The construction industry can be tough on equipment. Choosing a laptop to use on construction sites is difficult. You need to balance performance and reliability with ruggedness. Here is a quick guide on what to look for when you are buying a construction laptop to help you find the right one for you and your business.
Durability
This is going to be the most important quality of a laptop for the construction industry. Moving from site to site and bouncing around in the back of a work truck takes its toll on any piece of equipment. Your laptop will need to be tough to get through the average workday.
There are specialized laptops out there that are reinforced with stronger materials, but you can also find cases that can do the job just as well. Whichever way you choose to go, make sure your laptop is well protected.
Processing Power
If you are using some specialized construction software or using your screen to display plans and blueprints, then you are going to need a laptop that has plenty of processing power. You need more than just a fast CPU; the integrated graphics system needs some power too.
Integrated graphics systems are common on laptops and smartphones. They use the CPU and RAM to help boost the power of a graphics chipset that is a part of the motherboard. These save power but are still very capable. You can click here to read more about Intel’s Arc technology that gives their integrated graphics systems the same kind of power as a standalone, dedicated graphics card.
Battery Life
This will be a crucial feature for any laptop suitable for the construction industry. You will be taking it on the road to many places, having to set it up on a construction site one minute and then a boardroom the next. You need a laptop that has plenty of battery life, so it won’t let you down when you need it most.
Most laptops advertise an eight-hour battery life, but this is not always accurate. A good tip is to look for a laptop with a removable battery. This way you can buy spares and keep them charged up.
Storage Space
Construction files can be big and take up a lot of space on a hard drive. You need to get a laptop with lots of room for all the information you will have on the various projects you are working on. The software you use may also take up a fair bit of space on a hard drive.
Choose a laptop with 1 terabyte or more of hard drive space. This should give you plenty of room for an operating system, construction software, and lots of files and emails.
Screen Size
Bigger screens are better in a construction laptop, but there is a limit. Large screens mean larger laptops which are less portable. A 17-inch screen is probably the right size and balances portability with visibility.
Smaller screens can be useful if you can connect them to something larger when you need to display plans or show images to clients.
Follow this guide and you should be able to buy a laptop suitable for any workspace, whether it is a construction site or a boardroom.
