@OzPeter said:
But if I do drop the serial port I am free to choose i7 based laptops, and in another part of my work I am testing configurations with multiple VMs so I could use the CPU power.
Or you can buy a badass non-serial-port laptop and [url="http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=421&Description=&Type=&N=2030260421+1208420613&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&OEMMark=1&OEMMark=0&PropertyCodeValue=2084:20613&PropertyCodeValue=2084:13187&PropertyCodeValue=2084:37842"]add a serial card to it[/url].