Search for "refurbished toughbook" on ebay, Newegg, or even just a Google search and start clicking links. In 30 seconds I found a dozen sites with refurbished toughbooks from $200 to $3000.

 

I did a bunch of research and ended up buying the 13” XPS 9360 with the super high res screen.

Thin, quite light, native card reader (if you are a VBox HD2 user this is great - no dongle required). The newer XPS only has the micro-card reader hence going for the older model.

Paid $1000 used for the highest spec available and excellent/as-new condition around 4mths ago.

Then bought a small small case from amazon that perfectly fits the laptop and entire HD2 setup without an inch to spare. PM me if you are interested in more details.

Thanks
Matty

 

Largest screen and resolution you can get, at least for using VBOX. If you want to see a lot of data and video at the same time, it helps to have the size and pixels. (older generation) 15" MBP works well in a rubberized shell booting windows 10.

 

Yep, glad I went back and bought a Retina Unibody Core i7 MacBook Pro (with HDMI out and SD card slot, natively). Works REALLY well and very rugged. Screen is bright, too. Win10 on Boot Camp.

 

A word on what NOT to buy. I just purchased an Alienware 15 R4 gaming laptop to use with my new VR iRacing setup. Works great with that, and is wonderful with data/video analysis at home. The thing is a TANK, which I could handle I think, but add to that a massive power supply and I just don't see it being portable enough. On top of that, as is the case with most gaming laptops, battery life is not great, so you would probably need to keep it plugged in all day at the track.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the computer for iRacing. It just isn't going to be going to the racetrack with me as I had foolishly hoped. Samsung HMD VR headset is pretty good btw.

 

One thing that I found is that I like using 2 monitors. I use this ASUS that I travel with, thin light put in my carry-on baggage. Can view data and video using 2 monitors. I have had my monitor for over 3 years. Best part its USB powered



https://www.asus.com/us/Monitors/MB169BPlus/

 

Why Bootcamp?
I have been running Parallels without issue for many years.
WindowsXP, Vista, Windows7, Windows10 (several instances using the link feature).
And several versions of Linux,

I use it for AIM, Motorola Software and Traqmate without issues. I keep them in separate VM's just because windows is so easily compromised or polluted.

 

Great idea!

Chris