You can get touch screen kits for the Eee PCs quite cheaply which work really well (would better if the screen swivelled like a tablet) for GPS / Sat Nav type activities.

Bubeo you are right about hard drives being cheaper per Gb but I think the robustness of the SSD is worth it. My Western Digital USB hard drive failed mid trip, it was new before the trip and it lived in a neoprene stubby holder while in transit. I think my was bad luck but it shows what can happen.

The Eee PC 10 or 11 series have hard drives 160Gb and up. The problem is once you get a bigger hard drive or screen you want to do more with it and then you want it to do it faster, then the battery runs out to quickly. All this means the Netbook gets bigger and more expensive. This then starts to blur the line between a Netbook and a Notebook.

All depends on what you want it to do. For me it was email, a bit of web surfing, simple photo stuff and blog / journal. The little 701SD Eee was small and light as markharf said like a book.

Horses for courses.

If it's only for travelling (emails, blog, etc), I'd say seriously don't bother! The cost, the weight, the worries about having it stolen or breaking it on bad roads are not worth it. Plus, with a laptop you are more likely to get stuck in your room instead of going out and meeting people, or getting some well needed sleep. I have been on the road for almost 3 months now from Germany to Nepal, and in terms of pure travelling I was glad not to have taken a laptop.

Having said that, recently some important issues have come up with my company and I needed to start working again whilst on the trip, so I bought a laptop on the trip. If it werent for work, I wouldn't have, but currently there's no choice. I shopped around (in India) for various netbooks, and if you ask me they're all pretty much the same. No matter what company, they all come with nearly identical specs and nearly identical price tags, so it's hard to recommend one. The EEE PCs score with more robust, but smaller solid state hard drives, the new BenQ Joybooks are equipped to take UMTS/HDSPA modems (rather than a USB solution) and the Samsung N120/N128/N130 etc range comes with a nearly full-sized (97%) keyboard. Apart from that they're all the same. In the end I went with the Samsung because of it's keyboard: I can touch type without making adjustments at full speed, which is worth a lot when doing work (programming). If you don't have specific needs, probably anything will do, it's hard to go wrong - competition has made them all alike.

go for a netbook. not notebook or laptop as mentioned above.
i have two asus eeepc 900. one is eee 900a and other eee 900ha which are less then a kilo weight and really small. the 900a is with 4gb solid drive and i put additional 8gb ssd. as it has solid drive there is no need to care about vibrations. however, it is running on linux and you cant install mapsource, nokia pc suite, etc on linux. i have installed windows xp on the 900a, however, it really slowed down and had lag while opening programs and editing (any idea how to sort it out by the way??). i took the 900a to morocco and have not any problem with it.

then i bough 900ha which has 160gb hard disc drive and running on windows xp. no lag or what so ever. quite nice and small gadget.

about using internet abroad: i dont trust internet cafes as they may have spy programs. using external hhd or memorystick in internet cafes might be end up with virus effection. and i always carry 2 8gb memory sticks to back up my photos and scan of my documents. i also back up my documents to my gmail account.

i also have nokia e90 communicator. it has wifi and good for checking e-mails and skype. however too small and slow for blogs, building webpage, etc.

almost all the netbooks have same hardware configuration and uses intel atom n270 or n280. so go for cheaper and lighter one.

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ozhan u.
website under construction

The EEE PC T91 looks like a very good solution for anyone who wants a dedicated travelling computer. A while back I posted about drawing up a list of ideal features and it's almost as if they read it (maybe they did?).


Swivelling touch screen, 16gb solid state drive, wifi, bluetooth, 3G+ modem, GPS (oh and a TV tuner,if you really wanted it). All in less than a kilo.

But it is of course, more expensive than a normal netbook, although no doubt less expensive than buying all the gadgets seperately. Then again, eggs in one basket.

PS. Bubeo, my EEEPC is raising its hand.

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I like it Alexlebrit, I like it a lot.

I think I was talking to you in that thread...or another with the same topic.

I am off to check how much those T91s are

I'll bite.

Which one is it?

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Projekt Balkan
www.buebo.de - Der tägliche Wahnsinn

Any of the 10 or 11 series Eee PCs

I have a samsung nc10. It has a hard drive disc rather than SSD but battery life is very good. With wireless on you can get 6 hours; turn it off and you can get even more.

I bought one of these last year in the USA - Dell Mini 9 - it cost $299 including Windows XP installed:



As others have recommended, it has an SSD drive (rather than spinning hard disk) therefore no moving parts to potentially get damaged. It comes with 8GB installed but you can expand that with the SD slot on the side - ideally you can back up your photos/music etc to additional SD cards as required - same goes for Garmin mapsource maps etc.

The main thing that appealed to me was the size of this machine - it is about half the size of my Macbook, and even fits in my Camelbak Blowfish bag no problem - yet the keyboard is still big enough to type on (which is fundamental compared to blackberry/iphone type devices), and it also comes with Dell's own version of Skype for video/audio calling over the internet, and as it runs Windows, you can even install Skype itself of course... it also seems very well screwed together for a 'budget' machine - moreso than the EEEPCs I compared it to at the time.

I can appreciate Sirakor's concern about spending too much time nerding online rather than experiencing your surroundings... but conversely there are times where having you own (instant) access to Google etc could prove invaluable, especially if traveling alone? - It certainly made my last trip easier on a number of occasions. I'd say as long as you have the discipline to use the on/off switch, just treat it as another tool in your arsenal?

J xxx

1005HA, 160gb hard-drive, so space for everything, just the same as yours.

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Right, so no arguing about the whole hard disk vs. SSD issue

Nice machine by the way!

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Projekt Balkan
www.buebo.de - Der tägliche Wahnsinn

I just picked up the 1000HE and have mapsource, smellybikers maps as well as tracks 4 africa already loaded. Also have a 500GB portable hard drive for all the files. I love this little guy.

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Central America, South America & Africa on DR650's - BLOG

What about an Apple ITouch.

iPod touch - Apple Store (U.S.)

There's no doubt that typing would be a pain. But you could store and read pdf files. Check and respond to email. Surf the internet. Carry ebooks to read and use it to play games/music. And it fits in your pocket. I was told you can also use Skype for audio calling over the internet with one.

daryl