Auto Guiding Equipment Advice

[adamw]

I have never attempted auto guiding before and do not yet have a guide camera. I have done limited imaging unguided with my neq6 pro. I will be using my equinox 120 pro with focal reducer and canon dslr for imaging on a dual mounting bar with an st80 on a skywatcher guidescope mount for guiding. I am considering the LVI smartguider 2 as a standalone guider. I have spoken to 2 people who use this system and both recommended it and said it is reliable and fairly easy to use also that it was preferable to the cheaper Skywatcher synguider autoguider. I have also noticed the starlight xpress lodestar autoguider on FLO’s website.

My questions are

1. Is the Lodestar a standalone system without needing a laptop like the LVI and if so is one better than the other?
2. How do standalone systems compare to using a laptop based system (of which I know even less about).

Thanks
Adam