Any recommendations for pilot laptop?
 

Thinking of buying a laptop for use in the flight deck.

Any experience/recommendations for a good light laptop with decent battery life and a daylight readable screen?

Cheers!

I can recommend the Fujitsu P5020, I use it on the flight deck all the time and with a second battery installed I get over 6 hrs use out of it!

You could even have a look at the NavAero website and consider the T.Pad

It's a remote screen for laptops, laptop gets stowed away (anywhere) in the aircraft and the T.Pad straps to your knee with Velcro strap - just like any kneeboard.

The screen is 100% daylight readable and will show whatever you can see on your laptop - aboslutely anything - all pages of all programs - from Solitaire to moving map, GPS driven, flight software.

In the evnt of a lighting failure, select an empty white screen on your T.Pad and you'lll have plenty of light to see the flight panel.

It's actually quite a neat bit of kit - and the kids can watch DVD's in the car on the way home.

IBM
 

I would recommend an IBM laptop. One of the Centrino or Pentium M.

I have the T40. Its very thin, quite light (lighter than most). Durable, you can drop it/bash it and nothing happens. IBM screens are regarded by many as the best and brightest, I was impressed.

Also on a good day from a full charge I can get 7 hours out of the battery if the screen brightness is turned down and I'm just word processing or watching a film.

Only slight problem is the price. IBMs tend to be vastly more expensive than others but you are paying for the build quality. If you browse ebay a bit you can find some very good deals. I got the T40 for £700 a year ago, relativly brand new(box had been opened), when the RRP was still about £1600+

Generally speaking though, if you don't want an IBM then make sure you get a laptop with Centrino. Much longer battery life, very fast and very thin. Also intergrated wireless is good for those airport wireless hotspots. ;)

PM

Personally, I reckon that the best flight deck laptop device would be a sweet little blonde stewardess with a cheeky smile....

Guess that's no longer allowed in these PC days though?

Was that pun intentional? :)

Sony Vaio VGN- S2XP

Less than 2kg. 13" screen, 3.5 hours battery life

For me I think we need performance material and moreover something very light and easy to put in our pilot case. I bought a Samsung X10 XTC1700 and I am very happy with it. Now you can find a new version of it: X10 PLUS HTM 745

CPU Intel® Pentium® M 745 (1.8GHz) processor

Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional

Core Chipset Intel® 855PM core logic chipset

Graphics Processor nVidia GeForceFX 5200 Go with 64MB DDR video memory

Display 14.1" XGA (1024 x 768) TFT display

Memory 512MB PC-2700 333MHz DDR memory

Hard Disk 80GB UDMA hard disk

Audio 16bit SoundBlaster compatible audio

Audio Output Headphone, SPDIF digital w 5.1 surround

Audio Input Microphone input port

Optical Storage 2xDVD-R, 1xDVD-RW, 2x DVD-RAM, 16xCDR, 10xCDRW (9.5mm)

Battery Extended battery with up to 4.5 hours life

Battery Recharge Pulse battery charging with 2 hour recharge time

Other Batteries Optional 9 cell 6 hour battery

USB 2 X high speed USB 2.0 ports

Monitor Output 1 x VGA port

TV Output 1 x S-Video TV output port

FireWire 1 x mini 4pin FireWire connector

Removable Storage Internal Memory Stick Pro reader/writer

Wired Networking Internal 10/100 Ethernet

Modem Internal 56k V.90 modem

Wireless Networking Internal Intel® Pro/Wireless 2200BG 802.11g wireless LAN

Security Internal Fingerprint reader with BIOS level security

Anti-Virus Symantec Norton Anti-Virus

Other Software Ulead Video Studio 5 SE, Ulead Photo Explorer 7.0 SE

Disk Writing Software Nero Burning ROM

Docking Optional USB port replicator (SPR-X10)

Weight (kg) 1.9Kg weight

Dimensions 315.5 X 259 X 23.8 / 28.3 mm

For the price I don't know exactly but I it shoul be around 1900€.

LOU2

2300€ will be more accurate !

LOU2