Please help identify best old laptop

Question

I'm searching for a laptop that I think my ultimate laptop doesn't exist. Can you help me identify what would be the best/newest laptop that meets the requirements listed below? I'm guessing that my minimum requirements will require me to find a laptop no longer made and that I'll have to find the best of previously made laptops that had those features. That's where I'm looking for your help

Laptop absolute minimum requirements: PC built for at least Windows XP, on-board parallel port (not docking station), on-board serial port (not docking station), at least 2 x USB

Ultimate laptop: Windows 10 64-bit machine, on-board parallel port (not docking station), on-board serial port (not docking station), at least 2 x USB, Wifi, Ethernet connection, RAM size = ?, HDD size = ?, CPU speed/type = ?

Minimum laptop: Windows XP 32-bit machine, on-board parallel port (not docking station), on-board serial port (not docking station), at least 2 x USB, RAM size = ?, HDD size = ?, CPU speed/type = ?

For RAM amount, HDD size and CPU speed/type, I say question mark for all of those because it's not all that important for what I need it for. If the laptop was built for at least XP, it should have enough RAM, HDD and CPU capacity by default for what I need. But of course, I'd like the biggest, fastest, best of them. Most important is the on-board parallel and serial port. The latest/newest/best I've been able to identify so far is a Dell Latitude D610. I've found it difficult to search for laptops that meet these requirements, so I thought I'd ask the people familiar with them, the community here.

Can anyone identify the newest/fastest/best, etc. laptop that comes closest to my "ultimate laptop", while meeting the minimum requirements? Thanks in advance.

Joe

DELL-Cares · Answer

We tried reaching you on a private message but did not receive a response. Please feel free to reply to the private message whenever you are available.

U2CAMEB4ME · Answer

Welcome to the Dell Community @joemagiera

A few years back I had a customer that had similar requirements???

He needed to run an old diagnostic program using DB-25.

His laptop of choice was the IBM-T30.

1 x parallel - IEEE 1284 (EPP/ECP) - 25 pin D-Sub (DB-25)
1 x serial - RS-232 - 9 pin D-Sub (DB-9)
1 x display / video - VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15)
1 x modem - phone line - RJ-11
1 x network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45
1 x infrared IrDA
1 x microphone - input - mini-phone mono 3.5 mm
1 x audio - line-in - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm
1 x headphones - output - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm
2 x USB 4 pin USB Type A
1 x display / video - S-video output - 4 pin mini-DIN
1 x docking / port replicator 240 pin docking

https://www.cnet.com/products/thinkpad-t30-series/

Best regards and good luck in your search,

U2

joemagiera · Answer

Hi U2CAMEB4ME,

I very much appreciate your reply. I looked up the IBM T30. It looks like it was released in May 2002. The Dell D610 was released in 2005. For PCs, that's a pretty big time frame difference. I didn't look into any deeper, but my initial thought is the D610 is a faster, more powerful model.

Maybe I need to rephrase my question and simply ask "what is the last known model of laptop that had both an on-board parallel and serial port?".

I note that Windows 7 was released in 2009. My guess is no new laptops has on-board parallel and serial ports anymore by then. Bummer. I do see that XP 64-bit came out in 2005. I wonder if there were any 64-bit laptops with a parallel & serial?

Joe

nyc10036 · Answer

@joemagiera

I have a D620 which has onboard serial but no onboard parallel port.

However, it mates with Dell's PRX01 Docking Station / Port Replicator which does have a parallel port. This port replicator works with Dell D series laptops. But since you insist on no docking station, it looks like the D610 is the last laptop with onboard parallel port.

Also, there are PCMCIA to parallel port adapters. Seems to be hit or miss based on reviews.

.

Latitude

Please help identify best old laptop

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