Small cheap notebook for travel

[mikeford]

We already have the 3 bears of laptops, too big and expensive to take, too heavy and old, and plain too old, so I am thinking of buying something newer and smaller during a couple weeks of travel this summer (long flight, LA UK and back). I can't sleep on planes, and get shakey after a day or so of no email.

Small notebook, maybe even a PDA to keep me amused in idle moments, basic email, and I toy with the notion of wifi and sunrocket access. Any suggestions for travel toy?

 

[halfadder]

Maybe a Nokia 770?

 

[erikistired]

get a sony psp. it has wireless built in. you can game, you can watch movies. i check my gmail with it, surf anandtech sometimes.

 

[jbubrisk]

PSP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BladeVenom]

Dell 710m.

 

[mikeford]

The PSP does look fairly nice, some "we are sony and do it this way" bits like the sony only discs and sony only memory, but $200 at Buy.com for the basic unit.

Dell 710m, nice, but looks like min configuration is $857.

Nokia 770, again nice, but $350 at Compusa.

*********************************************** PSP is winning so far, or maybe something like the 710M, just a year or two older and cheaper.

Couple things with all the devices, the next wifi standard with higher speed is almost out (.n I think), and the PSP is sort of ps2 isn't it with the ps3 due in a few months.

Thanks for the help, now I need to play a bit with a PSP and see how I like it.

 

[mikeford]

Kind of the feeling I get is that the "next" generation device is going to hit what I want right on the head.

Some sort of Quasi "pc" will also have a HUGE software advantage since I could play games I already own.

 

[erikistired]

if you are seriously considering the psp try one first. typing on it isn't great. but like i said, you can surf on it if you have access to a wireless connection and you can play games and watch movies (the drawback being they have to be umd discs). not sure about long distance travel, altho i'm sure there's an airplane adapter for it. maybe a psp and a 2gb memstick with some ripped movies on it from your dvd collection. who knows, you might like it!

the problem with a quasi pc is that to get anything with enough horsepower for gaming you add weight rather quickly, altho my little 12" powerbook plays diablo 2 quite nicely.

 

[shrumpage]

Get a refurb 12" ibook from apple. I picked one up, the battery life is great, and like fisher says it runs D2 well.

 

[mikeford]

My IBM 365 which is maybe 10 years old plays D2 well enough. But its days of running off a battery are long past.

I've been poking around on ebay looking at older smaller notebook PCs like a Dell 600m, which could play a real DVD, but best route there looks like putting in the largest notebook drive I can find, maybe 120 GB or bringing a spare in a external box. Its a bit larger than a tablet, in the middle on price used (around $300 base), but its a "real" PC with no compatibility issues with games and a ATi 9000 video chip. Second advantage is that our son is in a couple laptop classes (english and history) in high school, and could stop lugging around our old 770z which is also past its battery using life (and no DVD on base model).

Other way on ebay is a PDA, wife really likes her Palm M515, but doesn't like sharing it. I considered another M515, but we still have her older IIIx iirc (backlight issues and battery life), so stepping up one more generation if it still worked with the M515 assessories and included wifi is very appealing at not much over $100.

************************************** Its really weird to be in an age where packing all our electronic toys is such a serious issue. We could easily end up with most of one whole carry on case full of "stuff", cameras, mp3, notebook, pda, gameboy, spare batteries and charger.

****************
**************** SIGH
****************

The more I think about it, we REALLY need some kind of real PC (notebook is fine) to be the base station for everything else, storing picts from camera, mp3 for the various players etc. OTOH that doesn't mean I don't want a PDA too.

 

[jbubrisk]

PDA do $#(*&!!!!!!111 Seriously, what can you do? Make an address book? View an ebook? Take Notes? Get a paper notebook and a PSP and play games ^^

 

[mikeford]

PDA vs PSP, hands down the PSP is nice hardware, but you have to do what Sony wants you to do with it, and PDA has a MUCH larger variety of much more basic, but still fun stuff that works on it.

Tetris, Bejeweled, traffic, zork, books, sudoko, crosswords, maps and keep the fancy games etc. that need better graphic on the notebook.

BTW first talk with wife on "travel gadgets" and it was WHAT no way are we lugging around a bag of stuff, and theft concerns. Negotiations continue.