Long Trips : Netbook for the Camera Bag ?

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simonB_2010

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It's coming up to holiday time and I'm planning a 2 week camping trip.

My main problem is going to be memory.
I've got 12Gb for my 400D, which did me easily for a few days away recently, but 2 weeks is something else. Also I might try switching to RAW which adds another diemension.

The other problem is that I'm fairly new to this DSLR game, and find images that look super on the LCD display, aren't quite as they seemed when on a larger screen. Guess I feel it'd be good to see my successes and failures clearly the same day, and allow me to change technique for the following day, instead of making the same mistake for 2 long weeks !

Hence, I'm thinking of picking up a laptop/netbook purely for the purpose of offloading images, and a little viewing.

I guess I'm writing here to see if anyone else travels with a netbook ?
Makes & models, screen sizes, good/bad experiences ?
I'm faced with the dilemma of cost (obvously), battery time, screen quality
Anything else you think I should consider before going ahead ?
(Guess a car charger would be kind of essential)

If it helps .. I try to start at the cheapest and only raise the bar if there's a darn good reason ;)

Many Thanks for any comments :)
 
I use an entry level Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook when I'm travelling. It has a 160Gb hard drive for image storage and I also use a Western Digital MyPassport 250Gb portable drive, powered by USB as a backup. The netbook is great for having a quick scan through photos, the screen is adequate but not brilliant and has a slight colour cast. The machine is capable of running Photoshop Elements 8, although I run a screen resizing executable to change the resolution from 1024x600 to 1024x768 to run Adobe Camera RAW. This version of Elements will run at the lower resolution but I found that previous versions didn't. I have the 6 cell battery that initially would give around 6 hours battery life but is now in the region of 4.5 hours after a year of use.

In the main I use the netbook for data storage, checking email and internet which it does very well.
 
i take my laptop everywhere.... its really useful for backing up.... and it runs lr3 so have the option of tethered shooting too...

My bag has a laptop section so fits in nicely and isnt to heavy.

Look at getting a car invertor rather than a item specific car charger, then you can use it to charge phone/camera/laptop/telly/ or what ever you like :)
 
I take my laptop with me as well and also have a section in my camera backpack for it which makes it easy to carry.

I didn't buy the laptop for photography, I had it anyway so no dilema as to whether to buy or not.

If I didn't have the laptop then I'd probably have bought a netbook.
 
I have both a samsung Laptop (NO1) and A Netbook (NO2) which i use for internet and viewing cards etc........getting ready to sell the netbook as the samsung is new and does everything i now need.....
 
I travel with an Asus eePC netbook which has approx 5 hour battery life, 2gB memory and 160gB hard disk, it has an SD card slot and WiFi, it is ideal for backup storage, reviewing and light editing (but why would you want to on holiday?)

I thoroughly recommend a netbook and carry it, complete with camera gear in a Lowepro Fastpack 250, a great combination.
 
Hi there, I run a zoostorm netbook which i picked up cheap from argos, link here it does everything that I could need whilst away, I use it with a 12v car kit from maplins link here. The only thing I have changed is to upgrade to Win7 Ultimate from starter but thats just my personal preference :)
 
I have a 12" Toshiba Portege laptop that is slighty under 1kg and quite tinny... I take it with me in every trip and is great for checking email, browsing the Internet, doing some office emergencies and of course for downloading pictures from my camera. I can't imagine myself traveling without it.
 
I binned my old fujitsu siemens laptop and bought an Acer netbook 1gb ram, 1.5mhz atom, 160gb hdd. 2hr battery life = £200 from Curry's. brilliant for backing up !
 
I recently bought an Acer Netbook for picture storage and web browsing. Bought the cheapest one I could find at 199 Euros and it does what I want it to perfectly!
 
Im just back from a trip to New York and I took my iPad.

In a nutshell - superb, allowed me to backup the photos using the camera connection kit, was able to view at 1024x768 on what is a simply amazing panel, could do some basic editing using PS Mobile and then sync the shots to my online picasa/flickr and dropbox accounts using the hotel free wifi.

An awesome travel companion - I also had about 15 magazines, several books, music and apps loaded on it to keep me entertained on the flight.

Oh and a 10 hour battery life too.
:thumbs:
 
bl0at3r said:
With the £25 camera connection kit, which gives you an sd card slot and a USB port for directly connecting a camera or memory card reader
Click to expand...

When I looked at one the guy said you cant do it? shows how good the apple staff are.
 
I bought the Aldi Medion Netbook which came with 3 year warranty..
It came with 1gb memory, 160gb hard drive, wireless n wifi etc...

This was the first generation of netbook which are now available less than £200 as they have brought out a new Atom chip which sell for around £300..

Most netbooks are less than size of A4 pad, light, mine is 6 cell battery so approx 4-5 hours power...

Just load it up with all the free open source software and away you go...

:thumbs:

P.s. Try maplins for a cheap car charger..
 
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I used to cart around an Epsom P-2000 40Gb HD storage/viewer (latest incarnation is the P-6000/7000) which was incredibly slow re transfer
from CF to it's internal HD but has a great 3.8" high def screen.

As others have said, now find my (Samsung) netbook invaluable and more versatile, as apart from exception battery life/HD storage etc, it has Wi-Fi/BT and also a slot for a SIM card.
I also carry a small 250Gb portable HD as backup/disaster mitigation!

John
 
I went to vietnam and Cambodia for three weeks and shot less than 12GB using RAW+JPEG every time I hit the shutter. You don't need a netbook you need trigger control!
 
I use a Samsung N110 netbook which has had the HDD upgraded to 320GB and the memory to 2GB and on which I run Windows 7.

Does everything I need superbly, has loads of storage and the battery lasts around 7-8 hours.
 
Just my standard broken-record reminder .......

If you take a netbook/laptop/iPad/whatever away for picture storage, if you don't take a backup drive then one day you'll be sorry. First hand experience - and saved by a backup drive.
 
a1ex2001 said:
I went to vietnam and Cambodia for three weeks and shot less than 12GB using RAW+JPEG every time I hit the shutter. You don't need a netbook you need trigger control!
Click to expand...

I've been in Wales for 3 weeks and shot about 12GB of keepers. I'm here for another week and only have 3 4GB CF cards. The way I look at it is that a new card costs me 20 pounds a pop and you can't surf the net on a CF card :-)
 
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