Cheatin' Chad

iTrader: (3)

What would you guys recommend for a laptop?

What brand?
Where to buy?
Any must have options? I know serial ports would be handy.


I'm computer literate. I am not looking to get a slick piece of gear here.I don't need anything special at all.
It must be reliable. I would like a DVD drive.Built in wireless network would be great. If it could play 3D games (Strategy,RPG no FPS) I would be happy but that's not neccessary.

I would like this to be cheap.

thanks!

Magnus

iTrader: (4)

Here our are minimum requirements:

Minimum Requirements:
150 mhz PC or Laptop (Flash and Editor)
300 mhz PC or Laptop (Recommended for Scanner)
64 MB of RAM
8 MB of Disk Space
Native Serial Port or PCMCIA serial adapter


The problems we usually see are from people with belkin converters, or with machines that do not meet our minimum requirements or the minimum requirements of the operating system they are running.

If you are running a slower machine, it may help to disable any background tasks you may have running especially virus scanners.

Hope this helps.

Cheatin' Chad

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the reply.

My biggest concern is with the need for a serial port. It's not easy to find a notebook with serial ports. If you do they tend to be kinda crappy. If you ok a PCMCIA serial connection then I'll just get a new notebook and the card.

What do you think of USB to Serial adapters? Do you recommend their use?

horist

The Belkin adapter he mentioned is a USB to serial adapter.,.. only the Belkin ones are ****

I'm using a cheapy 20 dollar or so USB to serial adapter and it seems to be working... but a native serial port is ALWAYS best (I only got the usb to serial so that I can log my wideband at the same time as the scanner software)

Your best bet is to look at an old laptop w/a real serial port... I'm running just fine right now on an older IBM Thinkpad ... 366mhz , 96mb of ram, windows 2000 ... does the job and has a real serial port on it... i got it for about 250 2 years ago so I'm assuming they're even cheaper now

AustinL911

iTrader: (-1)

will the program stuff run slower with a usb to serial adapter? Do you guys ever plan on offering a cable to use with USB's?

gameover

first question, generally on RX the cheapo USB-serial converters drop data due to very small buffering capability. Just about every single problem users have had so far can be traced back to the use of a USB-serial converter, specifically the belkin.

second question, yes we do plan to.

Cheatin' Chad

iTrader: (3)

Do you know when you plan on offering this? Are current customers going to be able to upgrade to this cable for a reasonable price?