Laptop with a SD card slot

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Henry Brown on 12/04/2021 12:36:44:

[…]

what a faff! I use my laptop on my lap so anything that has to be added or sticks out is a nuisance tbh

.

It’s worth remembering how Henry uses his laptop ^^^

Once upon a time … the customer was always right

MichaelG.

.

Edit: There may be the germ of an idea here: 

https://www.instructables.com/Raspberry-Pi-Wi-Fi-Media-Server/

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 13/04/2021 10:30:26

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by Henry Brown on 12/04/2021 12:36:44:

Yes, it may have to be the way forward Steve but what a faff! I use my laptop on my lap so anything that has to be added or sticks out is a nuisance tbh, The one I nearly bought has 4 USB ports and numerous others, however most Creality 3D printers use SD (my adventures into wireless/Octoprint are away off) as does my camera so an SD card would be preferred.

My Creality Ender 3 came with a micro SD card and also a USB reader that just slots into a full sized USB port – no cable, no nothing – did you get one too?

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Here it is.

[Anthony KnightsParticipant @anthonyknights16741]

Here it is.

[martinjpayne1964Participant @martinjpayne1964]

You could try an HP Pavilion 17-cd1014na for £1049 from Argos (I'm very happy with the 8GB version I've got as my gaming pc).

Seems to meet all your requirements except maybe the price.

Edited By Martin Payne on 13/04/2021 11:21:56

[JohnFParticipant @johnf59703]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 13/04/2021 10:18:33:

Once upon a time … the customer was always right

MichaelG.

Ah yes Michael I always had this in mind when offering advice from years of experience — " The customer is always right, sometimes a little misguided sometimes downright stupid but always right ! "

John

Edit PS I also think its a retrograde step to remove the SD slots etc — who wants a heap of accessories when they can be built in ?

Edited By JohnF on 13/04/2021 11:07:30

Edited By JohnF on 13/04/2021 11:09:08

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Posted by mechman48 on 12/04/2021 17:36:32:

My Dell Inspiron 17 3000 has a dvd player/ writer, Radeon graphics, Intel core i5 8th gen' 4gb ram, 1Tb hard drive, 3 USB ports, HDMI port. I still have a CD writer bought back in the 90's,still with it's mains adapter !, 2 x 500Gb ext hard drives, I think I am pretty well covered for most needs.

George.

p.s. omitted to say it also has an SD card slot.

[jann westParticipant @jannwest71382]

So … looking at your laptop specs … I can recommend you consider the following to be the cheapest pretty close off-the-shelf system:

Lenovo Thinkpad w541 – Intel I7 and up to 32gb ram, and a dedicated onboard Nvidia graphics accellerator.

it has a sd card reader, media bay which can hold either a dvd or hdd, it can have two internal disks (so redundancy)

with an external lenovo docking station – so you can plug in your big monitor (or 2), keyboard, mouse, and wacom tablet

Get a raspberry pi 4 and install octoprint for your 3d printing – and transfer the files over the wifi.

2nd hand W541 – https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=thinkpad+w541&_sacat=0

Everything together is probably under £750

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Posted by mechman48 on 13/04/2021 11:19:34:Posted by mechman48 on 12/04/2021 17:36:32:

My Dell Inspiron 17 3000 has a dvd player/ writer, Radeon graphics, Intel core i5 8th gen' 4gb ram, 1Tb hard drive, 3 USB ports, HDMI port. I still have a CD writer bought back in the 90's,still with it's mains adapter !, 2 x 500Gb ext hard drives, I think I am pretty well covered for most needs.

George.

p.s. omitted to say it also has an SD card slot.

Here is pic, sd slot on left.. usual disclaimer applies.

George

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Nothing wrong with Dell Inspiron 17 3000 kit except check the specification carefully. It's not a particular computer, rather one of a series ranging from basic to rather good. For example, the first one I found has only 8Gb RAM and a 128Gb SSD with a relatively slow CPU, the second has a faster CPU, 32Gb RAM, 128Gb SSD and a 1Tb Hard Drive. Check the detailed spec before buying – they might not all come with an SD Card.

Dell aren't the only firm selling rather different computers with the similar names; maybe they are all doing it now. Price is a good clue; the budget version might cost a quarter of the top of the range machine. Don't buy the expensive games machine when the budget version would do, and don't accidentally buy the budget version expecting top of the range features and performance!

I own an expensive Dell laptop, very pleased with it because it's super-quick and the graphics are excellent. No good at all for this requirement: it only has two USB-C ports, no DVD, SD-Card or anything else useful. Although USB-C is faster and more general than older USB, I have to use an adaptor to connect anything to it because all my USB peripherals are old-school. Ho hum…

Dave

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

all my now somewhat old Lenovo’s offer easy access to the hdd slot – I can put suites of program on one hdd and swop this as required both with other hdds and other Lenovo laptops – backup now consists of duplicating the hdd for which I have a self contained duplicator).

If you do go Dell make sure it is from their business range

[Henry BrownParticipant @henrybrown95529]

Posted by Nick Clarke 3 on 13/04/2021 10:30:34:

My Creality Ender 3 came with a micro SD card and also a USB reader that just slots into a full sized USB port – no cable, no nothing – did you get one too?

Yes mine did too Nick, but I wanted a quiet main board and one or two other things so I printed an enclosure to take the new mb and added a quiet fan and full sized SD card reader as fat fingers and micro SD cards don't go well together! I didn't give it a thought that any new PC wouldn't have a SD card slot…

[Henry BrownParticipant @henrybrown95529]

Ok, thanks for the posts chaps, all interesting reading (well, most of it )

Jann and George, thanks especially for that – I'll take another look as I'd missed or skipped over those. Jann I have a R Pi in the pipeline for the other half of my new enclosure, all this software stuff has been a huge learning curve for me. I was delighted to get the new main board working after a couple of attempts at compiling the firmware thanks to the Kay 3D guide. I've been playing with Fusion 360 on my old laptop (an old Toshiba Satellite with16" screen) designing the enclosure and a new fan system for the upgraded hot end that's in the pipeline, I've enjoyed the challenge of 3D CAD after spending many years on 2D at work hence the new laptop.

I'd almost pushed the button on a Lenovo Francis until I saw it was without the SD slot and still may go that route with the smallest SD to USB adaptor I can find!

I'm off to trawl the internet again!

[Henry BrownParticipant @henrybrown95529]

Posted by Martin Payne on 13/04/2021 10:51:58:

You could try an HP Pavilion 17-cd1014na for £1049 from Argos (I'm very happy with the 8GB version I've got as my gaming pc).

Seems to meet all your requirements except maybe the price.

Edited By Martin Payne on 13/04/2021 11:21:56

Thanks Martin, missed your post! I've had a bad experience with a HP laptop, not to mention one of their printers so I'd skipped over that one. Looks very good value for money though but the screen hinge looks a bit delicate in the blurb. I may well pop into my local Argos and take a look…

[martinjpayne1964Participant @martinjpayne1964]

Actually, the hinge is quite sturdy… the worst thing about it is the feel* of the trackpad, but all the other computers in the house are Apple: so maybe I'm a bit biased.

* This seems to be a fairly common problem that can be easily sorted by a competent person.

[martinjpayne1964Participant @martinjpayne1964]

Running Fusion360.

 

Edited By Martin Payne on 13/04/2021 20:29:59

[Henry BrownParticipant @henrybrown95529]

Thanks for your help Martin, I've checked Argos and they only offer this with home delivery unfortunately. Their returns policy says that items have to be returned unopened so I need to think about whether I want to chance it.

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

My most recent laptop Dell Latitude 5414 is about 2 years old. Dell had to replace my previous one as they could not get some spares. They struggled to match my original high spec. Processor was unfortunately only 2-core (high clock speed), but manage to match memory. But I ended up with 14" very high res touch screen, Main battery and internal second battery, PC/EC card slot, usb x 3, network x 2, hdmi, sd slot, VGA port, serial port, SIM slot, external power outlet port, smart card slot, fingerprint recognition, solid state hard drive, dust proof, semi water proof and 2 meter drop proof. They had to provide an external CD drive and spare charger packs. So you can find laptops with all the bits you need but unfortunately it will cost you. It cost Dell £5500 (well thats what I would have had to pay if it was not a warranty issue) to replace my faulty laptop.

Colin

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

While normally I would not recommend any one brand above another – all of the major brands have produced good quality kit and so for me it comes down to specification, price and availability – but the only laptop I ever had to scrap prematurely was a consumer level Dell where the multi ball array that the processor sat on went faulty just out of warranty and was non repairable.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

My HP Pavilion laptop purchased about 12 months ago has an SD slot. Never had any trouble with HP gear. My old HP is going on for 8 years old and still in use. Seems bulletproof.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Please forgive the slight digression, but this seems a good place to put this link, for reference: **LINK**

http://www.centon.com/support/51-sd-card-compatibility

I have recently acquired 128GB and 256GB cards which are not compatible with my Mac slot, or with my USB 2 reader.

MichaelG.

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Edit: the hyperlink on that page is broken, so this might be useful:

https://www.sdcard.org/?s=sdxc

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 15/04/2021 00:02:34

[jann westParticipant @jannwest71382]

Something I forgot to mention … If you work with numbers a lot its worth considering if the laptop has a full numeric keyboard.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

Michael – 64G + 128G cards seem ok on my linux system running on a fairly ancient laptop that well predates any USB3 ports

There are reports of cards supposedly higher capacity that are fraudulent being small capacity cards that have had their microcode tampered with.

[Rick HannParticipant @rickhann79631]

I recently purchased an HP EliteBook 840 G3. i wanted to plug in my camera chip (SDHC Card) and could not find a slot Lots of other slots and ports on the side. I finally noticed a little plastic cover on the bottom, removed it and there was my missing SDHC card slot. I assume they had to put it underneath because they ran out of room on the side. Just my experience or lack of.. Rick

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 14/04/2021 23:59:27:

…

I have recently acquired 128GB and 256GB cards which are not compatible with my Mac slot, or with my USB 2 reader.

…

How old is the Mac, or rather which version of OSX is it running? Could be hardware or software incompatibility Cards bigger than 32Gb are formatted with exFAT which requires Snow Leopard or later.

Otherwise, might get a clue by trying this: start a terminal session (console) and then plug in the SD-Card. In the terminal immediately run the command 'dmesg' which should list the kernel log, showing what happened when the card was plugged in. The relevant messages will be near the end.

Dave

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