Having succumb to the notion of travelling with some form of computer - have old parents and a dislike of internet cafes, we would appreciate any advice on what other travellers would recommend for our needs. Tablets are supposedly more secure (android operating system?) than notebooks, but we've only ever used PCs and they're much more expensive. All we require is wi-fi, built-in camera, ability to skype / email (and of course post the odd blog), a means of storing photos from cameras(and back these up on sommit like a flash drive) and itunes.. No interest in games / films etc.. Have seen notepads for as cheap as $225 (would need to spend additionally on some protection software), but with recent Windows OS and only something like 1 GB RAM would this run horribly slowly?
Second question is about a phone. Again, we have never traveled with one before, but... Can you take an American phone and simply buy SIM cards in different countries? If so, how costly are these? We certainly wouldn't want anything with a contract, just a simple pay-as-you-go.....
Any thoughts gratefully received,
Andy n Ali.
Reply to this I don't know a lot about the subject but have some experience on phones. What you say about buying SIM cards is doable in principle. But you need to do some research on the country(ies) you are going to. USA has a different network system than Europe (and Asia) so you need to check that your phone works on the network in your destination. That is fairly easily done, checking out the specifications of your phone.
Secondly, and the most difficult, is to find out how easy it is to buy a SIM card. In Greece for example, you need to register, and I don't know if it can be done without an address. You need to go to a mobile phone shop for this. In China a couple of years back it took about half a day to get the paperwork done, but there were also the problems of language. In other countries (Sweden) you can just buy a card in a convenience store and put it in your phone.
The local SIM card is a cheap option for local calls, but not for calling back home, but that is maybe obvious.
Reply to this Thanks for the info...will look more closely at the spec of my phone,however,it's a pay as you go so assume it's just a matter of getting a sim card in each country,if that turns out to be possible.
Reply to this Make sure your cell phone is unchipped ie it will take any brand of sim card, and also that it can handle the types of signal available in various countries. In most countries its relatively easy to get free or inexpensive sim cards that can be topped up, by either going to a local supermarket or cell phone chain store. Don't know about what kind of charges you will have to pay for phoning overseas, but my tip is to stick to texting wherever possible, and if you need to talk, then find a way of skyping or talking through googleplus. Can't advise on the notebook thing sorry.
Reply to this I'm a huge fan of net-books - for less than the price of a tablet you get a real computer - with a keyboard and usually a lot more disk space.
As for the specific model - a good price on any of the new netbooks will be fine - acer, asus, lenovo, dell, samsung all have models - the most important things are:
- If it is running windows 7 (even starter edition) - get a ram upgrade to 2GB.
- The keyboard - in my opinion Lenovo has the best - but it's a matter of taste - so try them out.
- Processor Intel Atom is the best found in netbooks -
Wikipedia Intel Atom - double check it's a dual core one.
Once you have it - it's a case of keeping the installed software to a minimum - especially the startup software - a really good free tool for this is
ccleaner - that and the
free AVG antivirus - are the two essentials. (careful on the installs - don't include any toolbars! - keep everything to a minimum and things stay very fast)
You can get a free photo editor -
picasa is good, and a simple word processor -
AbiWord or
OpenOffice - and you can work offline - saving more money on internet...
Make sure you have a real browser - any of Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera will do - just avoid IE - and you'll have a really nice fast machine, at minimal price.
Just don't try installing photoshop 😊
Reply to this Great advice from Ali.
I too would steer clear of tablets - apart from price, you really do need a keyboard.
My HP Touchsmart-tm2 (a small, touch-screen laptop) proved very reliable in India for email, Skype, and blogs. It was expensive to buy though!
It was also a bit on the heavy side, so I bought a Samsung N145Plus netbook - under £200 from Amazon, smaller screen, good size keyboard and as light as the proverbial. It only came with 1GB of RAM but, for less than £15 extra, I bought a 2GB card, which was simple to install, incidentally - even for someone like me who dreads opening up a computer's case. On my last trip, I used the notebook to store around 1,000 still photos and 80GB of HD video (it has a 250GB hard drive).
Neither of my portable PCs has an integral disc drive (although the Touchsmart came with a separate, also heavy, one), so you can't back-up to a CD or DVD, except maybe at an internet cafe. So, I also carry a separate small and lightweight WD Passport drive (500GB), religously use that to back-up everything, and keep it somewhere safe away from the netbook in case of theft or loss.
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