Need a lap top for truck

[flood]

Soon to try and get my CDL and wondering if truckers use your laptops for work and for what if so?

just about any loptop will work if you take some care of it... even the cheap ones... i HAD a very good HP but after 4 motherboards in 3 years i can't say much good about that one (2 before i ever put the thing in the truck) i've have this HP (5 years old) running my gps and to get online i have an acre aspire one ($298) for running DDL and for faxing and printing it sits on the dash running 10-14hr a day and runs fine.

If one has a trucker GPS that would cover directions best since Mapquest/Google maps doesn't alert trucker unfriendly routes as far as I am aware.

co-pilot is the only truck gps routing program ($200 w/o gps $300 w/gps) i myself don't like it we use Delorme Street Atlas PLUS, others use M S streets & trips either will run you abound $50-$80 w/gps both are NOT truck specific but after you use them most of the time you can tell if the roads look right and i have had co-pilot route me right up to a 12'5" overpass and up to a 9 ton bridge. so no gps is going to be perfect, and as always use do dilligence and cross check every route with MCA..

The reason I ask is I see mounted laptops next to the driver to access info while behind the wheel but pre planning one could get the info needed prior to leaving for next destination.

a good laptop stand is will worth the money we us a ram-mount ($200) some others on this board have made their own but stay away from the cyber trucker laptop stand it is a WAY over priced piece of ****. it will not hold your laptop well, will not hold your screen AT ALL, and you may not able to access your drivers and usb or power plug and it is the MOST EXPENSIVE one i have seen....!

Also those with TV's in their trucks.. do you actually have access to satellite television or is it for VCR/DVD's only?

we had sat tv in our last truck just havn't put it in this one yet, runs about $6-$12 per month plus the dish setup and that can run $25-$1000.

The rabbit ears will be inoperable soon so then what?

rabbit ears work fine and will for some time to come it's NOT the antenna it's the tv that needs to have a digital tunner or for an older analog tv you need a digital convertor box

best of luck to ya

[VPIDarkAngel]

I really do not care for macs. to much trouble finding software :x

Not anymore. Parallels, VMWare, BootCamp, or VirtualBox will let you run XP on a Mac.

I'll keep my MacBook Pro. Long live metal laptops!

[Echolisa]

Wow what a resource you are!
Thanks