Well I got my new laptops this last week. Dell Latitude D830. It has a real serial port! Seems to be working well and is WAYYYY faster than my old one, plus I can use it on battery power! It came with Vista Business, but we were able to downgrade to XP. Rolling back XP from SP3 to SP2 was not a short process, lots of updates (glad I didn't have to do it). Here is the specs...We bought 4 of these, 2 for our Oregon plant and 2 for our Texas plant...

Item Number


Item Description

222-7944


Latitude D830, Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, 2.20GHz, 800Mhz 4M L2 Cache, Dual Core

320-5299


15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA LCD for Latitude D830

311-5689


4.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM for Dell Latitude Notebooks

310-8713


Internal English Keyboard for Latitude Notebooks

320-5304


Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 Latitude D830

341-6440


120GB Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive 9.5MM, 7200RPM,Latitude

310-8796


Standard Touchpad for LatitudeD830

340-6895


Floppy Drive,Internal/External for Dell Latitude D-Family, Notebooks, Factory Tied

467-6059


Windows XP PRO SP3 with Windows Vista Business LicenseEnglish,Dell Latitude

310-7956


90W AC Adapter for Latitude D-Family, Factory Tied

313-5638


8X DVD+/-RW for Latitude D-Family

420-8667


Cyberlink Power DVD 8.0 Playback Software WITH Media Dell Latitude/Mobile Precision

420-8010


Roxio Creator Dell Edition,9.0Dell Latitude/Mobile Precision

430-2799


Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN (802.11g,54Mbps) Mini Card Latitude

310-8798


Resource CD w/ Diagnostics and Drivers for Latitude D830 Notebook

310-9149


Resource DVD with Diagnostics and Drivers for Vista LatitudeD830 Notebook

312-0536


9-Cell/85 WHr Primary Battery for Latitude D830

310-9147


US - System Documentation Power Cord, Latitude D830

989-3218


Dell Hardware Limited Warranty Plus Onsite Service Extended Year(s)

982-8823


Basic Support: Next Business Day Parts and Labor Onsite Response 3 Year Extended

986-0530


Basic Support: Next Business Day Parts and Labor Onsite Response Initial Year

989-3227


Dell Hardware Limited Warranty Plus Onsite Service Initial Year

991-2878


Dell ProSupport Service Offering Declined

900-9987


Standard On-Site Installation Declined

988-7689


Info, Complete Care

982-9093


CompleteCare Accidental Damage Protection, 4 Year

310-9160


Vista Premium Downgrade Relationship Notebook

310-7278


D/Port, Port Replicator for Latitude D-Family, Factory Tied

310-7280


D/Monitor Stand for Latitude D-Family, Factory Tied

462-4506


Purchase is NOT intended for resell

310-8977


Info SKU-Software and Peripherals products and solutions catalog included in system boxes

congratulation, the sad thing is that one can't walk into a store to get even half way decent laptop, one has to order it...

That is why I like the Dells. Unfortunately we just bought 7 Dell Laptops E5400 WITHOUT serial ports. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I hate when you have someone else buy your computers and they do not ask for your thoughts.

So I went back to my old laptop. Lattitude D630 with a serial port.

Thank goodness we use a lot of ethernet communications.

We use a lot of USB to serial converters and they work really well. Our company has recently started a computer leasing program so we don't have any say as to what we get and none of the new laptops have serial ports. I haven't had any problems with the USB to serial port converters we use and the newer Mitsubishi PLC's can be programmed directly with USB cables. No serial port doesn't seem to be as big an issue as it sounds....

Nice laptop! Does it run 64bit? 32bit unfortunately only utilizes 3GB ram maximum.
Myself I have a Toshiba Tecra S10 with 120GB SSD hard drive, real serial port, running WSXGA resolution (1680x1050) and recently upgraded to Windows 7. Very pleased so far!

This issue has got to die sometime - it's 2010! I can't imagine a good reason why PLCs made in the last decade don't all support Ethernet...minimally USB.

That said, I wish Dell would continue to support serial ports on their new models. You need 'em for Cisco equipment too :(

I'll just add - we've had good luck with the Rockwell 9300-USBS adapters for serial on laptops that don't have them. And the cost is reasonable - $21 US if I recall correctly.

Nathan,
Unfortunately there is still a lot of old equipment out there where you still need serial laptops.

For me, it is like giving up your blanket when you were a kid. I am old school(OK 38 years old, but still) and hate the thought of losing all those cables. Just like hard wired I/O versus devicenet. I still want to be able to touch that wire from card to output or sensor to input. But that is a whole nother topic.

It is a nice looking laptop.

No bluetooth?

That is the one thing I miss on my old laptop.

Nope no blue tooth. But man am I loving them. So much nicer than what we had before. Faster, bigger screen, keyboard works all the time. Must be a dream....

I bought a Dell Vostro 1710 some time ago. The screen is basically full HD - can fit an awfull lot of ladder/FB (paiunfull) on there - great for movies too when you are waiting for everyone else to get their act together so you can get on with commissioning the job.
I got one of the 'crook' Dells where the nVidia chips were frying the motherboard. Dell could not fix it and built me a new one.
USB only and I use the Omron USB/serial converter - is not cheap but have never had a connection problem with anything.
Omron CP1 PLCs (shoebox) come with USB 1.1 and it is so fast there is really not much need for Ethernet quite frankly unless you want to network or do SCADA.
The other PLC I use most is the Omron CJ1 - rackless - wonderful - DIN rail mount only. It has a funny connector with a special cable and a serial port as standard.
The newer CJ2 has USB and there are a number of newer quite cheap Omron processors coming out with USB. You can also buy all of these with inbuilt Ethernet/Ethernet I/P if you wish.
The 1710 runs Vista Business - I love it - have never had a blue screen of death - unlike XP Pro. I also use Virtual Box and run XP Pro inside. Runs better in Virtual Box than on it's own quite frankly. Virtual Box gives me access to all the USB/Blutooth/Ethernet resouces I could ever want that are installed in Vista Business. I can also go outside Virtual Box and wok in Vista at the same time but any resources tied up in Virtual Box are locked out in Vista until Virtual Box is shut down.
I run Unity Pro, Siemens Step 7 and AB software inside Virtual Box. Because I run a fair few brands I hate programs that leave ports open and drivers still enabled. Mucks up with everything else.
The only PLC software I run that does not put c**p all over the hard drive or leave drivers running is Omron. Unity Pro leaves the Modbius driver at least running. We all know about AB grabbing ports unless manual start - pain in the 'A'. Siemens Step 7 puts gargage all over the hard drive, I could mention several others I use that do nasty things and muck up other programs. Vitual Box is a godssend quite frankly.
Shut down Virtual Box and all the problems go away. Free too from Sun Microsystems. Wonderfull users forum - they helped me run a USB hard drive and external SATA hard drive for backups and disk image inside Virtual Box.
Just having a good look at Windows 7 - with Virtual Box of course - although all the reports so far on the XP Pro mode are pretty good. But we all run industrail software and it does not always behave as expected in compatability mode - hence Virtual Box. It looks pretty good and may be the very first Microsucks operating system that I have ever purchased before SP1!!!
The laptop is big and heavy by the way but the screen makes it all worthwhile. Has Bluetooth too - hook up to Promi Bluetooth serial ports on my PLCs up to 100 metres away. Great - no one looking over my shoulder all the time. Sit outside in the open air and watch/debug PLCs have a cup of coffee and a smoke and everyone thinks you are having a bludge! Also made sure I bougfht the big battery - not light either - turn off all energy saving garbage and the thing runs for a couple of hours on battery. Will probably never buy a laptop with a serial port again to be honest - I hesitated when I bought this one and kept my slow, small screen, old HP. I now use it for printing wire labels.
One thing I did buy was a backpack that was large enough to carry the monster. Not fun with the Dell bag over one shoulder, a tool bag in hand and then climbing the arch on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Getting too old for that - the backpack is a great help and lots of room for cables, CDs/DVDs with manuals on them etc. Even room for the really nice Logitech Nuovo keyboard, numerical keyboard and a really good Logitech laser mouse. Also carry a couple of spare Energiser AA batteries for the mouse etc. Wireless broadband also of course - a road warriors essential.