Serial Port Performance

My robotics team needs to purchase a laptop which can run windows XP and has a serial port.
Dell laptops seem like a good deal, but we need to be sure of the performance of the serial port
When uploading code with a native serial port on our old laptop, it took <1min, but using a usb to serial adapter on another computer it took >30 mins. Will the serial port on the dell laptop port replicator be fast or slow, because we upload code often enough that we need it to be fast
and is there a laptop manufacturer that has native serial ports on their laptops if the dell is slow

My Executioner has a serial port on it, I NEVER thought anyone would need it. How do I test the speed for you to see if it is at a level that is what you need?

Plesae tell me this is one of those fighting robots!

i also wish it was one of the fighting robots. but its the FIRST robotics orgaization. for high schools. Ramming form too far away is not even allowed.
the best we got was when we used a hook on our robot to (illegally) pull over another robot