Which is best Laptop for camping

something about charging. They now do these "powerbanks" in various guises, basically I battery in a box with USB ports etc which you can charge at home and then use to charge your mobile device.

I bought a smaller one to charge my HTC HD2 phone, which has a dreadful battery run time, to watch a film whilst traveling to france/skiing. (called power monkey)

This for example (just picked one to show, there are plenty more versions), some even have inbuild solar chargers.
New 10000mAh External Battery Charger Power Bank 2 USB For iPhone 4 4S/Samsung | eBay
 
Last edited by a moderator:
noeleen

kenspain said:
I have just got a new Acer Aspire one good for take out a bit on the small side i now wish i got the next size up but dose all i want it to do and was cheap over here dont know about the TV side only use it for watching films i download onto a stick and emails when i,m away for 123 euros not bad.
Click to expand...

Ken Please tell me how you download a film on to a stick i am desperate for space
 
sparrks said:
I've got 2 acer laptops, one 17" screen and a little netbook. Both run on the same voltage about 19v, i bought a maplin car charger powerful enough to run the large one and like you found that it didn't have the right tip. So I purchased a mains charger off ebay for about £15 I then unsoldered the lead from the mains charger and used it to replace the one on the Maplin charger, so i now have a 150W or 120W (can't remember exactly) car charger which I can use on either Acer model with the correct tip.
A good solution if you can use a soldering iron - much better than an inverter

Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip Paul (excuse the pun :eek:).

Just for anyone else with a similar problem, maplin are selling sets of tips (without the converter) for a few pound. They do not mention for which newer laptop brands, so you would have to take your laptop or a 240 volt lead. They are compatible with earlier power converters but not with mine (check the online site for the campatibility details).
 
As I said earlier I am no computer buff . I have an HP Lap top running Windows XP,and it does all I want it to do, it is my only route to the Internet, via a Dongle, I have a TOM TOM Sat,Nav, to find my way around and travel Europe extensively, and don't use Autoroute at all,someone posted earlier that not having Autoroute was a loss, so what am I missing ? I like to keep things simple but am still interested in knowing what is going on,even my Phone which works very well in Europe for calls and texts only, is an old brick and has no net connection,this post is NOT intended as a slight to anyone but things do seem to be getting too complicated.
 
hiya malc ./ how on earth do we manage to find our way around all the places i know you and i go to. even more how did my parents manage in the early 60,s . no telephone and hardly any telephones in foreign villages . only had a puter lap top two winters ago . dont know how i managed it . at least my phone takes pics . how you get em on here i have no idea. see you somewhere this winter stay safe . and get into the 20th century .hee hee.
 
vindiboy said:
As I said earlier I am no computer buff . I have an HP Lap top running Windows XP,and it does all I want it to do, it is my only route to the Internet, via a Dongle, I have a TOM TOM Sat,Nav, to find my way around and travel Europe extensively, and don't use Autoroute at all,someone posted earlier that not having Autoroute was a loss, so what am I missing ? I like to keep things simple but am still interested in knowing what is going on,even my Phone which works very well in Europe for calls and texts only, is an old brick and has no net connection,this post is NOT intended as a slight to anyone but things do seem to be getting too complicated.
Click to expand...

If it aint broke, Dont fix it!!

Ive made a living out of IT for the past 25 years and none of it excites me anymore. I actually hate technology but I am in tune with what it can do for me which when motorhoming basically means having the internet where ever I am home or abroad and I can do that. Otherwise I couldnt give a stuff about the latest app for my iphone (and 99% or them are useless) or how great the latest iPad is (just a fat iphone).

keep your brick phone as when you drop it it will bounce back up and keep working wheras the latest and very expensive Nokia or whatever will break into a thousand pieces.

Windows XP service pack 3 is a good OS. Vista was designed by 6 year old and is hopeless, windows 7 is ok but lacks the updates and patches and evetual reliability of XP SP 3 (cor thats all a bit techy for this time of night).

Autoroute can be useful for planning but then you can do most of it on a sat nav or map I suppose

Cheers
BD (not got my techno head on)
 
tottaly agree with hank win xp flys along with plenty of memory whereas win 7 needs the memory just to run love xp run it at home tweaked to limit yes ido have a brickphone second one first one didnt survive the washing machine for the second time first time it survived but the boil wash did it in
 
This thread reminded me to take my old laptop to a small Computer company on the local trading estate today.

I told the gentleman that it is a Fujitsu Siemans and is about 9 years old. Could he please give me a price for fitting a new hard drive and more Ram.

His reply was to shake his head and say that it is impossible to get parts for them nowadays. I believe that I have the ability to smell bulls--t and I certainly smelled it this afternoon.

Looks like I will have to do it myself with the help of Mr Google.
 
i have a fujitsu siemans here and this acer . i think i prefer the fujitsu though. needs a battery really . might get one one day.
 
Noleen...when you plug it in, it should open and appear as another folder....just click on the film and drag it across to that folder. Then delete the film in the original folder.
 
maingate said:
This thread reminded me to take my old laptop to a small Computer company on the local trading estate today.

I told the gentleman that it is a Fujitsu Siemans and is about 9 years old. Could he please give me a price for fitting a new hard drive and more Ram.

His reply was to shake his head and say that it is impossible to get parts for them nowadays. I believe that I have the ability to smell bulls--t and I certainly smelled it this afternoon.

Looks like I will have to do it myself with the help of Mr Google.
Click to expand...

Good Luck! I had a similar problem with an old'ish laptop and indeed it was difficult to find "old" RAM which the laptop would accept. and once I found some, I refused to buy it because it was 5 times the price of a newer (and much bigger) RAM module. That's talking of new parts from a dealer, you might be lucky second hand.

computer specs move on very fast and even a year or two can make a hell of a difference. I have two RAM sticks for laptops in my spares for example. Both same capacity and physically the same. Except one is for a slightly different voltage and has the "notch" a tiny bit more to the left.

So for an 9 year old laptop, you may find it difficult to find parts new.
 
Teutone said:
Good Luck! I had a similar problem with an old'ish laptop and indeed it was difficult to find "old" RAM which the laptop would accept. and once I found some, I refused to buy it because it was 5 times the price of a newer (and much bigger) RAM module. That's talking of new parts from a dealer, you might be lucky second hand.

computer specs move on very fast and even a year or two can make a hell of a difference. I have two RAM sticks for laptops in my spares for example. Both same capacity and physically the same. Except one is for a slightly different voltage and has the "notch" a tiny bit more to the left.

So for an 9 year old laptop, you may find it difficult to find parts new.
Click to expand...

How else do manufacturers keep the cost up.

Same in cars, same model, same look but slightly different configuration so you have to buy the exact year and then choose which manufacturer the car co used for your car.

And if it happens to cross models, even more interesting.

I'd look on Ebay RAM doesn't often fail
 
Bigpeetee said:
How else do manufacturers keep the cost up.

Same in cars, same model, same look but slightly different configuration so you have to buy the exact year and then choose which manufacturer the car co used for your car.

And if it happens to cross models, even more interesting.

I'd look on Ebay RAM doesn't often fail
Click to expand...

Same goes for Laptop Batteries. Very difficult to find for older models and very pricey.
Ebay with chinese copies is often the last resort.

considering that you can sometimes buy NEW laptops around the £300 mark, it's often the better choice.
 
Teutone said:
Good buy IMHO. Even got a SSD drive which is going to extend battery life AND increase speed. Nice one.
Click to expand...

The SSD was the deciding factor tbh as I like to use the laptop with autoroute and a GPS dongle on the move, I figured the lack of moving parts would be useful while driving.
 
security

what ever one you get get a security chane for it we have had to return to the uk after being robbed in the south of france. They put a chiled through the toilet window to open the door and we lost computer camer and lots of other stuff. Alarm went of no one herd it and it reset so when we returned after 15 min it looked like a bomb site in the van. We have been motor homeing for 30 years so now with more alarms fitted we are leaving next week for spain (THEY MUST NOT WIN )so always think about security but dont let it put you of travelling:fun:
 
Hi all i have been going abroad in vans for at least 30 yrs and have had a few close shaves with nearly getting burgled but we have always been on our guild and used common sense like what has already been said on here if you 'dont feel right' about leaving van even to go to super market then dont move somewere else ,
And thought i would mention we have for a few years now used an hawkings dish a small hard plastic that we plug into laptop and i can honstley say i have always connected to hotels near campsites Mc Donalds offices alwayts had a connection and rang home by skype this is free computor to computor but if you ring land line or mobile fron computor through skype it is around £9/10 month now,
I also have a 32gb dongle which i bought in spain 4yrs ago i fill this with films/docu and plug into my tv usb port,
And i also take my 2TB harddrive if i go for a few months with more films on it now this could last a very long time and is very light weight and about 9"x6" be great for thoses who full time, :D
I have noticed ebay sell these dishes now from china dont know how good they are though:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top