Thinkpad T430s i7 for Data Wrangling

[Kallan Gerard]

I'm a camera assistant, working mostly with Alexa, F3 and the occasional Epic/Scarlett. I've got an old 2009 Windows Laptop which has expresscard 34 and esata but only one USB 3 port. And not much of a battery life.

 

I'm looking to upgrade to something better, but Apple hasn't ever really released something that attracts me, and it doesn't look like they ever will.

 

I've done a lot of research, and it looks like the Lenovo Thinkpad T430s with i7 is the only laptop in the world with Express Card 34, 2 x USB 3, and Thunderbolt! It also has the capability for multiple hotswap batteries, second hard drive, upgradeable ram (atleast 16GB) and much cheaper dock options.

 

With this laptop, I could load SxS cards to two USB 3 hard drives with no power supplies, dongles or docks necessary (Assuming the drives are bus powered). I could also insert a 6Gbps eSATA expresscard adapter to load redmags for RED work. With a Sonnet Thunderbolt Expresscard adapter it would give me two expresscard slots, and future expandability for whatever TB solutions come out (as long as they are daisy chainable).

 

I'm just worried about how well the industry supports windows based data loading. Also there's no silverstack for windows, and I'd have to use Mac Drive for most productions.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on this, I'd like to make a move on a new laptop relatively soon.

 

Cheers.

[Ryan Prouty]

I'd avoid Windows as making ProRes files is a very common request - not possible on Windows.

[Phil Rhodes]

It is possible to make ProRes files on Windows using the free tool ffmpeg (how is it possible to be a DIT and not know this?). It's a third-party reverse engineering of the standard, but I've never had a problem. It's probably faster than Quicktime, too, even if you're on a Mac. Try it.

 

I'm always deeply suspicious of people specifying laptops in this situation. It depends how mobile you need to be, but high powered laptops are generally pretty hefty in any case. My approach is to build a rackmount PC into a flight case and do it that way - you get a lot more performance for the money, but it really depends on your exact circumstances. Bear in mind that an i7 laptop isn't as powerful as an i7 desktop.

 

P