I use Lenovo IdeaPad S205 (11.6" screen) for personal stuff when I travel for business. I found it the best compromise betwee 10" and 13" laptops. With upgraded memory it has handled everything short of heavy photoediting and gaming in the past 1.5 years. Otherwise, I just carry my Sony tablet with a blueteeth keyboard.

 

from those i know who use laptops to tune their cars they all have stuck with small 13inch -15inch laptops and use old school XP (or run virtual xp environment) nothing fancy units. Netbook screens are small and have crap resolution. When i asked my buddy about using a netbook his complaint was the screen. How it would squish the tuning software when compared to his 13inch laptop that showed the entire screen and is easy on the eyes.

 

sysadmin here.

stay away from the netbook.

the memory is never enough for whatever you plan on doing and will have to be upgraded and the sheer inability of getting decent usage out of it unless it is plugged into an AC is another issue.

You are better off getting something with an Core I3 and like 4gb of ram running whatever version of Windows 7/8.

I fixed my buddies laptop who was using it for tuning when it started getting the good ol' BSOD from lack of memory. It worked okay for tuning, but he is much happier with a more powerful unit.

Better to spend a little bit more money up front rather than having to reinvest again in a short period of time.

 

I never understood the point of a netbook. The keyboard is far too small to do anything on. Just use your MacBook.

 

You don't have to use parallels, didnt it come with bootcamp? Bootcamp allows you to boot into either osx or windows. I have a small windows XP partition on my MacBook, I just hold the option button when I turn it on and can choose.

If you're out of space just upgrade the HD and partition a small space for windows. Get the best of both worlds, you have a nice MacBook, why downgrade to a netbook?

 

My wife works for Acer, and has had a couple of netbooks. The keyboard is a little small for my hands, but the killer is the lack of storage. Slow processors and usually minimal GB's of storage.

I'd prefer a tablet, but that's just me.

 

Can't tune on your MacBook? I've had a couple net books. Mainly the MSI wind, but again if u want something snappy and quicker I'd suggest sticking with your laptop or a 13inch I'd suggest a MacBook Air or something. Too bad there isn't enough stuff working for tablets. Sounds much more agile for working on/in a car.

 

Thats what I what I plan on, ONLY tuning but I may use it for soft browsing looking up tuning stuff so I can have the bookmarks saved on it. I remember you telling me about yours shutting off on you and you scared the living hell outta me LOL.

OOOHHH thanks Will do!

Sweet thanks for feedback but I think its bluetooth :P

I was thinking about just getting a different laptop but the prices for those are 2-300 more usually. I'm cool with getting xp because I could upgrade it later if I wanted.

I have no use for a big HDD or ram exceeding 2gb ram. I'm pretty sure a netbook is efficient enough to running tuning software and the only thing that wouldn't be is if it had 1gb ram right? Upgrading ram is cake. Windows 7/8 seem to have issues with some tuning software from what I've heard so I plan on booting XP on whatever laptop/netbook I get so I don't have any issues.

I don't have big man hands so the keys on a netbook arent an issue. I have maybe 3GB space at the moment on my 250gb macbook. I DONT have space for a partition. I mayyy start deleting stuff so I can do it though but it seems like more hassle with drivers for programs/ tatrix cable.

I'd prefer a tablet as well but if a tatrix cable or hardwire accessory isn't compatible I don't want it. I havent read up on that link that wong3r posted yet so maybe there is a hardwire solution but I have had experiences with bluetooth dongles that lag or are slightly off. A tune cannot be slightly off, it needs to be precise. Keyboard being small is okay for me and I dont need tons of storage and I wouldn't think tuning software would need a fast processor. I would guess 1 Ghz is okay

 

I'm not gonna get rid of my macbook. I dont need speed or anything. Just open rom raider, ecu flash, and internet explorer here n there.

 

It is bluetooth; fully aware of that. But James May on Top Gear oftentime calls it "blueteeth" as a joke, which is how I started doing it

 

Complete waste of money if you have another computer already. I Bought a netbook when the specs were first getting reasonable, probably use the thing a couple times out of the year. Fast forward a couple years and I buy a tablet when the specs are starting to get good, probably use the thing a couple times a year. lol

 

2gb of ram won't get you by on even the most baseline version of Windows 7. The last thing you need is for your netbook to freeze up while trying to write to your ECU and brick it.

 

I have a Chromebook I use as my 2nd PC. Mostly for sitting in front of the PC surfing the web. It's cheap, the battery lasts for days, and it's decently quick.

If you're looking to run specific apps it's probably not the best choice since it only runs chrome based web apps.

 

Damnit, here I am trying to give you a hard time and you did it on purpose!

We shall see but I'm not sure capabilities a mac has while running parallels and what hardware issues I may run into. I kind of want a tablet as a head unit in my car.... :/

I don't plan on running windows vista or 7. I plan on running windows xp. I would downgrade the netbooks OS.

Well at least it sounds like its nice! haha maybe I'll see if I can route or hack one of the tablets mentioned and get it working how I want then I'd have tuning in my car 24/7 with my hotspot.

 

Sidenote: Make sure there are XP drivers for your netbook's components when downgrading.