Does anyone use a small laptop (12"-13") to run Rhino?

My only machine right now is a two year old 14" HP envy, sorry actual model number escapes me but it’s specs are quad core i7, 12gb of ram, 1g HDD, and gtx970 card on board. I’ve been a digital nomad since I got that machine, doing contact design while travelling. For straight rhino work it’s been great, light compact and powerful enough for everything I want to do.

However, I’m now no longer travelling and getting into using grasshopper more to generate my models. For grasshopper I really need two screens and my bigger scripts (2700 components and 60 sec calculation times) have my HP topped out for sure, fan on and hot to touch for hours. I need to build a tower for production work and retire the laptop for mobile use only.

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Also note, the machine I was using before this was a MBP 15" with windows/rhino via parallels, the HP Envy for Rhino is better on every measure.

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As long as you don’t need super portability I’d also get 15 inch at least.
Used to use 13inch macbookpro for V5mac rhino and bootcamp to handle windows rhino, but screen is just way too small and the good trackpad becomes crap with windows…

Also better to get one with gtx1060 or above.
gtx1050 will get old in about a year more…

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Thanks for this I’m struggling to find anything with an a graphics card close to what the envy has for a reasonable price. I’ll check out the 14" too. Thank you !

I need portability as have to carry it every day - but the reason I’m use small laptops is because i need the keyboard close to my body close to my mouse otherwise i get shooting pains. I plug into a bigger screen mostly. Thanks for the GTX tip !

It’s on a slightly bigger side of 13" but I use AORUS X3…It’s a beast and so tiny.

https://www.aorus.com/product-detail.php?p=547&t=35&t2=&t3=

Mine is with i7-7820HK (up to 4.4Ghz) instead of i7-7700HQ (up to 3.8Ghz) but they don’t make this one anymore… don’t know why.

As I remember I’ve squeezed well over 60k in Holomark after few tweeks

The only downside of this laptop is a lack of thunderbolt 3… it only has usb 3 type c

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I use a Microsoft Surface Book with performance base every day and it runs Rhino as well as AutoCAD and Photoshop very well. It has 2 GPU’s, an Intel and an Nvidia GeForce GTX-something. Generally I have a wireless keyboard and a large Dell 4K monitor attached but often use it as a stand alone. It’s a good choice if you move around a lot. I’m still on the fence as to its performance with Rhino 6, but 5 runs great. Also its built-in screen is gorgeous and it has touch capability if you’re into that and the screen detaches so you can use it as a tablet.

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Which version of the Surface Book is it dmoyes?

I use a Lenovo Yoga 920 convertible with 4K 13.9" touch screen that weighs 3 lbs. When at home or office I plug in a large 42" 4K LG display and add a wireless mouse and keyboard to make a great setup. The Yoga 920 runs at up to 4 GHz on 4-cores of Intel 8th-generation processors with 16 GB of DDR4 2.4 GHz memory and a 512 GB solid-state drive so performance is good. I have developed 1000’s of lines of drone mapping software with this setup and I am very happy with it.

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The Surface Book i7. It’s over a year old so I’m sure there’s a newer model. Make sure you get the model with the performance base and larger power supply. That has the 2nd graphics card.

Here’s the latest. Now with a 15" screen version. Knew I should have waited!

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:cry: they’re so expensive. Do you think the i5, 8GB version would be ok for a couple of years? Its the only one I can afford second hand

I really couldn’t say. Maybe someone else on the forum can help you out.

Just buy the Mac version of Rhino and run it on a Macbook Pro. I have no problem using a late 2012 Macbook Pro Retina 13" with 8 GB RAM and 500 GB SS memory. If I need more screen real estate for complex designs, I simply connect to an external monitor. If you already own Rhino for Windows and don’t want to pay for new software, it also runs fine in a VM such as Parallels or under Bootcamp.

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I think I used to own a surfacebook i5

Honestly, its just not worth it. Build quality and screen resolution is great. But, its one generation older specwise compared to others out there.
Dunno why such big company with small lineup can`t keep up…

That said, anything you buy from microsoft will be one generation old in terms of intel chips and gpu than anything in the market.

Such a shame as the hardware I really liked.

Id go for gaming laptop if yu dont mind the weight and poor battery life.
Dell for reasonable selection, say likeDellG3 with GTX1050ti
Thinkpad with solid make but a little more pricy…

Surface/Surface book is more of secondary for presentation or little tuning on the go. Not for work as work work.

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While I believe you are right about Bootcamp, I’m pretty sure that Rhino 6 won’t do very well (if at all) under Parallels or VM because they don’t support the level of OpenGL required for the much improved display functionality. I run Rhino 5 successfully under Parallels, however I don’t have large models or complex rendering.

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i just found a second hand thinkpad actually but I can’t figure out if its Nvidia NVS 5400M card will run any version of Rhino. Its just asking too much for a laptop to be small AND run Rhino AND be affordable. Guess I’ll have to lug some beast of a machine around!

OT, I am using a small cheap old laptop but running Rhino on https://liquidsky.com. Seems very fast even on the cheaper package. https://www.paperspace.com is another option.

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If I had to do it again, I’d stick with Lenovo. I’ve had 3 Thinkpads with Nvidia Quadro cards that were terrific. Just too damn heavy with their stupid power supply bricks. I was thinking of my back and my back won this one!

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what is this magic! I need to get my head around this - I’ve never attempted such a thing. Its sounds ideal though. Thank you