My greatest objections against the notebook soultion, unless driving a car, is its size and weight. Riding a bike, I welcome all solutions which saves me space and weight. Smaller and fewer gadgets, battery eliminators, cables, and what not, makes life far more enjoyable on the road. And, as for putting all ones eggs in one basket, the only thing I'm really concerned about, is loosing my files, of which there is allways the backup solution (which in my opinion should be pursued no matter which solutions one goes for). Further, in temrs of putting all ones eggs in one basket, if for instance your day pack, with all your gadgets, is lost, then you have numerous gadgets which will need replacing, not just that one.

In my humble opinion, the ruggednotebooks are too costly compared to the overall performance they offer, though way cool. And, I'd be terrily worried about loosing it. Also, although many manufcturers claim longivety and ruggedness of their haddrives, only time can prove this (we will just have to wait and see). Manufacturers have been making such claims for ages, and very few in my case, has been able to live up to their promise.

HTC, or in some places also marketed under the brand qtek, have really advanced smartphones/pda/pocket pcs like the one below. They've got pretty much all the functionality one could wish for at a reasonable cost, but comes just alittle short on a few attributes. It can do all the things all your other gadgets can do, just not as good. The camera lense objective is of inadequate quality, the storage capacity is too small, it is not weather proof, and it runs on a Pocket PC OS rather than XP. Although i would still carry one in place of a lap top, I'd still bring my GPS and digital camera and DV camcorder.



The only good reason I can think of for bringing a pc while adventuring in the first place is if one needs to work en route, if one needs to edit a web site, or if one wishes to edit video and photos while travelling. So, what do I bring? In place of my stack of lap tops at home, only an old fashioned journal. All my computer needs are covered through Internet cafes. I love gadgets, but they can take away the attention from adventuring.

The pocket sized gadget pictured above has:

• WLAN
• GPRS
• Quad band GSM
• 3G and/or EDGE (I think)
• Bluetooth
• GPS
• Web cam plus additional photocamera
• Built in qwerty key board
• IR
• Touch screen monitor

In my opinion, this is the ultimate travel computer to date, but still not good enough to justify the expense.

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