A computer suitable for bike touring
 

For the last several years, I've taken a small netbook computer with me when I've been touring. The computer is an 8.9-inch Acer Aspire One with a solid state drive, not a conventional hard drive. Because the drive has no moving parts, it's been great when I've been on rough roads. And over the years, I've had a lot of good use out of this machine.

Lately, for any number of reasons, it has started to give me a little bit of trouble. A few times, the computer hasn't been able to find the drive and from what I've read, this can be a sign of much worse problems to come. Because of this, I'm now starting to look around for a replacement.

What do you recommend for a computer you can take with you on a tour?

If you need a full-capability computer personally I would go for a MacBook Air. Otherwise, a tablet like the iPad is all you need on a tour which can be obtained for as little as $400.

I've been looking at the Asus line of tablets. The Transformer Pad 300 fills me with I-want-this-now feelings. The more expensive Transformer Prime is this, but moreso. Might be worth a looksee.

It could be your solid state drive. Unlike a hard drive, a solid state drive isn't meant to last forever due to the degradation of memory cells of reading and writing to the drive itself. Newer SSD drives are better on this regard. I usually buy an extended warranty on SSD from Memory Express and had since replaced the drives twice already within a year.

Transformer Prime is an awesome name for a tablet, haha!

This year's MBA is a significant improvement over last year's model. I would jump on that. It was released like 2 weeks ago, I think. The iPad while cool for app games....well, exactly, it's an oversized app toy and I couldn't imagine typing on it with any sort of efficiency. I would say go for the MBA, get the extended warranty and be set for years.

That's what I'm thinking, but I'm not sure how to replace it. I save almost all my work to an external thumb drive or SD card and I back it up onto another drive. That information is safe.

Perhaps this may help you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FLf-ZCWH0Y

We had the same solid state Acer you have, and replaced it with a Toshiba netbook. The Acer solid state only had a 16 GB drive, and was very slow. We do quite a bit of Photoshop work and download a lot of pictures and the Toshiba is fast, and does the job. it has 3 USB ports and a SC card reader that give us a lot of flexibility. We downloaded and backed up over 9000 pictures on a tour last summer. Many of our shots are in RAW format and are large files. We also use the word processor a lot, and having an almost full sized key board is nice. When we are going to be away from home for extended periods we prefer the netbook. For a short tour we are starting in a couple of weeks we will probably just carry extra SC cards for the cameras, and use smart phones for e-mail etc.

Conventional hard drives are pretty tough. My wife carried;) the Toshiba in her rear pannier for over 4000 miles without a problem. On a tour last summer part of our route included 400 miles of unpaved roads and trails, and over 500 miles of cobblestone and paver block roads and trails.

iPad. I write for a living and I use my iPad more than my Mac these days. Anyone who says it is 'for consumption' has never used one.

Here are the pros for touring: maps, camera, GPS, always-connected Internet, light, tough (although put it in a case that will protect the screen). It will also replace books, plays music and movies and the battery lasts forever.

If you plan on writing a novel then you can use any keyboard with it -- Bluetooth or USB.

One note: think about getting the (now much cheaper) iPad 2. The camera is terrible, but the battery takes half the time to charge. The new iPad has a giant battery to power it's hi-resolution screen, and that takes many hours to charge.

How about a Nexus 7. It can sort out all your computing needs as well as handle bike transmission, all in once clean, compact unit. Schmoogle.

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, it's about 1/2 the size of the Apple ipad and fully functional with the Android operating system. It's a nice size for traveling.

Marc

Except for drawing apps, it's for media consumption, web browsing, email and games.

And yes, I've had one. The lack of a real file navigation system pretty much voids it as anything more than an iPhone with a big screen.

That said, it could be all you need if you're on tour, want to check email, and update a blog. So could an iPhone with an external keyboard. It depends a lot on what you're using it for.

AFAIK, spinning hard-drives have a parking mode when they are Off.

so just get the one you like.

I think the SSHD in the one you have can be replaced and even made 'better'
with the speed up/ capacity replacement.

That's where you went wrong, try a PC.

Aside from that (hopefully obvious) joke, I'm also in the camp who can't use the iPad as a replacement for a computer. It's great for playing Kingdom Rush, it's unparalleled for watching movies in bed, it even can handle casually browsing the internet, but the second I have to type more than two lines, I find myself switching to a real computer. Maybe it's just acclimation, but after growing up with a physical keyboard, I just can't make the switch.

One very bored day, I had a race between my laptop and an iPad. The task was to boot up, find a nearby 4 star Thai restaurant on Yelp, figure out what time the Avengers was playing, and get a map to both places. I figured this would be a pretty good test, since it's more or less what I'd want to find out while traveling.

The iPad killed the laptop in start-up time, but that's no surprise, but once those 45 seconds were over, the laptop took the lead. The ability to actually multi-task and the much quicker input speeds helped out, although what really killed the iPad were the apps. Turns out that unless you have the perfect app for the occasion, and know how to find it quickly, it's just about useless. When it comes to directed web browsing (when your app fails, you have no choice) it's slow and awkward.

Granted, it's not a direct simulation of a real world situation, I would feel pretty awkward pulling out my laptop on a street corner, and slightly less awkward pulling out an iPad. Really, it's about planning. With a laptop, you might spend a few hours in the evening working out what you want to do the next day, drawing up maps, and reading reviews, with an always connected device, you tend to wing it a lot more.

I use an older Acer Aspire with a SSD in it. It works fine for what I need it for, and does a lot of things far better than the Ipad, and if I (for whatever reason) need to, I also boot linux off a flash drive that I keep tethered to it.

Only practical use I can see for the Ipad on a tour is for "quickly" pulling it out and looking things up or attempting to use GPS, but my phone does that just as well, just as fast if not faster, takes up less space, and I don't look ridiculous when I pull it out on the side of the road or try to mount it to my handlebars
: p.

Unfortunately a lot of us have to do a whole lot more than type word documents and spreadsheets : P

I haven't done any extended touring, just a week or so at a time, but I find my iPad does what I need. It doesn't mean it will suit the OP's needs, but for me, it's hard to imagine what the iPad can't do that I need to have done. Battery life, built in GPS and cellular data (if you opt for that model), large screen (compared to a netbook or smart phone) are all points in its favor.
If you're going to do a lot of typing, lack of a physical keyboard is a problem, but there are options for physical keyboards as well, and they range from compact keyboards that double as part of a case to full-sized keyboards. I tend to carry my regular bluetooth keyboard if I'm going to be away for any amount of time. I actually spend very little time sitting and typing, but when I find myself with time on my hands and e-mails to answer, the keyboard is nice to have. Still haven't determined if it's worth the extra space, though, for the amount of time that I use it.

There's plenty the iPad can't do that a "real" computer can, but there's plenty the iPad can do if you're willing to work with it. Even around the house I find that I seldom sit down at the computer anymore...except to sync my iPad. Every now and then a task comes up that requires the computer, but even then I sometimes just log in over the iPad. It's probably not a computer replacement for most folks, but then neither is a netbook. For touring, it's been a great tool.

I've used mine for:

• e-mail
• web surfing
• edit/upload photos from my camera
• watch movies in my tent and on the train
• games
• reading books and comics
• music/podcasts/audio books in my tent
• storing my route
• finding myself on a map (seriously, GPS+saved maps is my favourite thing about having the iPad on my bike)
• saving my route to share with friends/family.
• maps in general are great on the iPad. One app in particular saves pdf maps and, if they have the right data embedded, uses the GPS to show where you are on that map, like a campground map, for instance.
• Managing train tickets.
• finding near-by restaurants/grocery stores
• plus it makes a good-enough light source if you're in your tent and don't need full flashlight brightness.

It really has become one of favourite travel tools, on the bike or off. Maybe there is some key functionality that it lacks and a particular user might need, but for me it's been great. Worth looking into. Not for everyone, I know, but it's completely sated my desire for any laptop.

Machka and I each (yes, each) have a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dm1. We consulted one of Machka's colleagues in the computer department at her work, and he advised to get the most powerful processor you can afford. He said the tablets just didn't have it if you wanted to edit pictures using decent software, and because I am getting into videos, the same thing applied.

Now, the HPs don't have the processing power of the bigger and more expensive laptops, but it's better than the smaller netbooks. And it has expandable RAM, which can help a little with memory function on big files. We have yet to expand the memory, however.

It has a solid case (Machka dropped hers in a thin backpack the other day, and no damage ensued), a disc drive with decent capacity (360Gb), three USB ports and a nice screen, plus the keyboard continually receives good reviews (even from Machka who is quite picky about such things).

They're not the solution for everyone, but they will do us. And the price was super-right.

By the way, the ways things are pointing, if you want to add the next generation of peripherals to your current Apple product, or add your current peripherals to your next-generation Apple -- forget about it. Apple apparently is about to alter the design of the connection, and it won't fit any peripherals you've had before... although some bright company might manoeuvre their way through Apple's control-freak behaviour to produce an adapter.

I have an old Dell D430 dual core processor that I have been beating around for the past 6 years. It is a "backup" to my Dell D630. It weighs in the 3#-5# range depending on which battery and charger I haul with it. I currently have it configured as a Linux machine with a 120gb SSD in it. It takes care of 95% of my needs in a compact computer. I have tried a couple of netbooks and have a Kindle Fire (company issued), but keep coming back to the old faithful Dell.

Aaron :)

I dunno.

I'm thinking an older netbook w/ Linux loaded on it. The EEEPC was overpriced in it's day, but you should be able to pick one up on the cheap - especially one w/ Windows XP on it. Those were dogs.

Get an EasyPeasy linux install disc (free) and an external CD drive. Boot to the CD drive, answer a few easy questions ("what's your name?" "What time zone are you in?" "Do you want to kill windows or run side by side?" - I recommend kill windows) and you're done.

The good thing about it is you're in it cheap (less than $100 cheap). If it does crap out over time, who cares? The bad part is the tiny keyboard, but you can use the base as a stand and use a fold-up USB keyboard.

+1

Same experience here. Ride partner carried an Acer Netbook with conventional hard drive on our Central America tour, 1800 miles with 100+ of rough dirt/gravel. Zero problems. I've since gotten one myself and did two other tours with it, again without a single issue. Knew another couple who had the same Netbook with the SSD, which crashed somewhere in South America. Luckily they had their pics/blog backed up. You might consider replacing your SSD with a conventional HD.

For those who feel compelled to use a keyboard, there are quite a few iPad-compatible options available...

Nice scoop! I have, literally, a dozen friends who work at Apple (some of them even work in hardware engineering for mobile devices) and I haven't heard a word of confirmed evidence on this topic! I knew those guys were holding out on me....

Or maybe you're just repeating the same rumors that crap journalists have been throwing around for the last 18 months?

Honestly get a Macbook Air. I'm using mine from a tent while on touring right now :)

They are light, made of aluminum, I'd say pretty sealed from the environmental hazards (water...), crazy fast for a laptop (10 seconds to open Photoshop CS5 RAW Editor from idle?) and rather a nice screen compared to anything else. Nice big SSD hard drives too (64, 128 or 256 GB) compared to other options on the market.

Negatives? The charger is crappy. I killed my first one with little more than a splash of water (1 month old) and they can be funny at times with not wanting to charge at at. And they are not cheap to replace. Battery life isn't as great as they are hyped up to be, but they still can last for a good few hours and don't take that long to charge (about 4 hours run time surfing the internet charging my phone/ 1 hour 41 minutes to charge completely from dead)

MBA really could use a SIM card slot for internet access like some of the iPads.

Agree with Bacciagalupe -- an iPhone with an external keyboard, or an Android device with an external keyboard -- would cover most of what's needed on tour. Network accessible most of the day, shoot and upload photographs from the device itself, and save weight.