High performance laptop with serial (RS-232) port

you dont need one, you just need a USB-serial converter. you can also get usb-paralell converters if needed. http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4834

Well, as mentioned in my initial post - it's not an alternative using adapters. My boss tells me, although I'm not sure it's true, that adapters arent accurate enough.
So I really need to find a high performance laptop with serial integrated.

From the web somewhere:

"But if you've got something more esoteric, with tight timing
requirements, such as a chip programmer or a dongle, something that
isn't "pure", it may be that no USB device will work with it. For
example, no USB serial or parallel port (that I'm aware of, at least)
will allow you to toggle a control line faster than 500 Hz (the time
base for USB frames is 1 ms).
"

What device are you connecting to the serial port?

Alternative to serial -> USB is a Expresscard with serial port.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Features: Adds one high-speed serial port to your ExpressCard equipped computer Compatible with high-speed modems, monitoring equipment, serial networking and other serial devices Supports data rate up to 920 Kbps Built-in 128-byte FIFO buffers dramatically increase data transmit/receive speed, especially under Windows multitasking environment RoHS compliant
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I've used the serial -> usb adaptors with two devices: (1) A Digital dual trace O'scope for for transfering captured waveforms and (2) a Temperature/Dewpoint/RH Unit for downloading 30 day data dumps.

May be very difficault to find one with a serial port ( might be able to get one custom made). Dell Business laptops may have one.

Usb 2.0 - some adaptors support upto 921.6 Kbps and a few are upto 1 Mbps.

Thanx a bunch for the Expresscard tip!

I will maybe give it a go, and order a laptop without serial

I've not seen newer laptops that contain a serial connector. I have used USB to serial quite often with a lot of success.

What specific are you needing the serial connection for? I'm just trying to figure out if there might be an option for something else.

make sure the Laptop has an expressport, not all DO!!

Toughbook by Panasonic contain a serial connector

Toughbook CF-52 Intel® Core™ i5-2540M vPro™ processor

The newest notebook I've seen that's also powerful is actually my Sager NP5793. I've only used that port once to manage some old switch. You can probably find a used one, but they really don't make them anymore..

We have the same problem an adapter cannot keep up with small packet data in a high frequency stream, it simply cannot make the analog digital conversion fast enough and fails within a minute of running have tried 20 different ones. HP Probook 6550b are what we are now using has serial port i7 processor and is actually a really solid laptop. I keep trying to let HP know that the only reason I buy them is for the serial port so hopefully they continue with it on at least one model I now have 30 of these laptops so should be reason enough for them to continue. Good luck

i have the same problem and can not use the usb to serial on a programing for trains. it will run a train thru lionel but not thru mth