Laptop worries?

Buy a $300 netbook to do your email, skype, photos etc. and sell it when you get home (this is what we did). I would never bring my Macbook on a trip like that as there are too many opportunities for it to get damaged and stolen.

Rebecca,

I've resisted travelling with a Laptop so far, and would NEVER take my MacBook Pro for a couple of reasons - it's too large and heavy to haul around in my Backpack (as well as my camera gear), and also it would be devastating if it were ever lost, stolen or damaged. I've considered buying a Netbook, but haven't made a decision on that yet (see discussion on Netbooks in an earlier Thread in this section).

Regarding where to put the Laptop when you're out touring, it's very probable that even if your room did have a safe, it wouldn't be large enough to accommodate a MacBook. Some people just lock Laptops inside luggage and others leave them at the front desk for safekeeping.

There are quite a few suggestions here regarding travel with Laptops. You might want to have a look at Kent's suggestions for searching the HelpLine, and have a look at previous posts.

I'll be heading away on another trip shortly, but will just rely on Hotel computers or Net Cafes this time in addition to my IPod Touch (in locations where I can find free Wi-Fi).

Cheers!

I take my netbook with me everywhere I go. My Acer Aspire One weighs less than 2¼# and has a footprint smaller than a piece of office paper. In it's carrying case, with the charger and mouse, it's still less than 5#; some women have purses bigger and heavier than that.

But the netbook is small, light, and relatively inexpensive. I wouldn't want to go everywhere with a big laptop.

As for selling it when I get home, that would be like exchanging all of my Euro when I get home. I assume I will return.

I should clarify what I mean when I say "sell it when you get home".

If you are buying a netbook for the sole reason of traveling to Europe and you don't expect to use it again in the near future, you can probably recoup 75% of it's cost if you sell it right away. It would be a waste to buy one and not use it for years after your trip. That is the risk of having another PC in addition to your main one. It helps mitigate the initial cost of $300+ for something you didn't expect to spend on the trip.

I am on the fence on this one right now
I was planning on taking my mac book pro...I decided after last trip of not having a laptop I would never travel again with out it.

I was thinking that I would love to have it so I could download pictures (I prefer to work in Raw format) and back them up, I also will take some sort of thumb drive or external drive (have not decided on this). I mean an 8gig card only holds 844 pictures in Raw format.

That being said yes I am worried about something happening to the macbook.
so I am very much on the fence. I have another laptop i could take with me but it is bigger and heavier so I don't want to take it.

further if there is no safe I take one of those locks which will enable you to lock it to something solid. Like a packsafe sort of lock.

Do you travel with a laptop in the US?

Other than getting a plug adaptor non of the issues with travelling with a laptop are unique to Europe.

When I stay in hostels I leave my netbook locked up in the locker provided. When I stay at hotels I leave it in the room. I will leave it buried in my bag, and I never had a problem so far. I know there is a chance it will be taken, but realistically it is a very small chance. But I would never chance it with an expensive laptop. I have the Asus 1000 HE-which is great!- and I love having this with me on my travels. Wifi is everywhere! McDonalds, bars, cafes and coffee shops have it as well as every place I have stayed at. It is so handy to download your photos, and I have been keeping a blog of my trip.

I have an HP Netbook and love it!!
Its not as fast as a "real" notebook, but to check email, surf, etc. its great, and yes it fits in my purse. :)

Rebecca, if you opt NOT to bring a laptop, there's plenty of Internet cafes.

Lee, I'd be interested to know your experiences with the ACER Aspire One? I wanted to ask the question here rather than via PM as I felt the answers might benefit others. As many specific details as possible would be good - how well the Trackpad works, battery life, display quality, ease of Keyboard use, whether the HD is partitioned, software included with the unit, etc.

The model to beat right now appears to be the ASUS 1000 HE. I've looked at both models and as it turns out the ACER is "on sale" at Future Shop this week for Cdn$349.99. From what I've been able to determine, there's a new version coming so the stores are getting rid of old stock. That's a very attractive price, and I might be tempted to at least have a look at them. The ASUS would be about another $100.

Ken, the Aspire One works for me.

Trackpad: I've never liked the pads on ANY laptop I've owned. I use a very small USB mouse.

I wouldn't say battery life is a plus (~2 hrs), but then I don't think the original battery is good on any netbook. I'm probably going to spring for a bigger battery. But I usually use mine mostly in my room at night, wall-powered, when I have Wifi access, so battery life generally isn't a problem. It would be nice, however, to use it for longer on the flight over and back.

The display is fine. I'd prefer a full height, but that's what you give up for the small size.

The keyboard is a little tight, but I have thin fingers. I still have to look at the keyboard now and then to make sure I'm in the right place. It's still better than using a local cafe keyboard.

Software: I think it came with a demo of Office 2006(?). The last good version of Office was 2000. That's what I use. I just transferred it from my old notebook. Other than Word for a journal and Exel for schedules and expense reports, I don't need much. My camera came with all the photo editing software I need, and I use Notepad for my website files. Oh, yes; it comes with Internet Explorer, which is important.

Partitioned HD: You would have to mention that! Yes it comes partitioned - the first partition is the recovery stuff, instead of a recovery CD. After that it is just one huge partition. I like to put data in a separate partition from the system/software stuff to facillitate backup. I have partitioning and backup software, but I still haven't figured out for sure how to go about it without losing the recovery partition. But, I don't store a lot of stuff on my computer, and it does have an SD card slot (in addition to a combined MS, SD, etc slot), so I just got a card, and I put all my data there. It's nice, because I can take the card out and put it in my desktop before and after the trip.

That's my compaint about Acer; I called them to ask how to repartition the disk, and they were clueless. My cat knows more (almost nothing - he likes the mouse) about computers than the entire customer service department at Acer. It's pathetic.

I have no particular preference for the Acer. I got it because, at the time, it was the first netbook with a decent sized display for $350. I'm sure there are other comparable ones. My wife just got a 10.1" Asus. She likes it because it is white (I guess that is important).

While we just purchased a netbook for our next European trip (Italy & England this summer), we've always taken along a Toshiba laptop for email and confirming reservations and editing photos as we travel, and have ALWAYS left it in the hotel room, plugged in and charging, with NO problems whatsoever. That's our experience. The only reason for the netbook is to reduce the size and weight of the thing as we travel.

Hey Ken, we had an Aspire One as well.

We found the trackpad was awful, but we could get by with it. The location of the buttons were the worst as they are on the sides. We used a small mouse most of the time.

Battery was OK, it would last a couple of hours.

We bought the solid state drive version and I had all the aspirations of installing WinXP on it, but quickly discovered the drive is not built to handle the read/writes needed and was very slow. Put Linux back on it and managed with Linux versions of Picasa, etc.

Expansion of storage with SD cards were kind of nice.

Overall it was a decent computer to bring a long, but it had some deficiencies that would make me consider a different model next time.

As I have no complaints about our Asus EEE 701, I would recommend anything that they put out. :D

If it is battery life that you are wanting, my Asus 1000HE lasts around 7 hours with wifi on. It will push to almost 9 hours when I disable wifi and it was great to have on flights as it never ran out of power. Because of the bigger battery it makes the netbook about half a pound heavier than the 3 cell battery models.

I actually went to Europe for a whole THREE weeks without a computer and lived to talk about it. Now there's something to tell the kids.

I've never even considered bringing a laptop with me but I'm travelling with my brother and he just showed me a really small one that he's bringing. I don't really want him to bring it but he's insistent.

It's small but it's still going to be heavy if we have to carry it in the backpack from one tourist attraction to another (we're travelling in Florence, Rome, Pompeii, etc.)

I've never stored something in hotel safes before... is it usually reliable? I guess we'd have to package the laptop up so it doesn't look like one. I'll see if there will be a safe inside the hotel rooms as well, but won't housekeeping have the key to that as well? Maybe I'll bring a combination lock with me.

I eithr lock mine in the room safe or I lock it in the luggage.

If you have concerns about lugging a big laptop around, you might consider bringing along an ipod Touch (aka iTouch) and just connecting via wifi. Reading mail is easy but responding to email can be annoying due to the touch-screen keyboard, so emails you send might be just a paragraph or so. it's also easy to surf with the iTouch, but some websites like banking sites may not work correctly so it would be good to check before if you need that. My daughter tried bringing an itouch on her honeymoon and loved it.

Mick and Jill

Jared, if your brother wants to bring his netbook, let him. Just make him carry the backpack.

I just returned from a two-week trip to Great Britain. I took an ASUS netbook. I needed it for work, but it was invaluable for booking travel and accommodations. I have a smartphone with wifi, but there are some things that just can't be easily done on a phone (such as connecting to some wifi sites).

I almost always carried the ASUS with me. Even at only two-plus pounds, it still felt heavy after a while. There were times I wish I could have left it at home.

Having said that, unless the Internet goes away, I can't see traveling without it or some other computer . . . a real computer that can do everything we expect computers to do (it is okay if it does it slower, though).

What I'm looking for now is an even lighter netbook-like computer. The Amazon Kindle might be a possible choice, or some other tablet computer.

I took my MacBook Pro to Berlin in May and had no problem. I probably shouldn't have done this, but at times I just left it on the desk in my hotel room. At other times, I hid it in my luggage.

The year before, I took it to Nicaragua and hit it in my luggage. Again, no problem.

This is no doubt partially a matter of luck, but it can also be the kind of hotel you stay in. Both hotels -- the one in Nicaragua and the one in Berlin -- were out of the way places in quiet, residential districts, and the management seemed honest.

But, you never know...

Do you really want to pack a heavy, expensive computer around? I was in Europe for 6 weeks and used local internet cafes when needed. i actually enjoyed being free of the internet for a while and just relaxed. As for photos, I took enough SD cards for my camera and never had to download a single photo. I used a cheap mobile phone I bought at Virgin to call ahead to confirm all my reservations.

Andy, what you are presenting is what is called a "false dilema". "Do you really want to pack a heavy, expensive computer around".

My netbook is neither heavy nor expensive. It weighs about 1 kg, 2.2# (less probably, than a guidebook), and costs only $350. It was worth every penny and pound to have with me. But, if YOU are not intelligent enough to make good use of a computer, you're right, YOU should not carry one.

My entire intinerary, accommodations, schedules, etc is on a big Excel file. So are my expenses, and the spreadsheet I use to estimate my expenses for the rest of the trip. I use my computer to send emails (far better than calling), and save and organize my pictures on it. I keep my journal and use it to upload my trip report to my website.

Although is used internet Cafes earlier in this century, I have learned that they are becoming rare and not to rely on them. Wifi in hotels is now the norm.

Now I know I was born in the 19th century and not the 20th. We never travel with a cell phone, GPS, iPod, Laptop what other gadget did I forget? We do not need TV in our accomodations either, we do not read newspapers either. When we are on vacation, we are on vacation and have a heck of a good time and everyone at home will survive too. Karin

I'm with Karin. Camera only.

Each of us has our own travel style, and mine differs from what Karin described. I currently travel with a Cell phone, GPS unit and an I-Pod. It's quite possible that I'll be adding a Netbook to this on future trips. If find each of these devices helps me in some way, which is the reason I pack them along.

I'm in Italy now writing this on an Acer Aspire One. The keyboard on a netbook is cramped, but it cost me $284 at Sams, and it weighs about 2 pounds. My backpack has a padded area, so I just put in there with with cord in the bottom oF the backpack. I have really enjoyed having it -- especially to keep up with picture transfers every couple of days instead of all at once at home when I don't have time to do it. I wouldn't bring a big expensive computer, but this little 2 pounder is my friend. If you feel your hotel unsafe, it can hide most anywhere as it is the size of a sheet of paper.

I must admit I am sitll on the fence about bringing my macbook with me...
I love my mac and I love lightroom and I love to download my pictures and work on them in the evening.
So i am still on the fence about it

And I'm in London, typing this on my netbook... it's been very handy to check train stations, schedules, locations, and to update facebook and the like. I haven't been doing that many pictures yet, but have used it for some editing and posting to a blog. While I don't like the extra 2-3 pounds, I'm loving having it.

JumpingBug, Which Netbook are you using? I've found that especially in the U.K., many Hotels & Hostels are now offering free Wi-Fi for guests. Have you found that to be the case?

I've decided to watch the Netbook market for a few months, as I suspect there are going to be a lot of new models and features in the next year or so (I believe Netbooks are the fastest growing segment of the portable computer market right now).

I don't have any trips planned in the immediate future, so don't need it quite yet, but it's definitely something I'm looking at for future trips. Aside from the convenience, it will be nice to have a "familiar" computer to use (the French keyboards just about drove me crazy on my recent trip!!!). I'm not anticipating any Blogging, but photo storage and E-mails would be useful. I'm hoping that the Netbook manufacturers will provide some models without a partitioned drive.

BlueDenim, you'll have to weigh the pros & cons regarding travelling with your MacBook. What would the consequences be if this was lost, stolen or damaged? Would the weight of the computer and charger be a major problem for you to haul around Europe? In my case, I've decided there's NO way I'll be taking my MacBook Pro to Europe. Even though it just has the 15.4" screen, it's too big, heavy and expensive to travel long distances with. An inexpensive $400 Netbook would be much preferred.

Cheers!

I just got an ASUS with 160GB hard disc and 1.6 MHz CPU for $315 from Amazon, free shipping. I used to carry my Gateway , more than 7 LBS, which was very hard to do. Whne I go to Europe I stay in hostels and always left my laptop in the locker. Never had a problem, but I always keep valuable in the locker.
For your camera pictures you can puchase a larger memory card or take a few with you. they are light and don't take much space. I use a 4GB and I can take 10,000 small pictures.

I am still weighing the pros and cons. I have never had any problems but all it takes is one time...so ya I know I am not sure still.
I wish mac had a netbook option. I have heard rumours of the fall, more likely 2010 tho. So that won't do me much good. A netbook I could use for all my files, email ect...some picture back up and it is much lighter....

I'm on a 10 inch Asus EEE PC, about a year old, gets 4-6 hours battery life. There's a newer model with an even longer battery life. It charges just fine, all you need is a plug adapter. I've got tons of tv and movies loaded on as well as backup for times when I've had enough of reading or people watching. I'm loving watching things like As Time Goes By actually in London.

No wifi offered where I'm staying (although many unsecured networks), but I've paid 5 pounds to have it at an apartment we're renting in Brighton next week. Wifi still seems to be hit and miss here, although similar to Canada and the US in that you find unsecured networks and free connections (public libraries, etc.).

I've noticed a LOT of cafes and shops offering free wifi with purchase, so it isn't that difficult to come by.

And while it sounds like nothing, I really appreciate being able to check the location of that restaurant I forgot to write down, or where the place is that I'd like to see. And the weather forecast (pouring rain at the moment, after giving me a sunburn today!).

I always travel with my laptop. We I go out I just leave it locked in my luggage. It is very handy for keeping in touch with family and friends and it is convienent for playing movies for my son in the evening.