Best Laptop for Going Around the World?

mitbeaver writes "I'm planning a round-the-world trip. 6+ months in developing countries, including Everest base camps 1 & 2, the deserts of Namibia and lots of places in between. I want to bring something to write (blogs or the Great American Novel) and burn DVD photo backups to mail home. I don't really need much in the way of power, but I do need it to survive the altitude, dust, moisture of tropical locations, and being hauled around non-stop for the better part of a year. I will be carrying my life in my backpack, so every pound counts. It looks like some 'semi-rugged' ultraportables exist, but the truly 'rugged' are all pretty heavy. These are pricey, and the risk of theft is non trivial. A smaller laptop is easier to keep on my person more often, which is safer (in most countries) than leaving it in the hostel/hotel. Still, the rugged guys are 2x the price — almost worth buying a cheap one and planning an on the road replacement purchase. I know we've talked about gadgets to carry around the world before, but any advice would be greatly appreciated." We also discussed laptop travel cases a little more than a year ago.

Comments

Instead of sending DVDs home

[ForestGrump]

Instead of sending DVDs home, why not just send memory cards? They are smaller and you don't need a CD/DVD write drive. Just a memory card reader to write your data to.

flash hard drive

[smellsofbikes]

A: it's less likely to get injured in an impact
B: as weird as this sounds, mechanical hard drives with spinning discs don't work well at high altitudes, like Everest Base Camp. Apparently many hard drives fail at over roughly 3500 meters altitude. With that said, none of my computers or apple ipod/creative zen have had troubles with extended operation -- several days at a time -- at 11,000' elevation, and it's not a problem if they're not running. (I didn't previously know the hard drive cases were vented to atmosphere, although I guess it makes sense.)