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I have a Carchip (http://www.carchip.com/) which I received as a gift
from a friend but has worked well.
It's a PC based solution, but you don't need the PC in the car. The
unit is only slightly bigger than the ODB connector, you just plug it
into the car and drive around.
It will log the parameters you select, like speed, battery voltage,
intake air temperature, etc. and store all the data in the unit's
onboard memory.
You then pull out the unit and connect it to your PC with a serial
cable and examine the data, look at graphs, check trouble codes, etc. etc.
For trouble codes, it can also do the usual "pull the code, turn off
the light" jobs. You "arm" it using the software to turn off the light,
then plug it in and start the car and it's gone.
What's nice about it is that you can basically leave it in all the
time if you are diagnosing an intermittent problem (a friend had a
misfire that turned out to happen only in the rain and was traced to a
spark plug wire).
Another friends' van for example would trigger a speed sensor error
at certain times and speeds. Turned out to be a missing heat shield that
caused his speed sensor to cook, but it only happened at certain speeds,
which we could see on the graphs.
...since it's so small you can also lend it to a friend, get them to
drive their car, and bring it back to you and read the code for them.
Not something you can easily do if a laptop is needed.
You can also use it to see how fast your teenager is driving, if so
inclined. Don't tell them it's installed, and just pull it occasionally
and read the logs.