My husband and I just got back from one month backpacking through Europe and we brought along my trusty (if rather used looking)old Ibook with wireless, deciding to leave his shiny new macbook pro (which im still paying for) at home. We figured to use it for movies on the LOOONG boring flights, and to forego the windowz laden internet cafes, also for downloading our pics etc. The size of the ibook was better for our daypacks and it didnt seem like that much of an extra burden althought that could be because there were two of us and its easier to keep an eye on your stuff. We stayed in hostels which had lockers and did leave the laptop in there a few times, no problem. Looking back on it though it probably wasnt necessary to bring, MOST places we were in Europe (to my surprise) had either NO Wifi or the few we could find were locked up tight. (and believe me we tried) it did save our butts tho one day when we got lost in some little residential area and by an act of god SOMEONE had open wireless. Thanks to google maps we made it out alive;) So we actually did have to use the internet cafe which was free with our hostel (btw keep an eye out for those, many include free meals, free laundry, internet etc. the free food itself is worth its weight in gold)
In the end i would recommend a smaller device, depending on your taste and how many trains, planes, buses etc you'll be on, something that can play video, put an audio book or something on, can back up your pics, do the GPS thing and oh yeah is GSM.. Hmm i dont know too much about the Iphone (besides that my husband wants one) but maybe that will fit the bill if you are leaving later in the summer.
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My husband and I just got back from one month backpacking through Europe and we brought along my trusty (if rather used looking)old Ibook with wireless, deciding to leave his shiny new macbook pro (which im still paying for) at home. We figured to use it for movies on the LOOONG boring flights, and to forego the windowz laden internet cafes, also for downloading our pics etc. The size of the ibook was better for our daypacks and it didnt seem like that much of an extra burden althought that could be because there were two of us and its easier to keep an eye on your stuff. We stayed in hostels which had lockers and did leave the laptop in there a few times, no problem. Looking back on it though it probably wasnt necessary to bring, MOST places we were in Europe (to my surprise) had either NO Wifi or the few we could find were locked up tight. (and believe me we tried) it did save our butts tho one day when we got lost in some little residential area and by an act of god SOMEONE had open wireless. Thanks to google maps we made it out alive ;) So we actually did have to use the internet cafe which was free with our hostel (btw keep an eye out for those, many include free meals, free laundry, internet etc. the free food itself is worth its weight in gold)
In the end i would recommend a smaller device, depending on your taste and how many trains, planes, buses etc you'll be on, something that can play video, put an audio book or something on, can back up your pics, do the GPS thing and oh yeah is GSM.. Hmm i dont know too much about the Iphone (besides that my husband wants one) but maybe that will fit the bill if you are leaving later in the summer.