What's the minimum screen size you can stand?

[Justin Goeres]

The time is fast approaching for me to upgrade my main development machine (i.e. my laptop) and there's a couple questions I'm having trouble answering for myself. Can y'all give me your experiences?

I do most of my work at my desk, but a fair amount of it in the field. However, a fair amount of that fieldwork also involves traveling by plane. I've always had the biggest laptop screen I can get for doing LabVIEW development. But in this day and age, 17" laptop screens and airplane tray tables don't mix. In fact, many coffeehouse tables and 17" laptop screens barely mix. In fact, anywhere outside of my hotel room and the customer site, traveling with a 17" machine is kind of a hassle.

So I'm thinking of moving to a dual-external-monitor setup for my desk, but buying a 15" laptop. At my desk, the dual huge monitors will be enough for me, and on the road I'll have the increased portability of a svelte 15" machine. Unless the confined space of the 15" machine will suck so much that I'll hate myself for the next 2 years for choosing it.

My questions are these: Are any of the rest of you doing anything like that? Is it even possible to enjoy doing LabVIEW development with less than 17" of real estate?

[gb119]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ May 18 2008, 02:55 PM)

My questions are these: Are any of the rest of you doing anything like that? Is it even possible to enjoy doing LabVIEW development with less than 17" of real estate?

I use a 13.3" (1280x800) laptop which is even a bit smaller than your proposed 15", with an addional external 22" monitor on my desk. The laptop screen does for most development tasks, but the extra real-estate is a nice luxury. Still, I tend to feel that if I have a vi whose diagram needs more than 1280x800 is probably got a little bit out of hand and needs some refactoring

[Justin Goeres]

QUOTE (Gavin Burnell @ May 18 2008, 06:13 AM)

Still, I tend to feel that if I have a vi whose diagram needs more than 1280x800 is probably got a little bit out of hand and needs some refactoring

Good point, although my problems with real estate usually stem from the number of open windows, not the size of the diagrams .

[Aristos Queue]

My 15" Mac PowerBook has served me spectacularly well for over a year. I do develop VIs on that laptop, including smallish projects. I don't have cause to build gigantic apps in G, so I can't tell you if it scales well, but I've been satisfied. I do find myself wishing for a more direct way to pull the Project window to the front. The longer I work on a laptop, the more I want a "floating window" option for the project window, or a shortcut key for bringing it to front. But other than that, no complaints.

[ASTDan]

I have a 14" laptop. I love it for being light and small. When I am at the office I hook my laptop up to a 17" monitor. I don't have any problems. I moved to the smaller laptop for the same reasons. For me lightweight and small real estate trump viewable screen.

Dan

[crelf]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ May 18 2008, 09:55 AM)

The time is fast approaching for me to upgrade my main development machine (i.e. my laptop) and there's a couple questions I'm having trouble answering for myself. Can y'all give me your experiences?

This is a great question, and one that our IT department asked about a year and a half ago when we were upgrading our laptop fleet. Generally, the laptop we chose was the Lenovo T61 with a 17" screen, and everyone also has a widescreen LCD on their desks - when you put the laptop docking station in just the right place, you effectively have two screens.

That said, I personally resisted the move to the 17" for exactly the reasons you listed, and I got a Lenovo T60 with 15" screen instead, and I have two LCDs on my desk - perfect There has been a general runmbling from our staff that, while it's fun to have a wide 17" screen, they're not fun at all on the road - using them in airplanes is almost unbareable (not only is there little room on the seat tray, but physically getting such a large laptop out from under the seat in front of you is apparently very awkward (not that it worries me as I always fly business class, right? )

Anyway, my 15" is great on the road, and having 2 LCDs is great for the office. IMHO I don't think it's the size that matters but the resolution - 1400 x 1050 is plenty for me when I'm travelling. Also, I ride a motorcycle, and my 15" T60 fits perfectly (in it's little laptop case) in one of my saddlebags - I don't think I could get a 17" in there.

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ May 18 2008, 10:37 AM)

I do find myself wishing for a more direct way to pull the Project window to the front. The longer I work on a laptop, the more I want a "floating window" option for the project window, or a shortcut key for bringing it to front.

That is a fantastic idea! You should add it to the wish list

[B Chavez]

I've been using a IBM Lenovo laptop with a 15.4" widescreen and I'm pretty happy with it. It's a fairly large machine but most of the size is in the width and not depth. The widescreen is very convient for having multiple windows open. The only thing I wish I had was a little more resolution, I've got 1680x1050 but you can now get 1920x1200, which is perfect for two pages side by side (and can display 1080p natively). In the office I have two 17" lcds that are only 1280x1024, the minimum resolution I can stand. But I'm working on upgrading to a 24" widescreen with the 1920x1200 I mentioned above.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ May 18 2008, 07:37 AM)

I do find myself wishing for a more direct way to pull the Project window to the front. The longer I work on a laptop, the more I want a "floating window" option for the project window, or a shortcut key for bringing it to front. But other than that, no complaints.

I was just about to post a rant about this very same thing. I found this a problem from day one. Not sure why NI never thought of this before 'cus it seems obvious to me. You want us to use the project environment don't you?

For starters, why doesn't NI change the icon of the titlebar of the project window? That way you can find it and click on it easier from the taskbar.

---

As far as the screen size, I think it's more of a resolution issue and it's not that simple. If you have a desktop screen then it's nice if both the desktop screen and the laptop screen have the same resolutions. if they don't, then large diagrams on the desktop will be overflowing on the laptop. Airplanes are not for programming. If you are programming on a plane, then change jobs. If you need to read a document or something then get a small laptop or hand held device. If I could get a 15" laptop screen with the same resolution as my desktop screen (1920x1200), then I would get it. If not then I'm not sure If I would.

[jgcode]

For a while I used to program solely on a 13.3" with 1280X800 res. It is extremely portable and works well enough at that res. At home I have a 1680x1050 20" to connect to. At work we also use 1680x1050 20" as well. I try to make sure I don't abuse the extra space on the BD by keeping my code neat and compact so switching between the two is normally fine.

But I am down with MA on this one as I don't think overall screen size is that important compared to screen res - so if you need portability, make sure you go for a high res screen. Having the same res as your workstation is going to be the most efficent to go between if you are out of the office and need to be programming either on a plane or on-site for a client/project.

[Anders Björk]

I am happy with my HP4400 on the road, last time it was three hours of wiring on a train and that was not problem. Although I only get 1024x768 in resolution, in the office I use 1280x1024. However I am not a full-time developer.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

I've got a Dell Latitude D830 with 15.4" display and generally like it. In the office I use a docking station and an external 22"wide screen display too. Don't have to do lot of work on the road but I do use the laptop only mode at home and find it quite workable with this 15 inch screen. But I chose on purpose for a low 100 dpi instead of the maximum available 148 dpi because I hate those super tiny fonts and even more the Windows hack of Big fonts to work around that and it also matches the resolution of normal desktop LCD monitors of 90 dpi better.

Rolf Kalbermatter

[PaulG.]

My experience with my 17" laptop was the same as yours. My only difficulty moving down to the 15" laptop provided by my company was some eyestrain after long hours of coding. I found a good optometrist and he set me up with a fine-tuned pair of computer glasses. My 15" is fine now.

Second benefit of the smaller 15": it keeps your block diagrams at a reasonable size for someone else who might "inherit" your code. I don't know about you but I find block diagrams filling up 1680x1050 screen sizes really annoying.

[Jeffrey Habets]

I use a 14.1" laptop with 1280x800 resolution (Dell Inspiron). I choose this because it's very portable, and I can work up to 4-5 hours on one battery charge. The only down-side for me until now is the vertical resolution. Not for the BD's, cause I keep these always quite smallish, but for the FP's. Most customers use screens with resolutions of at least 1280x1024, and sometimes an application simply needs to use all available screen real estate. Well, I can tell you its pretty difficult to get to the bottom of a 1024 pixel high FP with the scrollbars turned off on a screen that has only 800 pixels vertical resolution. :thumbdown: My next laptop will probably be the smallest one available with at least 1050 pixels vertical resolution.

Although the system at home/work (a desktop system with 24" 1900x1200 resolution) is a way more relaxed work environment I don't want a laptop with that same resolution, so I just try and keep all BD's within my laptop's resolution.

[TobyD]

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 18 2008, 08:30 PM)

If you have a desktop screen then it's nice if both the desktop screen and the laptop screen have the same resolutions.

I agree with you on this one Michael. I use a 17" widescreen Dell M90 with 1920x1200 resolution. It docks with a 24" monitor at the same resolution. The laptop is not great for travel. It is heavy and bulky - but I was looking for more of a semi-portable desktop replacement as most of my work is done at work or at home. I have 4GB of memory and a Quadro FX 2500M graphics card. I can have multiple programs open and the thing never slows down.

If I needed to I could use the laptop monitor as a second screen while at work, but so far the 24" of real estate has been enough for me.

I think having the matching screen resolution on the laptop and desktop monitors is more important for me than having an ultra portable computer.

[Justin Goeres]

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 18 2008, 07:30 PM)

Airplanes are not for programming. If you are programming on a plane, then change jobs. If you need to read a document or something then get a small laptop or hand held device.

That's a good point, although that would involve carrying yet another gadget around.

Currently I do absolutely zero programming in-flight, but that's partly because of my laptop's enormity. That's kinda the point of raising the question -- I want to get feedback from everybody on their experiences with smaller machines.

If my machine was small enough to at least consider editing code during a flight, then there's a small chance I might do it once in a while. FYI: a recent experience with an idea for a potential LAVA CR contribution is what brought this issue to the front of my mind.

[crelf]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ May 19 2008, 02:45 PM)

If my machine was small enough to at least consider editing code during a flight, then there's a small chance I might do it once in a while.

Pfffffft! Here's some reasons not to code on a plane:

• Unless your laptop is actually a PDA, how are you going to get the workspace to use a mouse for graphical programming? (unless you use one of those ultra-mini trackballs - that *might* work)
  
• Unless you fly weekly, I find flying a relaxing break where I can recline and enjoy a club soda and the latest NWA inflight magazine
  
• If you do take a mouse on a plane, it'll just feed all of those snakes
  
• Flying is a great time to catch up on those tasks you're always interupted trying to do - like clearing out your email inbox
  

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ May 19 2008, 11:45 AM)

FYI: a recent experience with an idea for a potential LAVA CR contribution is what brought this issue to the front of my mind.

Well, in that case it OK.

Seriously, unless you are in First Class (which may be possible with your luxurious lifestyle), no matter what size laptop will be a pain on a plane. Just hope that the person in front of you doesn't decide to recline their seat (which always happens anyway).

[orko]

I do a lot of work during the commute between Seattle and Port Orchard, WA (about 1 1/2 hours to kill each way and most of it is on a ferry).

I have a personal laptop that I've had for 2 years (HP widescreen 17") that I bought for the screen size. Loved it back then, but recently I was given a work laptop that is a 8"x12" (or so) widescreen VAIO. It weighs half as much as my HP, and lasts twice as long. Screen is much, much sharper as well.

Bottom line: My HP is sitting at home under a pile of books, my eyes are not as strained, and my shoulder doesn't hurt anymore...

I've taken both on planes, and had similar experiences as the others here. That HP was basically pinned up against my gut and the screen was tilted at an awkward angle toward me. Gave up taking out the laptop on flights eventually, but with the VAIO I'm perfectly fine...even in business class

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (orko @ May 19 2008, 05:16 PM)

recently I was given a work laptop that is a 8"x12" (or so) widescreen VAIO. It weighs half as much as my HP, and lasts twice as long. Screen is much, much sharper as well.

What model is that?

[jgcode]

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 20 2008, 09:20 AM)

What model is that?

Most likely the TZ? - its the smallest at 11.1" - a friend had one, I can't see the damn screen its so small! Would hate to LV on it.

I love VAIOs, the off putting thing is the price for what you get.

One problem I had with a VGN-S18GP model was that it could not recognise PCMCIA E series card: 6036E.

This gave me endless grief over installing drivers.

Anyone else anyone else had this problem with any VAIOs?

[Justin Goeres]

QUOTE (crelf @ May 19 2008, 12:46 PM)

Pfffffft! Here's some reasons not to code on a plane:

• Unless your laptop is actually a PDA, how are you going to get the workspace to use a mouse for graphical programming? (unless you use one of those ultra-mini trackballs - that *might* work)
  
• Unless you fly weekly, I find flying a relaxing break where I can recline and enjoy a club soda and the latest NWA inflight magazine
  
• If you do take a mouse on a plane, it'll just feed all of those snakes
  
• Flying is a great time to catch up on those tasks you're always interupted trying to do - like clearing out your email inbox
  

All items basically agreed. To go back to my recent LAVAcr story, most of what I accomplished (in an hour in the airport, since my aforementioned giant laptop is unusable on the plane) was laying out a class hierarchy and creating class data & member VIs for the classes, to fill in the implementation later. But you're right -- I can't stand LabVIEWing without a mouse, so any hardcore development is not going to happen anyway. Besides the basic framing I mentioned, I can imagine minor bugfixing. But no heavy lifting.

But again, there's the other side to my question; traveling with a 17" laptop is kind of a hassle in general, and totally precludes me ever doing work en route. The reason I'm considering a 15" machine is because it will be a bit easier to lug around, and it might open up the ability to do some work under certain circumstances. But in order for that to happen, it has to be basically usable as a development machine when I finally get on-site. From reading experiences (& votes) here, it sounds like a 15" mostly fits that bill except for some resolution considerations.

[orko]

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 19 2008, 06:20 PM)

What model is that?

It's a VGN-SZ360P, which actually has a 7"x11.25" screen (hey, I was close) which they call a 13.3" widescreen.

The full dimensions are 3.7lbs, 12.5"x1.3"x9.3" (WxHxL). I would definitely buy it again for a travel laptop. For such a small package, they packed a lot into it.

QUOTE (jgcode @ May 19 2008, 09:41 PM)

One problem I had with a VGN-S18GP model was that it could not recognise PCMCIA E series card: 6036E.

This gave me endless grief over installing drivers.

Anyone else anyone else had this problem with any VAIOs?

Haven't used PCMCIA cards for a while now, so can't give you any feedback for my VAIO. I'm all about USB DAQ nowadays

[Jeffrey Habets]

I noticed there are some 15,4" notebooks on the market today with resolutions up to 1920x1200.. Does someone have experience with coding on these?

It seems to me you would need a magnifying glass to distinguish the various functions and VI's on your BD.

[jgcode]

QUOTE (orko @ May 20 2008, 04:51 PM)

It's a VGN-SZ360P, which actually has a 7"x11.25" screen (hey, I was close) which they call a 13.3" widescreen.

The full dimensions are 3.7lbs, 12.5"x1.3"x9.3" (WxHxL). I would definitely buy it again for a travel laptop. For such a small package, they packed a lot into it.

Haven't used PCMCIA cards for a while now, so can't give you any feedback for my VAIO. I'm all about USB DAQ nowadays

SZ Series - Nice! I am running the older S Series, still going strong, but eye off the SZ all the time!

I rate your workplace if the company PC is VAIOs!

For me last place was Levono, current work PCs are Dells.

Even though spec-to-price ratio isn't that great - there is some sexy about the VAIOs and you can't beat those screens.... (mmm VAIOs)

QUOTE (Jeffrey Habets @ May 20 2008, 05:34 PM)

I noticed there are some 15,4" notebooks on the market today with resolutions up to 1920x1200.. Does someone have experience with coding on these?

It seems to me you would need a magnifying glass to distinguish the various functions and VI's on your BD.

The lead programmer at work has a new Dell with the above specs. When he points stuff out on the BD i can't see it unless I stick my face right up to the screen. He loves it though! I wish he would drop the res when he is showing me stuff. The only thing I have seen its great for is if we have a massive cluster (like the application's status cluster) we pass around. You can see the whole thing easily, you can probe it etc...

But I don't know if its worth it as it makes my eyes go

[Yair]

Like Rolf, I use a 15.4" Dell Latitude and I find 1440x900 to be a good resolution (although the height would be a problem if I wanted to do UIs which were larger than 1024x768).

By the way, I'm considering getting EEEs for systems where we need operator stations. With XP and its low price it should beat any other option I can think of (PDAs, PLCs with external touch screens, laptops, etc.).