Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
Need a quick solution for a super small device for traveling the world?
So, I have a friend who is traveling the world. He needs a small device for writing and occasionally accessing the internet, but needs a pretty long battery life, and most likely a second/third battery. I immediately thought about the ASUS eee PC, but I must be blind, because I can't find a good figure on battery life. Are there other better solutions for this? I even thought about a small GSM phone with a bluetooth keyboard, but I think that's more trouble then it's worth. What would you recommend?
tl;dr - My friend needs a small device for word processing and internet that is super light, somewhat cheap, has a long battery life, and can be used anywhere in the world.
tl;dr - My friend needs a small device for word processing and internet that is super light, somewhat cheap, has a long battery life, and can be used anywhere in the world.
Comments
The combo of smartphone and a full ultraportable notebook, not a netbook, is the way to go. You get the portable swiss army knife in the phone, and you can go back to the laptop when you need to do anything real-deal.
I'm looking at the HP mini-1000 or MSI Wind for doing heavy typing and even with my bear-man hands I don't think I'll have much trouble.
An ultraportable notebook is like the Fujitsu P series, Lenovo X series, Sony Vaio TT, Dell XPS M1330, Toshiba Portege, etc. They are full-on, fully powerful laptops. Core 2 duos, big hard drives, the whole shebang. They may be small, like less than 14", but they have high resolution screens. Lots of power, small package, high price. However, they also usually manage to have long battery life, often using double batteries and also having lots of battery saving features.
He's traveled the world before, but he wants to be a bit better prepared. That being said, he's fine with only using hotspots for his internet, and he doesn't think he'll have the need for the internet so often that he needs a phone to do it for him. I think he's just going to get a small GSM phone and do prepaid just so he has the ability to contact everyone.
Anyway, on the other side of things, wouldn't a netbook with a wireless bluetooth keyboard or something be better? Maybe link me a few of the ultraportable's you recommend, because we're kind of tight on time right now. I was able to pull away and check this post, that's about it.
Otherwise, I'd like to note that he really doesn't need the power. He is solely using this thing for word processing and short internet browsing. I don't see the small netbook CPU's being an issue.
Keep it coming. I really appreciate the help.
I use my laptop as my main PC but keep backups of anything important on the server. I strongly suspect my youtube-video/picture/mp3 collection is responsible for most of the space.
Hey Scott, people may have different needs and circumstances to your own.
Ok, back on topic. Assuming your friend isn't going to need much space for video or recording, the netbook with SSD (maybe an SD card too) would be a good bet. I'd recommend using Linux if you're sticking to simple task and it's easier to install programs (open synaptic, search, done) and you will almost certainly see a noticeable battery improvement.
Anyway, he told me he's perfectly fine with Linux and Abiword. Whatever is fine, he's mainly using the word processor as a diary of sorts.
Correction: Scratch the statement about battery power, the stock Linux and XP versions seem to vary from model to model in terms of battery life.
Even if you can afford only one computer, and you need it to be portable, so you only have a laptop, there is no reason to have all that data on the hard drive in the laptop. At the very least you should back it up on an external drive, use jungledisk, get a NAS, anything but keep it on the laptop drive.
Clearly there are different solutions for different needs. I'll be the first to tell you that. However, there are some technical solutions which are completely stupid because there is another solution which meets the same needs and is vastly superior.
So, do we have any specific outlooks as of right now?
The only reasonable use for a gaming laptop I have seen to date was a guy who needed to give presentations about their 3D modeling and animation work. Other than that, only in a Brewster's Millions situation would make me want something like that.
@VHB: Pens and paper, easily attainable in most places in the world. Even if you want good quality stuff, you can use the post office. Pen and paper is much preferable if you can manage it, much less stealable.
I myself have been considering an XPS M1330 as my laptop, because it can handle almost anything you throw at it, with crazy battery life for what it is. The money I save from not buying some insane 17" gaming laptop fully decked-out with overpriced components (as some of my friends have foolishly done) can be used to build a relatively inexpensive PC for gaming and serving media.
In the end it's all about the right tool for the job, and for traveling (something I intend to do a lot of during and after college) and day-to-day extensive usage, you can't go wrong with an ultraportable.
I would use a DS+voice recorder, myself.
Also, one thing people don't seem to remember is that laptops are stolen and lost like crazy. You might think it won't happen to you, but are you really going to take that risk? There's a much higher chance of your laptop being stolen in college, at an airport, around town, etc. than a hard drive in your house in a computer being stolen. There's effectively a 0% chance of something like an Amazon S3 account being stolen, unless you give someone your keys. Even if your laptop drive never crashes, what will you do if it's stolen, and all of your important data is on there and nowhere else?
But you said there was no reason to have lots of data on your laptop hard drive. There are lots of reasons. I do podcasting, video editing, music writing and lots more. Some of those files I keep on external drives, but the internal drive is quicker for both reading and writing, which isn't only more handy, it actually makes the difference between being able to record data at high rates in real time or not. Another reason is that I move my laptop about all the time when I'm using it, sometimes it is on my desk, sometimes it is in my studio, sometimes I have it on in the car to pipe music into the stereo, sometimes I use it on a plane, sometimes I use it in bed. To have to have an external hard drive plugged in just to get my files is just too much work.
For your information, I use Time Machine almost every day. If my hard drive crashed right now I'd be able to restore my macbook to how it looked like last night at midnight. On top of that I have a 400GB hard drive where I back up all my personal files (doesn't save system files), a 500GB hard drive where I backup my backup and two portable hard drives for backing up data when traveling (so if I take a load of photos while away, and my laptop is stolen, the portable drive travels in hold luggage, at least on copy of the data should make it home).
I don't mind you giving advice about backing shit up, what I do mind is you making absolute statements about what someone does or does not need. What is good for you is not always suitable for other people.
PS. I do have another computer, but I only turn it on to play NS.
Your 16GB hard drive is good for you, I need 100GB minimum, or else I have to faff about with external hard drives for almost every task.