Just bought a tuning laptop for the car
 

I have been looking for a used laptop to put in my car with little to no success. Yes, I could find something cheap enough for the job, but it had little or no ability to be upgraded should I decide it needs to do more than just talk with my Hydra. As always, I checked the Dell outlet site and came across the Mini. 8.9" display, 1.6ghz Atom processor, 1gb memory, 8gb solid state hard drive (no moving parts), wireless card, and Windows XP. With one year warranty and it is BRAND NEW, I got it for $319 plus shipping and tax. It should be here in a couple of weeks, but it looks like the easiest laptop possible to integrate with the car.

link to this sic deal please?

Search Dell Mini 9

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Details

Just go to the dell website and look in the bottom left corner. You are looking for the Dell Outlet. Most of these are systems that were assembled but people canceled the order or had delivered and sent back for one reason or another. I don't care if it was used before, it still has the original warranty and it is going to sit in my car anyway. I should have pics in about a week, according to dell it shipped out yesterday :)

These are called netbooks and they are popping up everywhere.
They have a Acer model at Staples for 350 with a 120gb hd, but it has moving parts. Best buy, and target also sell a version, some have linux. They are meant to be a 2nd on the go/ access the internet computer, but I think they will work great for tuning purposes. I plan on mounting one in my glove compartment eventually.

Actually I am typing on the Acer right now :) After doing a little more research, I found the 120gb version. The Dell should be here in the next day or so, but Walmart has a 15 day return timeline if for some reason I don't like the Acer. The wife is so impressed with it, she wants me to sell my huge 17" Dell 9300 and buy her one to use on the couch. Also, with the extra hd space, I can load up a couple dozen movies on this thing, buy a usb gps receiver and also use google maps. Maybe I will look into a data plan when our cell contract is up and get a receiver for my laptop :) That would be pimp. Oh yeah, and I can also use it for tuning.

Well I hooked it up to the car tonight and everything seems to work ok. Haven't tried doing any tuning with it yet. The screen resolution does limit some of the display options, but since I have the 2.5 version of the software and the Hydra firmware, the GUI is really wonky anyway. Most of the stuff on the screen is all I will ever need to look at anyway.

Ok, so the Dell sucks. It is even SMALLER than the Acer and does a lot less. I was expecting the solid state drive to be nearly instantaneous response. It isn't. And the fact that you can't do anything else with it without plugging in an external device. I am sending the Dell back. I have the Acer Aspire One right now and I love it. I am probably going to send this current one back as well and get the new one with the 160gb hard drive and a 6 cell battery (vice 3 in this one). Only costs $25 more than what I spent on this one and, if you get it from Amazon, comes with free shipping.

A hair under $400 and we have a full fledged laptop that you can do anything with. And it is about the size of a book. Should be able to fit in the glovebox or behind the seat with no problems. Maybe a neat mount under the seat with a touchscreen from Ebay... OOhh...

You should check out the Asus Eee 1000h too. The screen is bigger an the keyboard is almost regular sized. That's what I'll be running HPtuners on.

Frank

Sweet deal. I have almost that is my used one. I paid $189.00 gas to drive back twice, for him to refix it twice. $30.00. Plus I need a battery.

That compact of a pc will be nice.

Size is the enemy :) Resolution is sometimes a problem though. Mine has the same resolution as the EEE you talked about, but my Hydra software wouldn't work unless I set the task bar to auto hide. Apparently it needs more vertical space to run correctly. No problem with the processor speed though.

I just got my new one yesterday. I decided it was worth the extra $30 or so to double the battery life and also add some hard drive space. The Asus is still a little cheaper than some other ones, but it is not the cheapest. It all depends on what you are going to use it for.

Posi... Are you saying the Hydra2.5 software worked in 1024x 600 with the task bar hidden?

I am looking at a UMPC with that res. Not really for tuning but to upload a different maps or emergency roadside troubleshooting.

Whoever is looking for a cheap new "netbook" should be looking on ebay right now. I just got a brand new (originally ordered a 904HA but decided smaller was better) Asus 900HA for under $200 on ebay using a coupon and the live.com cashback offer. You can't beat that. And notably different from your dell it has a 160gb HD that not only obviously has a ton more room than your SSD did but is supposed to be much much quicker. So even if you're going to get another Acer order it on ebay with the live.com cashback offer and save yourself a buttload.

I'm thinking of this one also, but it doesn't come with a CD/DVD read/write drive, and I'm thinking this is going to be somewhat of a problem when it comes to downloading software. A stand-alone CD/DVD is one solution but that adds significantly to the cost. What's the smart way (read cheap, fast, and easy) to download software?

wireless network.

And just to clarify, I sent the Dell back. I got the Acer one with the 160gb hard drive and the 7 hour battery life. Of course, now I see it the Asus one with almost the same specs is $50 cheaper at newegg with free shipping :( I have already sent two laptops back and I fear the karma police will come get me if I send another one back for having nothing wrong with it.

Thanks.

I use my EEE with the Hydra 2.5 software, only bad part of the EEE is you have to hold the function key to make changes, because the up/down keys are the same as the pageup/pagedown keys.

I finally got a netbook. I got the Acer Aspire one and I think I'm pretty satisfied so far. It has 8gb solid hard drive, and a expandable SD card slot and comes with an additional 8gb card and windows xp for under $300! Now I've got more of a reason to get mspnp!

I'm surprised to hear you didn't like the Dell. They had a sale on their outlet for 20% off and free shipping during xmas, I got a 16gb SSD with 1gb ram one for $279. So far I love mine. XP did run a bit crap but I think it's due to the bloat that dell includes, formatting it and putting a blank copy of XP works well. I put OSX on mine though. Also installed a bluetooth module and a 2gb ram card. I have a ddr2 1gb so-dimm extra now if anyone wants. Battery is only 3 hours but it's fine for the price.

I looked at the Asus ones but the 900's keyboard was too small for me. I could deal with the 1000 but I didn't want to spend that much since I had a laptop before and I never really used it much.