New Gen Portable "Workstation".....Workstation

I've had quite a bit of business lately. It's a weird for me since in years past, the month or two after Christmas/New Years has been relatively quiet. This year, I've had a number of my old clients as well as new clients who have contacted me to get replacement machines. Almost every single one of them, have been some sort of "desktop-replacement"/"workstation" machines. You add that to my wife's computer that I recently replaced and the selling off of her old T500, I've had the larger laptops on the mind.

As I've discussed already, her replacement was the ThinkPad T530 which is an Ivy Bridge generation "Core" machine. With ours' and because they are ours', I tend to be more patient and take more time finding that special deal. For one-offs like my wife's T530, you'll have to be VERY patient and/or lucky. I grabbed her's for around $135, and I was lucky, but also had to put up with a shiny keyboard, a cracked bezel and a bad battery on top of the lack of HDD. Today, I'm not really wanting to discuss these unicorns, but the machines that I can find at any time, any day. Yes; I'm aware that I've broached the topic in the past, but this post is about what's out there right now. Hopefully, somebody out there might even be able to use it for their own search!

What I mean by that is that at a certain price-point, a particular generation of machine is readily available. For me, the price-point is $200.... and the more below that, the better I like it. Right now, in "enterprise class" machines, $200 will buy you a nice Sandy Bridge laptop by one of the Big Boys (HP, Dell, Lenovo). Companies that sell hundreds of thousands of these machines and therefore have lots of inventory out there at the end of their three year corporate lifespan. Right now, it's the Dell E6420/6520, the HP 8460p/8560p, and the ThinkPad T420/T520 machines. These are easy to find and can range as low as $120 on up to $200+. Lower if you're OK to buy without a drive, and higher if it's fully ready to go. 

I probably don't have to tell you that Sandy Bridge generation machine have a lot of life left in them as far as being a viable working machine for an individual on a daily basis. They'll all take the easy to find and inexpensive SATA drives and DDR3 RAM. Although, I'll say that if you want to have lots of RAM, I'd buy it now while it's cheap, because in another year, it's going to be quite a bit more expensive!

 

Is there "anything to give" between them? As far as function, .....no. But other factors come into play. Some people love that their machine seemingly never changes and are OK, with the somber black and the retro buttoned down look. Kind of like the James Bond of laptops ..... and for them, there's the ThinkPad. These things are so traditional, the move to the "chiclet" style keyboard was considered revolutionary. They are kind of the black-tie tuxedo of the computing crowd. 

If you really want a Mac, but have to use a PC, the corporate level HP is for you. Even the touchpad on the 8460p is similar to it's MacBook Pro cousin. Clean lines devoid of superfluous creases and embellishment is the name of the game here. 

 

For those who don't care either way and simply want the same function at the lowest average price, the Dell E6420/E6520 is for you. They are nicely built (not as nice as either the ThinkPad or HP) and decent looking. They will do the job. Traditionally, Dell sells the most out of the big three, so they are the easiest to find and making them the cheapest as well. I've bought these guys for around $125 in nice shape. Peripherals such as docks, power adapters, and drives are cheap and easy to find. 

 

While these machines make nice daily drivers for just about anyone, they are also amazingly adaptable as well. Because they were corporate machines, the list of devices made for them are long and often useful even to us regular people. Just the batteries alone come in an variety of types (typically 5), ranging from 3 different levels of standard batteries, to modular bay battery, to "slice" battery that attaches to the bottom of the machine and functions as an adjunct to the main battery. Typically, there are 2 or more optical drives, and hard drive bay adapters to add more storage. Less normal, but never-the-less sometimes available are devices ranging from numeric keypads, and modular fan units to modular graphic card upgrades! 

And as if that wasn't enough, there always "the dock". Actually, it's not really that; there's often anywhere from 1 to 3 different docks! The simplest being a "port replicator" so that all peripherals can be attached to this thing and thus allowing the user to walk away with the computer by simply pushing a button. Then there are true docks that give the machine more capabilities than the machine by itself had, such as SCSI (back in the old days), drive bays, etc. Sometimes, manufacturers even have "advanced docking stations"..... that is a dock, but it does even more stuff! Things such as expansion slots AND drive bays. I even have an old IBM one with built in speakers. 

I have a client who's about to replace her desktop that's used for work with an HP Elitebook 8460p and since she uses multiple displays, as well as full-sized keyboard/mouse combo on a daily basis, I'm also going to add an HP Advanced Docking Station to her new rig as well. We'll be able to do all this for less than $350!