I just purchased the efilive V1 flashscan license and need a laptop. I need some advice on what to buy.

Is a 17" screen too bulky and is the battery charge too short lived in these larger laptops. I ask because my eyes are not so good close up anymore. Are there any issues with the usb to serial adapters? I'm wondering if I should buy an older laptop with the 9 pin dsub serial port or go with a new or newer model. IBM's Lenovo has a great deal going with the 15.4". What do you recommend, what should I avoid?

While I'm asking about the laptops I'll ask for opinions on operating systems too. Is Vista okay with efilive or should I look to use XP? Thanks.

 

i just got my efi-live last week, and my laptop yesterday. So i am as green as you, but I just got a older Dell and it is all you will need. I am running xp as i think vista = devil.

 

With laptops as cheap as they are today there isn't much of a reason to purchase used IMO, I picked up a 2.0ghz Compaq with 2gb ram & 160gb hard drive for $330ish from bestbuy a few months back as my replacement and it works great, there are some newer laptops for a little more that get great battery life but this one works fine for me and what I use it for. Even with vista its worked flawlessly thus far(vista home premium) with our software and thus far out of the 3 vista os's I've used its worked the best if that means anything lol.

Here is the one I ended up getting http://www.hptuners.com/forum/showth...t=cheap+laptop I had $50 in credit via my best buy card that went towards it as well to make the final cost at around $330 but it was on sale for $379 at the time, I'm sure there are similar deals to be found now as well with better processors & larger hard drives.

I think the 17 in monitors in a vehicle are a bit much and most of my tuning was done inside as I just use the standalone datalogger for in vehicle scanning. For flashing even those netbooks seem to work well and most come preloaded with XP which is another plus. Most netbooks can be found for less than $300 so are pretty good value.

 

Running EFILive V-1 on a 17" duo-core 1.8 laptop with 2 gig / 160G hd and Vista Home Premium - no problems whatsoever - get about 2.5 hrs of datalogging time on a full battery.


Bird

 

How about the processors - any problems using AMD instead of Intel? Thanks for the input, it's all good help.

 

Tune and log both our cars with an hp mini netbook

 

Netbooks are great for tuning. Easy to lug around and lots of battery life. I use a Dell Mini 9.

 

I am thinking about the netbooks but wonder about the little keyboard vs big fingers. Also if an 8 / 9 inch screen would be difficult to read with sub par near up vision. Maybe I better take a first hand look at them. I was thinking about buying online.

 

The keyboard really isn't an issue. Its not like your typing a novel when tuning.

 

I just got an Asus, 10", 160G HD, 2G ram, netbook works great with my V2.
Around $430.

Around 5 hours on battery, runs XP.

Brad