Laptops

[boycey9]

What are you guys doing for laptops these days, I cant find any at a reasonable price with a serial port included and have had bad experiences with external USB to serial adapters.

Interested to hear what others are using.

 

[Billz66]

HP elitebook 8460W - great laptop - only drawback is smaller screen size- has Internal 3G SIM card , i7 , 16G ram 650G HDD , No serial port
- I use a USB-Serial adaptor with prolific chipset - works fine for Switches routers , MCD console access .
- most of our installs are virtual these days so MCD console access is via SSH anyway

If I never did anything I'd never done before , I'd never do anything.....

 

[bobcheese]

You will do well to find a laptop with a serial connection tbh. However, the last DELL one I ordered (couple of years back) you could specify as a optional extra. might be worth a look

 

[sarond]

@Billz66,

Would love something like that, don't think my employee would cough up the cash though.

 

[LoopyLou]

Have not seen a laptop in three years that still has a built in serial port. Maybe the Panosonic tough books might still have them given that they are meant for field work however you pay a huge! premium for them. What I have is a T420 thinkpad ( W7 Pro ) with a serial adapter and an I bought a refurbed Dell Latitude D630 ( built in serial ) which is what we used to use. I keep the Dell as a backup and use it as backup if I run into issue with the Thinkpad. I don't put anything on the Dell other then the very basics and have Microsoft updates shut off. Keeping the secondary laptop also allow me to leave it at a site when capturing wireshark traces etc and not having to worry about it. That said the T420 has been fine up to this point even with all the corporate crap on it.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

 

[jrgood0852]

I use a Dell Vostro 3560. Windows 7, 6 GB RAM. Has been fine for any Mitel I have had to do. You will need the USB adapter for serial, though. Thanks.

Always look out for the next guy because it may be you!

 

[danramirez]

I use Radio Shack USB to Serial adapter and Lenovo X201 Windows7. Never have had any problem with serial console ports.

http://www.hatkana.com

http://www.wtelecom.com

 

[Lundah]

I've got a refurbed HP 6910p that I picked up for $209 from Newegg about a year ago. Works good enough for what I do with it. 80Gb HDD, Win7 Pro so I can run XP mode if I have to fire up IMAT or Folio Viewer for the old stuff. I have a Belkin USB serial port adapter, biggest issue I have with it is that the Com port assigned to it changes if I plug it into a different USB port.

 

[jrgood0852]

Lundah sounds like the ticket!

Always look out for the next guy because it may be you!