Best laptop ipurchase n 2008 for PLC programming?

We got HP 8430 laptops at work, and they have good high resolution screeens and have a serial port and 3 USB ports. One USB is on the left side all by itself, and two are on the right. No ports across the back, which can be handy when trying to balance your laptop on the top of a control panel.
 
There are other options...

As others have said buy a laptop with a real serial port, Bluetooth/serial, USB adapters/serial, PCM adapters/serial

Some are better then others
 
I have the Dell D830 and it has a nice big beautiful display. But more importantly it has a real serial port and a PCMCIA slot.

I also have a few of the Dell D630 and really like that too. Little smaller size and lighter than the hefty D830. Also has a real serial port and PCMCIA.

I have been evaluating a Toshiba Tecra M9 for the last few weeks and it is also a nice notebook. Compares real well with the Dell D630. Has all the same ports as the D630.

One gripe I have with the Toshiba though is that it appears to have been developed with Vista in mind. While it can also run XP, it is a pain to install as the installation does not natively recognize the SATA drive. The XP drivers I got from Toshiba would not allow me to install XP (or W2K3). I had to go to Intel's web site to get the files I needed to begin the installation. So XP seemed very much an afterthought.

Ok, one more gripe with the Toshiba. I hate the BIOS. First thing I do with a PC is get into the BIOS and set it up the way I want. The BIOS on this looks like something out of the late 80's. BAD!! I could not get the boot order the way I wanted: CD, Floppy, HD. It always inserted LAN as an option ( CD, LAN, Floppy, HD) so it would ALWAYS look for the PXE boot. The Dell BIOS beats this hands down.

I am about to send this unit back with a recommendation that we stick with the Dell D630. But, if you are running Vista, maybe with VMWare, the Toshiba might be a good option as it does have all the right ports.

OG
 
oregonsam said:
Old topic, but since serial ports are disapearing rapidly, ...I thought I'd ask the question again.

Dell Latitude D6XX or D8XX. True serial port and PCMCIA slot. Both a must if you are support AB SLC PLCs.

I create a dual boot on my laptop, one strictly for AB stuff the other strictly for S7.

I just love how the big name PLC software companies assume your laptop will use nothing but their software.
 
Will "USB to Serial" Converter work on AB products? I am thinking of buying a HP-DV9740us laptop and it doesn't have true serial ports. I never used a "USB to serial" before
 
If you are trying to communicate via DF1 then you likely won't have a problem if you stick with a well known brand.

If you need to communicate using DH485 with a 1747-PIC then no it will not work.

Stick with a real serial port and you will eliminate a lot of hassle.

OG
 
check out Eurocom, great lap top built 100% to your specs, mine has a built in serial port, 2 side usb ports 1 side fire wire port, 1 PCMCIA port (side) 1 MMC port, HDMI output, 2 rear USB, plus all the speaker jacks, built in subwoofer (Gotta have the good tunes when programming)..TONS on memory, Tons of disk space..the only thing they couldnt do for me on this one was a built in floppy...so i went with a usb one...works great..any operating system you want..and the plus is no propriatary bullcrap...meaning if anythig major happens just go get a windows CD and your back up and running...no specific dell drivers or any of that..
they had a 19" available..but went with the 17 for size...

the one thing is the power supplies...if they get cold they shut down....no good when the laptop is in the truck for a couple of hours then you plugin...you have to run on batteries...wouldnt be som bad but to reinable to the power supply you have to remove power and then repower....kinda silly...

but in closing i will say nothing but goodthings about eurocom...great product, good warentee...what more do you want?
 
Hi
We have Dell Inspiron 640m.
The funny thing is that it has PCMCIA slot but our card CP5512 does not goes fully inside it !!

Its seems like half PCMCIA slot. Any insight into this??
 
xyzinfo said:
Will "USB to Serial" Converter work on AB products? I am thinking of buying a HP-DV9740us laptop and it doesn't have true serial ports. I never used a "USB to serial" before

Operaghost left out the big IF.... if you are communicating to a SLC 500-503 via DH (using the PIC) you can not use the USB serial adapter, you will need to use the AB UIC, but all other that I know of will work.

You should go wireless :) Bluetooth...
 
manmeetvirdi said:
...
The funny thing is that it has PCMCIA slot but our card CP5512 does not goes fully inside it !!

Its seems like half PCMCIA slot. Any insight into this??

did you spill water on it and it shrunk? :)

Is it an ExpressCard slot and not a PCMIA slot???
 

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