tb disks 16gb ddr3 and place it at home or (home in us). From there install a thin os and install virtualbox with the pHp frontend to access it from the web. You would then be able to provision, snapshot, and build machines on the fly. Using s.s.h/s.c.p/w.g.e.t to add disk images to your system you can set up an amazing set up while modifying and learning from a sub par laptop wherever

I have a 128K connection and 5 or 6 e-mails in my inbox from my local provider apologizing for outages... and those are only the outages that were long enough to apologize for. Remoting into a box is great, when you can do it without having to worry about down time or actually having a connection at all.

So that's why.

All I'm going to say is to remember that, for all it's pomp and grandeur, Mordor ultimately lost, so I'd set my expectations a little higher!

Yes, but somehow I doubt HobbitOS is really meant for evil power users.

Really now a days I think the RAM is the most important when it comes to doing VMs.

Yep. I'm sort of eyeballing a couple of machines that can be specced out to have 16gb of RAM.

Dell precision m4500 Mobile workstation

Bookmarked! That's along the lines of what I am going to be looking for.

tiersten

eMeS wrote: »

I don't like the idea of TPM, but hey, to each his own.

Yeah. It is a bit stupid that you can physically own a machine and have legitimate rights to all software and data on the machine but be incapable of accessing the secret keys stored inside your TPM chip.

eMeS wrote: »

In fact, if I remember correctly there was an allegation that Apple was using this to prevent its OS from running on non-Apple hardware. Not sure if that was ever substantiated or not, but it was alleged.

It appeared in the initial developer machines and the first few models but was never actually used by anything including the OS itself. Its no longer in any current model Mac. As for whether they were intending to use it to lock down OSX is another matter and one we'll never find out as Apple are notorious for being incredibly paranoid and secretive about plans.

eMeS wrote: »

Also, if I remember correctly TPM has already been overcome.

It was a physical attack against a specific range of Infineon TPM chips. The actual system itself is still secure.

tiersten

Sabalo wrote: »

I need it to support effortless Bitlocker. I am in what one might consider a hostile environment, so I prefer that my personal data stay personal. Otherwise, I'd not care so much.

You're still going to have to backup your data with an alternative encryption system. Besides, how hostile are we talking about here? Obligatory XKCD comic for this situation.

Sabalo

tiersten wrote: »

You're still going to have to backup your data with an alternative encryption system. Besides, how hostile are we talking about here? Obligatory XKCD comic for this situation.

We're talking Iraq hostile.

And really, the concern is more theft and mining of data versus kidnapping and stealing my legal Mp3's for the international bittorrent ring.

Bl8ckr0uter

tiersten wrote: »

Obligatory XKCD comic for this situation.

LOL I just laughed so hard.