Which computer for in the van? (1 Viewer)

[laneside]

We only use our lappie for browsing and emails and a few pictures but this old Fujisu drains the batteries of the van about three times as fast as what the tele. and Sky box does.

If I was to put a nice new one on my Christmas wish list what would you technos recommend to give the longest battery time and minimum usage to charge it.

 

[Munchie]

For me, i5 haswell processor with MINIMUM 4gig of RAM, at least two USB PORTS.

You WILL use it for more things and slow is not good

 

[Wildman]

I'd go for an 8" tablet and hour to charge and lasts 6hrs. No good for the chatroom though.

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[Munchie]

If a tablet then the new Nexus7 it is superb!!!

 

[Munchie]

12 out of 10 people who buy a lappie just to browse etc wish they had bought more power!!!

 

[hilldweller]

I'd go for an 8" tablet and hour to charge and lasts 6hrs. No good for the chatroom though.

Maybe a £10 bluetooth keyboard would sort that out, if it's just a typing problem. It makes a tablet as slick as a lappy for lots of typing and cut/paste editing.

7,8,9,10" now there is the question. Safe option is the bigger screen area of 10".

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[1_man_and_his_dob(lo)]

I'm quite happy with my Asus 1015PX netbook - the battery life is brilliant. But, as Ken points out, if you want decent performance you'd better look elsewhere. It's fine for light work (web browsing, word processing, email) but the dual-core Atom processor can just about cope with iPlayer and the screen is small.

I think netbooks are an endangered species now that tablets are all the rage.

 

[GJH]

I bought One Of These from PC World in January. It runs quickly, keyboard is easy to use and battery life is good. That exact model may no longer be available but there should be something similar around.

 

[Jaws]

Me, I like real estate so my lappy ( a 7 year old Tosh ) has a 17" screen.. even that does not draw a lot off the batteries..

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[sdc77]

I am going to suggest a raspberry pi..
I have one and it's a great project... Does require some knowledge
Small BT keyboards available.. Wifi compatible.. Hdmi out..
... I'm just throwing it out there. It's cheap and does the things you want for minimal power usage and takes up less space than a typical battery in a laptop.

 

[Allanm]

We take a Macbook Pro and a tablet, generally only the tablet gets used, we charge it overnight if on EHU and when we are travelling and the battery lasts 9 hours or so.
We only really use it for the odd email every now and again.

Allan

 

[Onderweg]

Hi Alan

A few days ago i saw a nice thread composed by Wissel.

Might be of interest to you.
Its a pity the commentary is in English and not in Dutch so i am not really sure about all the components he used and couldnt hear what wattage it used.

I asked him to put it in plain text as well, but it looks like he has not yet found the time to do that

Regards
Paul and Ineke

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[peterc10]

You do not need a powerful laptop, and if you get one it will just drain your batteries even more. I would suggest a decent Android tablet, which will do everything you need and a lot more.

The one I have got (Asus tf300) came with a separate detachable keyboard with its own battery that could run the tablet too. Now I have the best of both worlds. A light 10" tablet with touchscreen that has a battery life of about 8 hours or so of constant use and which is great for general surfing and light typing duties. Add the Keyboard and I have a good netbook (which is still light) that will last at least 12 hours of use with both batteries and has a keyboard that is good enough for most typing jobs, unless you want to write a novel!.

My expensive HP Business laptop that is all singing and dancing now stays on my desk all the time. When I am out I just take the Asus everywhere.

 

[Minxy]

Hubby has a 10" tablet and a keyboard/case to go with it but I don't like it because it's slowish and you can't attach a keyboard AND a mouse at the same time! I therefore have a 13" Samsung NP-X120 mini-laptop (NOT a netbook) which I got off Ebay for a song as it's a European keyboard (as opposed to a standard English one) so whilst I've changed the keyboard to English some of the images on the keys don't match up with what you get when you press them, for me it's not a problem as I'm a PA so am used to touch-typing otherwise I'd have to stick labels on! However, it is a proper laptop but just in a smaller size, it therefore has a much better processor and I find it great to use and very quick. At home I have a 15" HP laptop and use that all the time, hubby uses our 'normal' PC as he hates laptops!

 

[peterc10]

Hubby has a 10" tablet and a keyboard/case to go with it but I don't like it because it's slowish and you can't attach a keyboard AND a mouse at the same time!

You can with my Asus. The tablet attaches to the Keyboard and in turn the keyboard has a standard USB port. So far I have successfully used it to attach a mouse, a presentation tool, a portable 500Gb hard drive a USB memory stick and a USB SD card reader. And if you get a USB splitter box you can attach several of them at the same time.

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[Minxy]

Hubby has a 10" tablet and a keyboard/case to go with it but I don't like it because it's slowish and you can't attach a keyboard AND a mouse at the same time!

You can with my Asus. The tablet attaches to the Keyboard and in turn the keyboard has a standard USB port. So far I have successfully used it to attach a mouse, a presentation tool, a portable 500Gb hard drive a USB memory stick and a USB SD card reader. And if you get a USB splitter box you can attach several of them at the same time.

Hubby's tablet has 2 USBs but one is an 'ouput' only type (whatever that is!) so it only has the one usable one for inputting equipment. Unfortunately a USB hub doesn't work for some reason, probably because it's just a cheapo table which is all he wanted. He's happy enough with it and I like my mini-laptop so when we're away he can use his an I'll use mine which avoids any arguments as to who's turn it is! :thumb: