field laptop

[photohiker35]

<p>I've searched a couple of forums looking for the perfect field laptop. Something to do basic editing in Lightroom, descent screen, battery life, what graphic card? Any suggestions are helpful, NO MAC RESPONSES < REPEAT last 3 words<br>

Thank you in advance</p>

[bruce_margolis]

<p>Here are a couple possibilities.......</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/workstation_precision_m4400?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04">http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/workstation_precision_m4400?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04</a></p>

<p><a href="http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=95F811B4EF37447BAA6A66969FB312CF">http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=95F811B4EF37447BAA6A66969FB312CF</a></p>

 

[15sunrises]

<p>Maybe some more information about it's acual day to day usage would help. How many hours a day do you plan on using it? The current crop of netbooks, in my mind, would be pretty much ideal. They have a screen, and long battery life, which is what I would need for longer nature trips. <br>

I don't think there is going to be a "perfect" field laptop. Since you're posting this in the nature forum, I'm assuming that you'll be using this a lot outdoors, which means hiking, which means weight restrictions, which means sacrificing processing power. In the field, in nature, I don't know how necessary RAW editing in Lightroom would be to be honest, that kind of thing can wait until home in most cases, so maybe just something to view the jpgs in a larger size? I still recommend a netbook then.</p>

<p>Personally, I still need somebody to explain the purpose of a notebook in the nature to me, but if I were to take something, it would definitely be as small/light as possible, with the longest possible battery life. So, as I said above, one of the many netbooks!</p>

[cowboystuff]

<p>You might want to investigate to see what photographer Art Wolfe uses in his travels.<br>

Start at <a href="http://www.artwolfe.com">www.artwolfe.com</a> maybe.</p>

[cowboystuff]

<p>I also think I did see in one of Art Wolfe's videos, that he does use a small generator and/or a power inverter on his vehicle, to charge all his camera and computer batteries.</p>

[david_shaffer]

<p>In the field I use a $300, 2-lb. Dell Mini 9 to back up my memory cards onto a Passport external drive. (Which makes for fast transfer to the big computer when I get home.) No Lightroom but I can use either Picasa or Breezebrowser to preview and cull my files (both Canon RAW and JPEGs). Works amazingly well.</p>

[dangoldman]

<p>I will never ever buy another dell laptop. Desktop's, mine is going strong after 6years. Laptop, barely making it through its 3rd year...<br>

If you're really concerned about power, get a manual camera and shoot film :). When i travel via car, i use an inverter through the cigerrate plug. Did this for an 11k mile trip where we almost never stayed in a hotel. Kept my laptop and camera going that way.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>I'm not sure this is really what you are looking for, but I'll throw it out there just as a possibility.</p>

<p>I use an Acer Aspire One netbook. I don't actually use it in the field, but it does come with me in the car/plane en route to my locations.</p>

<p>Why am I recommending this? Well it's not super powerful, I haven't put lightroom on it, but I do use FastStone and UFRaw/Gimpshop. FastStone is perfectly adequate for image management, and it runs quite well on it. I actually use FastStone for basic management on all my computers, while LightRoom is also used on my desktop for RAW files. I really don't have a need or desire to edit in the field, if I did I'd take a full size laptop. But for basic image management, and quick and dirty conversions for web posting this is perfectly fine</p>

<p>However, the reason I went this route was that I was all set to get an Epson P6000 is similar, or a Jobo Gigaview, etc, and i realized the netbook was far more functional, not much bigger, had more storage capacity, allowed me to do basic edits, allowed me to work like I do at home, if I have access to a keyboard and monitor i can dock it, it allows internet access, email, web uploads, and best of all it can double as a 8.9in wide screen bluetooth GPS in the car. Well, actually best of all, for all the functionality it cost LESS than a P6000!</p>

<p>On it I have my mapping software (MS STreets and trips, and also Expert GPS topo map software which downloads maps for free, and allows me to import scanned maps. I used this in death valley with a partner, and we never missed a location, and it worked flawlessly. I realize many cars have GPS these days, and I have a small car GPS as well. Those are great for turn by turn directions, but zooning in or out to see a whole route, possible shooting locations, finding obscure trail heads, etc is pretty pathetic on those.</p>

<p>This whole setup is about the size of a half sheet of printer paper, and weighs about 2lbs and I suppose if I wanted to carry it into the field I could. I could even shot tethered with it if I wanted to. There is no DVD drive, but you could pick up either an iPod, or a similar size external HD to do duplicate backups on both the 160GB internal HD, and then the iPod/External HD.</p>

<p>the 3 cell battery is a little disappointing, but it's only the size of 6 AA batteries. 3 cell gets me 3 hours with WiFi on, and screen dimmed to 50%. They make a 6 cell which gives about 6 hours of off the grid run time, or just pick up a second 3 cell for similar 6 hour run time.</p>

<p>I second the power inverter. I travel a lot by car, and have the netbook and my camera batteries fully charged. if you travel with your car it's worthwile having a hard wired inverter installed. I will be installing one this spring, that will actually run off a supplemantal battery not wired into my main system. I'll recharge the supp battery off a solar charger on the deck of the hatch, or using a car battery charger at home. I like this system because it won't run my car battery down when I am not driving, and I don't need to idle. This setup has been used to run much bigger laptops at my local alpine club hut, and I see no real disadvantage to it, plus if you need more power, you can hook the inverter up to the cars battery post. For travel a simple cigarette lighter inverter works perfectly fine for the netbook, and for the digital camera batteries.</p>

[Marc453]

<p>I had a MSI netbook and while it worked well, I eventually traded it in for a 14 inch screen laptop. I made the mistake of getting a cheaper model of the Acer Extensa line and it is missing a couple of USB ports and Bluetooth. I recommend spending the money to get the extras, especially if you are going to keep it more than three years. I also recommend the larger screen, especially if you are closer to 40 than 20. One major reason I switched to the laptop is I use PhotoShop alot and I couldn't add four gigs of memory to the netbook, but it was cheap and easy with the laptop. It also travels well and I get about three and a half hours with the battery. The brick is fairly small and light. It also cost less than $450 with MS Vista. Its light about 4-5 pounds and its great to watch movies when not editing photos.</p>

[breck_lundin]

<p>Just something people looking for laptops for use in the field might consider is there will be new LCD panels released this fall (2009) mostly in <= 10"-ish display devices. The person who was the creator of the orginal OLPC panel has announced a new panel with three display modes two of which are said to be great for viewing outdoors.<br>

These are newly announced, as in just a week or so back, but from all the video demo's I've seen to date, it is really promising tech change for those of us who might need a laptop readable in the sunlight. <br />Here is a link to some video of the panels in use as well as pretty solid info from Mary Lou Jepsen herself:<br>

<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/07/pixel-qis-3qi-lcd-screen-sized-up-with-kindle-cto-sheds-light/">http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/07/pixel-qis-3qi-lcd-screen-sized-up-with-kindle-cto-sheds-light/</a><br>

Beyond that, any laptop someone wants to use in the field either needs to be pretty inexpensive since they are not sealed and protected from dust, dirt, whatever or the more expensive (as in vastly more expensive) ruggedized laptops like the Panasonic Toughbooks. Google "ruggedized laptop" and there is a ton of detail out there on the market.<br /><br />It all depends just how "outdoorsie" a laptop one needs.</p>