Switching the workforce to laptops?

[shifty_uk]

My staff have all been working from home due to COVID, some had pre-existing home setups, others took their office computers.

I suspect we'll be in this scenario for the foreseeable; other companies are offering permenantly and most new candidates I've interviewed have asked if there will be any options for flexible home working in future... So I need to keep up with the market to a degree.

This poses the question, would a laptop alongside a duel screen setup be a more viable investment for staff long term?

The team currently use:
Dev: SSD's, 16gig ram, not sure on processor, running linux with local docker setup for heavy application builds
Marketing/Sales/Operations: Windows i5s, 8gb ram and ssd for mostly web applications, email etc.

I use an MacBook, iMacs etc myself so completely unfamiliar with non-mac hardware in terms of laptops and the like however, my MacBook Pro feels just as powerful as my iMac so that's a good start...

Any suggestions on brands/models or wether this is a viable route to go down? The biggest issue is development, they need to be able to accommodate linux and have enough horsepower to run docker and heavy processes from these applications.

Thanks

 

[sandys]

we use t480s on dual screens, no issues, plenty of power, we do use a docking station, most companies use laptops these days but most of our grunt work is done on big server farms over VPN rather than local.

 

[brendy]

A lot of my guys use the HP Probook 450 series. I've been buying them for around 8-9 years with very few warranty calls. If you have old hardware you can trade it in to lower the net spend during the HP promo periods. They used to work out very cheap with cashback/trade ins though mot as big a bargain these days. Generic usb-c docking solutions exist.
There is a cheaper non probook range called the 250/255 (intel/Amd) where you get a little higher performance for the same cash but not sure if they are as well built as the probook range.
The HP Elite range has its own compatible docking solutions and can come with higher level performance if needed but at a higher price too.

 

[chrismscotland]

We sent 500 staff home at the start of lockdown and I was tasked with sourcing about 100 laptops just as the world was going laptop crazy!
I sourced the previously mentioned Probook 450's - excellent bits of kit - much better build and reliability than the similar Dell laptop's we already had in the business

We've got about 60x staff who have been using their own devices since March but as we expect flexible working to continue we're sourcing kit for them now; although in some cases we're going to rebuild and reuse Dell Micro Form Factor PC's from the office; if they've got 2x screens then the laptop can be a little redundant!

 

[glenimp617]

We use Dell latitude, apart from a few who use surfaces or precisions

Microsoft always on vpn and sccm mbam for bitlocker helped massively with remote working

 

[nightmare99]

Devs at the Mrs company are currently issued 15" XPS 32GB 1TB NVMe Core i9, she's got one as well because she does the odd heavy excel sheet LOL.