Laptops for Overlanding Travels

[Topo.Ranger]

Ive been thinking about getting a laptop for my trips to back up my photos and videos.

Can yall give me some advice about what laptops to get/ avoid? I would be using a external hard drive to hold all my photos and videos but I would like to have a decent laptop to do some editing on also.

 

[Joe917]

Lenovo laptops are about the best built if you are going to abuse it.

 

[FJR Colorado]

I'd look at i7s and solid state drives

 

[Airmapper]

I have a Dell gaming laptop I like well. Granted I don't do much if any editing on it, I use it to offload all the stuff off my Drone, GoPro's, and a Cannon, and see what I got.

It has an i5, solid state main drive, 1TB internal disk drive, and 16GB RAM. Runs fast, boots in about the time it takes me to enter the password. (cold boot, not sleep...)

Oh, and those snazzy back-lit keyboards are awesome for seeing buttons at camp once it gets dark.

As long as you don't want to actually edit production quality stuff, an i5 machine would be fine for previewing and trimming. Those i7 machines get pricey fast. At one time I had Magix 2016 installed, but I put it on my desktop because I am more comfortable playing with editing at my fixed station, but it ran reasonably well on the laptop.

 

[malibubts]

Lenovo laptops are about the best built if you are going to abuse it.

If it's from the ThinkPad line I'd agree. Their other laptops are junk IMO.

If you are technical (can reload an OS, install RAM, upgrade hard drives) there can be some deals out there on eBay. Leased business laptops will get sold pretty cheap. I bought a t430 about a year ago for $185 shipped. I put a $40 SSD in it and $20 worth of extra RAM. It was essentially brand new and still had warranty left.

I'd echo the thoughts on the SSD; I wouldn't own a laptop without one. I don't know that an i7 would be necessary, I wouldn't get anything less than an i5 though. Probably want at least 8GB of RAM.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[BlindWilly]

I just recently won a chromebook from Google.
It's beginning to change my mind about the way I backed up photo and video.
It's perfect for JUST transferring GoPro files and photos to an external HD.
As long as I can get an internet connection, then it's great for communicating with the outside world.
I'm so used to having "everything" with me on my laptop that I'm still getting used to the chromebook.
I pretty much edit and process the media once I get home, so I don't have to have all the software on the chromebook for that anyways.

oh, and the battery life on the chromebook is outstanding! I charged it up before I left home for a week out in Big Bend. I still had over 6 hours left on the battery when I got back home.

 

[ChadHahn]

I have had a Mac Air for about 10 years now. I have carried it lots of places and haven't had any problems with it. It is slow when rendering photos in Lightroom but a newer one should be fine. It has a solid state hard drive. I use an external hard drive that is kept in a cushioned case for shock protection.

Chad

 

[grogie]

I bought my wife a MacBook with the m7 processor for Christmas. I has a 512GB flash drive, a sharp retina display, not ot mention OS X. It's amazing how super thin and light it is, plus the battery goes for about 10 hours. I want one myself...

 

[izaicinajums]

I would look for something light with good battery life and preferably SSD (can be done as upgrade later) as it does make a difference in how fast computer works.

For laptop I would look for one with Intel processor as they tend to have better battery life and performance. i5 preferably, i7 not required, only if you don't do lots of editing/rendering and want to have it done faster.

 

[deserteagle56]

I've been packing a laptop with me for years on my trips, both to back up photos and to maintain a log of the trip. My first was a Mac Powerbook and now I use a Toshiba Satellite. (Reason I went from Mac to Windows was GPS, I have several GPS units and a lot of the programs either will not work with Mac or a pain.) But I second the opinion above to make sure the laptop has a illuminated keyboard. Most of what you'll be doing on that laptop will be in the evening (most of my keyboard time is well after dark) and being able to see the keys is sure handy. If, like most of us you use a vehicle as basecamp, take along the power supply/charger for the laptop, and take along an inverter that will convert your vehicle's 12 volts to 110. That way you can top off the laptop's battery as needed. If I had to do it all over again I also would get a laptop that's all solid state - no spinning hard drive. I use one at work - very fast and better battery life. And since you say you might try some editing - make sure the laptop you get has a screen you can calibrate. The screen on my Toshiba is probably its worst feature - photos on it look different and not nearly as good as they do on my editing monitor at home and I haven't been able to find a way to fix that.

 

[unplannedbbq]

I agree with the i5 or i7 recommendation - i'd also try to find one with a dedicated graphic chip & vram (instead of just integrated video & shared memory w/ main system)

I'm a MacBook pro fan, mostly 'cause they seem to last me forever. They can be expensive, but utility & durability are great. I just put an SSD into an old mid-2010 MBPro & handed it down to my 12 year old for image editing. Still going strong.

Have some friends w/ i7 MS Surface Pro tablets. They love them. They recommend a heavy duty-case 'cause the screen is easy to crack.

 

[Brewtus]

I have had a SurfacePro2 for a few years now and I find it to be very good as it's compact and it runs a full version of windows. Also got a car charger for it that doesn't require an inverter. As heavy and thick as it is, I can't imagine that it'd have problems with screen crackage, but the newer ones are thinner. My only misgiving about it is that it only has one USB port, but i believe the newer versions have multiple ports.

 

[robert]

I'm using an Asus Zenbook which looks good on paper but doesn't have a cooling fan so it overheats when it's hot out, some models do have a fan though.

 

[jschmidt]

The key advice here is to get an SSD. My son has used a $250 Dell with an 11" screen (and ssd upgrade) for three years of middle school. I'm pretty sure an 11-13 year old, daily carry and daily use tops anything you'll put one through.

 

[MagicMtnDan]

If it was me I'd go with a Surface Book with Solid State Drive (SSD).

You can use it as a laptop and as a tablet and you can easily use the tablet as your GPS! Bonus!