Laptop suitable for f/t Bushcraft Traveller... any thoughts?

[ged]

just like to point out that there's nothing 'nuclear' about a microwave they use radio waves ...

Hehe, I think he was just joking about the nuclear reactor. But my microwave in France is 95 percent nuclear powered (as is everything that runs off mains electricity in France ).

 

[pennywood]

I gave up travelling with laptop,

What I did was buy good high speed external harddrive, which is in waterproof, drop proof case,

I installed portable desktop that allowed my to install my software on which allows me to run the programs from any computer (even without admin rights etc )

Now I just go to internet cafe, library, friends, or works computer plug in drive and run all my software from it. no records cookies, passwords are stored on host computer but as extra measure you can run use firefox portable from the drive.

With art/photo software I use GIMP and Inkscape, all open source that run from you external drive. I have an online storage account where I back everything up too.

I can run, open any microsoft documents etc,

Best bit is it all free, expect the actual externaldrive

 

[sandbender]

"...What I did was buy good high speed external harddrive...from any computer...I just go to internet cafe, library, friends, or works computer plug in drive and run all my software from it. no records cookies, passwords are stored on host computer but as extra measure you can run use firefox portable from the drive...

I have a copy of Ubuntu Linux on a USB stick on my keychain (you don't need to use Ubuntu's USB stick any 2GB stick will do), It does work quite well however not everyone will be happy with you trying to boot up from an external drive and will prevent you from doing so. So friends and relatives PCs will be fine, cybercafes maybe not. Additionally if a cybercafe does let you boot up from your drive, their server may be able to sniff out what your doing online so do be careful and take precautions.

For online storage I have been using 'Dropbox' and I have no complaints so far.

Edited to Add:

If you are backpacking in France many cybercafes use Apple computers, which makes booting up from a USB stick a little more difficult.

 

[Minotaur]

I gave up travelling with laptop,

What I did was buy good high speed external harddrive, which is in waterproof, drop proof case,

I installed portable desktop that allowed my to install my software on which allows me to run the programs from any computer (even without admin rights etc )

Now I just go to internet cafe, library, friends, or works computer plug in drive and run all my software from it. no records cookies, passwords are stored on host computer but as extra measure you can run use firefox portable from the drive.

With art/photo software I use GIMP and Inkscape, all open source that run from you external drive. I have an online storage account where I back everything up too.

I can run, open any microsoft documents etc,

Best bit is it all free, expect the actual externaldrive

I sort of agree, and disagree about the electronics in the wilds.

I think what you want to do is on to a loser, and that the above idea has more merits. I would be tempted to do it with a USB stick like this.

Kingston Micro Reader

4GB stick and you can add memory cards, so between your phone, and camera you should be able to play when you find a computer. Put potable apps on it, and you should have no big problems, but I would try it at as many places as possible, like a library.

This product fills me with hope, but only up to 2GB SD cards. Ectaco Jetbook Mini. 90 hours from 4 batteries, add in a battery powered MP3 player, and your phone, and that set up could work.

Something like this to charge phone, and batteries. Powertraveller Powermonkey-Explorer Best bit, you can charge its battery using USB, so when you editing etc, or uploading, change it. Would be tempted to have two batteries.

Androidgold's A2
This looks very interesting from a laptop point of view, but you never getting something with a lot of charge. Also would be nice to be able to carry a spare battery, but the above charger not a bad alternative.

Think that the big thing, if it runs on normal batteries, you can buy some if worse comes to worse.

I like the idea of being able to read, listen to music, and take pictures, not sure anything else is practical at moment. Would be nice to be able to journal as well but have to carry a notebook anyway. Also what else do you need to do?

 

[TeeDee]

Interesting Thread. Good luck with your travels.

 

[atross]

Interesting thread, I am sure that british gas are selling a boiler that comes with a tubine installed in the flue? May be worth checking it out to see if you can just get hold of the flue?

Also on the solar panels, at the war and peace show this year I think drop zone had some surplus closing solar panel kits! Awsome bits of kit that packed down very small. May be worth giving them a call

 

[gunnix]

I've also had the same challenge when living in a caravan, a tipi, a wagon and while travelling.

Some years back I was choosing between a usb key and a portable harddrive and went for the harddrive because it's a lot cheaper per gb. I got one of the bigger capacities at the time and still use it as there's plenty of space. Just as mentioned above it can be loaded with apps, even photoshop.

Some time later the windows 7 toshiba netbook became my personal pc and it does about anything I want: simple editing in photoshop, writing in word, excel spreadsheets and I even made a few videos using adobe premiere. This was not possible with the default configuration though. A netbook has to be tweaked to get some use out of it: Blackviper Windows 7 supertweaks.

Windows 7 is great and is not at all as restrictive as Vista. For many it's a welcome upgrade to XP.

When the performance is dealt with you are still left with the small screen real estate. This is solved by autohiding windows taskbar and using the screen saving features available in msoffice and browsers.

Ofcourse a 12,13 or 14 inch laptop have more screen real estate. There I particularly find the Asus UL30 or 40 interesting.

Finally a laptop with good battery life is real luxuory when camping. If you have a laptop with 10h batterylife you can just charge it every few days.

To me the solar chargers and wind turbines are to inefficient and expensive. Since you're on a tight budget like me I don't expect you'll get any decent solar panels for little money. It would be cheaper to have a spare battery so you can have more time between charges.

I'd recommend the Toshiba NB305 or the ASUS UL30.

Good luck!