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My old IBM thinkpad (14" screen) might be kicking the bucket soon. (or just needs a new HD) I have my eye on an old Dell d630 d430 or e6400.

What size screen does your tuning laptop have? Do you prefer larger or smaller?

A netbook would be ideal IMO. I use a full size Dell but I would like something smaller with better battery life. Resolution isn't a priority. You can read datalogs on an 8.8" screen just fine.

I started with a "portable desktop" because that's what I had from my life of contract assignments and constant moving. 17" screen, heavy, and poor battery life. 2 hours on a good day. The large screen was nice as I could see it easily from the driver's seat. That was its only advantage.

Its replacement was a 15.6" screen laptop with only mildly better battery life and an awful screen. 3 hours, tops.

I liked the size of the 15.6" for general laptop use including tuning, but if it's for tuning only something smaller like 14" or even 12" would still be ok. My primary shopping criteria if buying currently would be screen quality and battery life, not screen size. I can't count the number of times I had to relocate my parking spot just so I could read my screen. I'd want something that could go at least 3-4 hours on a single charge. I don't think that's too difficult to do in the current market.

Find something with a built-in Bluetooth antenna. You can get a dongle to plug into your MS box these days that will allow you connect to the box wirelessly. Saves a lot of fumbling with cords and cables.

Jeremy

I use a small HP netbook, so much easier to use than a big laptop.

Good & Tight wrote:I use a small HP netbook, so much easier to use than a big laptop.

Screen size? Touch screen?

Nebraska_e28 wrote:

Good & Tight wrote:I use a small HP netbook, so much easier to use than a big laptop.

Screen size? Touch screen?

HP mini.. did a quick search.

http://netbooks.findthebest.com/l/10/HP-Mini-210

Good & Tight wrote:HP mini..

Thats what I use too.

I haven't looked in a while, but if you primarily need Autotune and the like, there are Android apps that work with MS now. I'm not sure how well or what their exact functionality is, but if you're shopping for new hardware it's worth a look. The Nexus 7 is a nice bit of kit for the price, and less expensive than any but the crappiest of notebooks.

Jeremy

At one point I was tuning with a 17" HP. That was a bit ungainly. I now tune with a 13" but a netbook would be awesome for tuning.

I use an old Dell Latitude c640 and it does just fine.

asus 10" eee pc 1002ha, 3.5-4 hour run time even after several years and works great, the small size is handy and aluminum cover may add some toughness, the only complaint i have is it doesn't have enough video to run my slingbox when i am in a motel with crappy tv but otherwise it works well. the lack of a optical drive on a netbook can be mostly gotten around with a thumb drive and a computer that does have a drive, i had a usb powered dvd burner that worked great but i think my grandma crammed it up her ass along with the laptop gps receiver it was stored with, haven't seen either in ages after she decided to rearrange my room

I'm using a dell mini 9 netbook. It has a sshd and is pretty quick for what it is. I bought it a few years ago for around $200 and its been great as a tuning laptop. It only has a 8 gig sshd, but the prices have come down a lot so I may upgrade to a 64 gig in the future. The 8 gig has been fine so far since I'm only running TS and MLV on it. I have also used my 13" MacBook Pro and it also worked great.

macbook pro