What laptop to get?

[GeekDrew]

I'm looking for a laptop for someone who is a network administrator. He takes his laptop everywhere he goes... weight isn't a huge issue, he's fairly hefty and is used to carrying around a laptop, camera, zip drive, barcode scanner, and a ton of accessories.

Thus far, folks seem to be leaning toward the Inspiron 5160 or 8600. The problem is, they don't have a serial port on board. Does anyone have any experience with either the laptops, to have suggestions with them, or with serial PCMCIA cards? He needs the serial port(s) so that he can connect to cisco/3com switches for programming, via null modem to the Bogen paging system, etc.

So... any advice? Thanks in advance!

 

[w0ss]

A few of the guys where I work have new Hp with no serial ports. You can get a USB adapter for very cheap. Another item to lug around but it does work fine to console into cisco's.

 

[Gunbuster]

D Series Latitudes have Serial.

He should be getting a Latitude instead of the home line unInspiron

 

[Vegito]

they revised the 8600.. the older unit has serial/parallel.. new only has vga in the rear.. what a rip..

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: w0ss
A few of the guys where I work have new Hp with no serial ports. You can get a USB adapter for very cheap. Another item to lug around but it does work fine to console into cisco's.

Hrmmmm... I'd heard there are some incompatibilities with some devices if you use USB-->serial... I've not read too terribly much about it tho.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: Gunbuster
D Series Latitudes have Serial.

He should be getting a Latitude instead of the home line unInspiron

This is also going to be his home system, so he wants it to be rather high quality, and just able to use it at work. From what I've seen of them, I'd rather have the Inspiron than the Latitude. It's going to be more of a home laptop than a business laptop... he's just going to be working with it too. heh

Do you like the Latitude over the Insprion for some reason? I've priced comparable ones, and the Inspiron seems to be less expensive for the components included.