In two weeks we'll be in Phoenix and our trip to Europe begins! I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this!
I had two concerns. First, I didn't want to take my laptop, a MacBook Air. Yes, it's light. But it's a lot more power than I really needed for this trip, and it's valuable.
So I bought an Asus Chromebook. $200 from Amazon for 4 gig of memory and 16 gig of storage, plus I have a spare 16 gig MicroSD card sitting around that is loading up with books even as we speak.
I have a specific list of tasks for the Chromebook: long battery life (it's obscene -- 10-13 hours!), light document/spreadsheet editing (I want to work on/revise two game designs while I'm traveling), copying photos nightly to flash drives in case of theft or equipment failure, and reading material for the trans-Atlantic flights, which the battery life and plethora of epubs that are copying right now will provide.
I hesitate to say that the Chromebook is NOT a laptop. It has a full-size keyboard, I opted for the just under 12" screen, it has ports for USB, HDMI, MicroSD, it has cameras and sound. No, it doesn't have much storage, just under 10 gig available. But when you think about the laptops that we had just ten years ago that might have 300-500 MEG of storage available, I think it's survivable.
The limitation is that you're initially bound to the Chrome OS from Google, something that evolved from Unix/Linux and their Android phone/tablet OS. Your apps are limited to what's available on the Google Play store, and there's a box that you can check to note that they can work offline.
This is an important thing to keep in mind -- if you want to use it effectively while away from WiFi, say, on a trans-Atlantic flight, you need to make sure your data and apps are on the system and not in Google's cloud.
I am quite impressed by its capability. The keyboard has a very good feel, the trackpad is very responsive and responds to taps -- it doesn't have to be pushed down to click, the display is very bright and hi-res. I wish the keyboard had backlighting like my Air does, but for $200 that's too much to expect.
Aside from the application issue and the minor point of keyboard lights, I currently have two complaints. First, the keyboard mapping is similar to OS-X mapping, but not identical. Neither is it like Windows mapping. And the limited instructions and on-screen tutorial don't tell you what the functions are. So you'll end up scrounging around online trying to find out how to use it. Second, and related to the first, is the OS is not 'out of the box intuitive' to use. I've puzzled out a few things, but I really wish the provided onscreen tutorial had taught me more.
Oh, and here's a neat part: you can install Ubuntu on it! I'm not going to mess with that before the trip, but I might in a month when we get back. Two of my friends have done that and are very happy.
This is quite an awesome device. And for $200, though I don't want to think of it as disposable, if someone steals it or it gets broken, I'm not going to cry too hard. There's a model for $170/180 with 2 gig of memory and 16 gig of storage, I figured the price difference for 4 gig was trivial and got the additional memory.
AND MAN, IS IT LIGHT! This thing is lighter than my wife's iPad 2! It's definitely lighter than my Air: this thing weighs 2 lbs 6 ounces! My iPad Mini weighs 1 lb 5 oz. It's pretty scary light. And small. It's going to make my backpack much more bearable shlepping through airports in 2 weeks!
And now, I'm off to Three Rivers Petroglyphs site to continue familiarizing myself with my new camera and give it a good workout, which I'll post about tonight or tomorrow!
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