Sayonara, netbooks: Asus (and the rest) won't make any more in 2013 | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Sadly, net books, which have served me most admirably for the past 4 years on the road, have come to the end of the road. Seems the future is tablets and regular laptops. Net books it seems are too cheap.

Tablets seem to be the future. Apple ones suffer badly here in practicality because of the lack of USB and memory for storing pics. Water and dust resistant ones that take full USB service allowing USB hard drives, memory sticks etc are potentially very useful. http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/25/s...let-z-preview/ That allows for unlimited photo and video storage. Tablets are more expensive than net books and offer less capability. But they do save some weight.

For me, who likes to do Foto and video editing as I go along, I still think a more powerful device running full Foto and video software (which means windows or mac os) is still a must, but for many, a tablet will become the adventure biking tool of choice for he next few years.

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Time to stock up now then, unless we all go out and replace our nice, simple, reliable and cheap netbooks with ludicrously expensive Microsoft Windows 8 Surfaces, because how else are we going to plot our routes on Basecamp? Or use the full version of Google Earth? Or a decent photo or video editor?

It strikes me that unless you go for a Windows 8 tablet it's going to be a poor substitute for even a cheap netbook, mind you, I notice Garmin have partnered up to produce an Android phone, so maybe they'll give us Basecamp for Android?

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Netbooks are going extinct because there's no money AT ALL, in them.

After the cost of hardware and the Microsoft tax ($75-125) there's not alot left over for profit.

MBA's, on the other hand, are much faster (and can actually edit video beyond just cuts) and are served by Apple's huge volume discounts on hardware . . . so Apple can sell something for a bit more than a Asus/Lenovo/Toshiba and make considerably more on it. Full upgrades to OS X cost $30 at the consumer level. Apple has effectively taken the oxygen away from competitors.

Tablets will be longer-lived than netbooks but the future is in mobile of some sort and a size that is smaller than the original iPad and larger than a current iPhone. It's still cumbersome or worse to edit video on a tablet but photo editing has gotten very good on tablets, Droid or iOS. And the iPad (I'm not an Android fan, to each his own), one could and can load photos on from external memory for over 3 years. Touch typing has been available since day one with either a BT or "cover" keyboard.

I've really wondered why anyone carried anything but either an MBA or a tablet.

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Orange, it's the new black.

"A bit" and "considerably" seem to be one and the same thing ... in the UK an MBA starts at 849 pounds, an eee netbook starts at 179 pounds.

Capitalising on the demise of the netbooks, is the lord of the tax ... Microsoft ... who is about to launch a powerful tablet that runs full windows 8 pro, intel i5 processor (same as MBA), USB3, office, full windows software like photoshop and video editors, full HD resolution screen etc, called the Surface Pro.

Microsoft Surface Pro

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I think tablets aren't there yet... they're good for alot of stuff but their OS's are still very limited and task specific.

It obviously depends on what you need to do. I could probably get along with a smart phone and wifi now. However, if I was data logging, using map source or editing videos etc, I'd need a net book.

I like a net book when it comes to watching videos, sharing photos etc. The codecs on tablets are leagues behind and want you tied into specific encoded media such as eye tunes. Bleeeeeeerrrcccchhhhh

www.touringted.com

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I did just mention that a tablet with full windows 8 OS is about to be released ... Eliminating the software shortfalls of existing tablets. The downside is that it will probably cost 600 quid

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After last summer's trip I bought an ACER w500 tablet running W7 to replace my ASUS eee901 (screen broke and repaired, connection to screen broke, hard drive too small, but it did run W-XP and had a solid state HD) for £250 new

I bought the ACER because
*I couldn't get a netbook any more
*It runs Windows, so is compatible with Garmin Mapsource (for me the USP).
*It has a solid state HD

W7 was never designed to run on a touch screen, which is a major PITA. Hence I always plug in a mouse and 50% of the time a keyboard too.

I'll report back after this summer's Siberian trip on how truely rugged (if at all!) it is.

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That would be cool....

But It will probably have one of those irritating touchscreen keyboards though.

And have a 30 min battery life...

And run tablet versions of software.

I reckon the backwards compatibility of Windows 8 will be worse than 7.... Goodbye mapsource, goodbye T4A, goodbye VCL media player etc.

I was working with and testing some of the top of the range tablets for Sony last year and thought about their travelling capabilities. They were running a version of android which 'should' let you do pretty much anything. However, they didn't !

It's the hardware that limits you... They want you to use their download servers for music, movies, games etc. Very much the way Apple ties you to Itunes and encrypts EVERYTHING.

But hey ! We will see. I'm ready to be happily surprised.



All I want when I'm travelling is:

The ability to store and do minor editing with photos.

To play downloaded movies in my tent on a wet, windy day

To store loads of music that I can listen to when i'm in my tent/room/hostel etc.

To sit off in a quiet corner and write a blog, check emails, play on facebook etc.

To download waypoints, maps with my GPS.



That I can do more than easily on my my £200 10" HP mini Netbook running XP that I bought in 2010.



I'd love to see a tablet that can do all that and have the freedom of older windows.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

it exists...
Intel Atom CPU N455 @1.66 GHz
2 GB RAM
320GB HD

Its called ???

www.touringted.com

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Tablet! (no, seriously, it is- but it's not that easy to find.
Only one downside- 2 hours battery life but then this is to be expected- In life, as with so many things, you cannot have it all- well maybe you can but at a price. As Walter says, there will be better at way more $$$
On screen keyboard with touchscreen OR the little diddy one with a usb micro dongle recharged by the USB.
Running Windows 7 Ultimate which is less of a power glutton than XP

If you do not need all the above and are OK with using web cafes' then I recommend using a gaming USB dongle ( I use a 64gb )
You can have a huge range of free programs loaded under the Portable Apps umbrella plus a whole bunch of other ones you may want on the road. Used along with a smartphone on airplane mode and wifi enabled, it's all I need.
I can edit my images, surf the web, do my emails etc etc on the smart phone. I have no need to watch movies as I prefer to read- all my books are in PDF format and you can get the Adobe Reader for free too on Android and Portable Apps.

This last trip I was surprised at the very high percentage of travellers with MacBook Air, either 11" or 13". If you want to be able to run Mapsource (definite criterion for me) then you need something that will run Windows.

Well I had the best of both worlds, for I had a 13" MBA with Parallels Desktop running with Windows XP under Mac OS to give me access to Mapsource and other Windows apps. Solid state disk drives are robust, solid aluminium casing is ultra robust. The only thing you need with this or any other PC (in addition to a padded case) is a piece of cloth to go between the keyboard and the screen to prevent the constant vibrations from rubbing an image of the keys into the screen.

If you want to be able to hardwire your MBA into a network at an Internet cafe you would also need a LAN to USB cable.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

MacBook Air - hmmmm Tim carrying a £1000+ laptop on a bike is, for me, anyway, a big nono. I could not afford it or to wreck it / have it stolen.
P.S I do not carry the above kit on the bike, just a usb key and a smartphone. Total weigh= 350 grammes
As micro sd cards are relatively cheap these days, all data you need can be easily carried and transferred to and from your gps via a smartphone.
My unit holds tracklog of 10,000 points and 200 saved tracks and 4000 POI's which is quite a lot-
Using .csv and/or GPX files adds another huge amount of custom POi's.
The Montana's screen is large enough to do your routing.
Modern tech has enabled me to cut loose from heavy kit like netbooks/laptops on the road and it's one less thing to charge and worry about.
IMHO if you don't need to see movies or maintain a blog instantly, then you can live quite happily without.
Open Wifi is almost everywhere.

I've been using a Lenovo s110 Ideapad,(2g ram/320g drive) dirt cheap and very tough. Light small, great keyboard and good battery life. Price was about $300 with win7 loaded.

I think traveling with an expensive MacBook air would be a liability.

And I agree how you pack the computer is key to survivability.

Rejoice, the NetBook isn't dead after all, it just no longer has Windows. We've all forgotten the ChromeBook.

What's a ChromeBook? As far as I can see it's last year's NetBook but with Google's Chrome OS. Sadly this does nothing to resolve the problems in using Mapsource and throws in the fact that Chrome OS really needs the Web to work. Luckily the internet is already full of How To Install Windows On A Chequebook posts.

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