Laptops for Overlanding Travels

[Brewtus]

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!

I'm not sure about that... I don't believe the Surfacii come with GPS, at least not up until the Surface 4 last I looked. Please correct me if I'm wrong and direct me to where I might purchase one with GPS... Much want.

 

[MHerboth]

Best bang for your buck would be the Dell XPS 15 or something from the Lenovo P series, but both can be quite pricey. The lenovo T series is very rugged but you lose out on performance. The surface...pro..etc aren't really capable of editing until you get into the surface book territory where you're looking at even more money. I personally like the macbooks but they're in the same price territory as the surface book and they're not really worth it unless you want to buy into the whole apple ecosystem or have some special need only a mac can fulfill (app development) etc.

If it was me I would opt for the surface book route due to it being more efficient and capable of editing, if I lacked the funds the xps15 would be my next choice, and then the surface pro next although you can't expect to edit much unless you only do some light light room work.

 

[nwoods]

Surface Pro battery life leaves a lot to be desired. Great screens, but tough DPI resolution handling if your eyes have 40 plus years on them....which is more a limitation of Windows itself. Keyboard is good, touch screen is nice, but build quality is not great. We average a 60% return rate on our fleet of Surface Pro's, mostly due to battery issues, but for random stuff as well.

Personally, I think the best value out there in terms of performance, portability, cost, durability, features, and ease of use is the MacBook Air. They just don't quit. We have 20 of them, some are now 6 years old. Nothing has ever gone wrong with any of them, and they see Heavy use.

 

[Brewtus]

best value.... macbook air....

mkay.

 

[kojackJKU]

I picked up a dell 11" 2 in 1 for my wife. 16gb ram, 2tb SSD, touchscreen....awesome. I bought the dell 13" 2 in 1, 64 gb ram, 2tb SSD, touchscreen. Replaced apple macbooks...and much better.....and for 1/3 the cost as well. Touchscreen is amazing for doing graphics, photo and video editing...

 

[Kerensky97]

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.

Good to know, that's exactly the route I want to be going.
Out on the trail or overlook I just use my phone for quick jpg transfer and uploads. And at home I have the full featured computer for editing the RAW files for more that social media uses. But I want something for the down time at night in the hotel room or campsite. Something that is mostly for backing up the days shots. Maybe some quick edits to upload to social media or to start pruning bad shots out of the group.

I was thinking either a chromebook or surface.

 

[kojackJKU]

I would go surface because, the power is there incase you need it!

 

[mauricee]

I really like online games and spend a lot of time playing them. I need a better device for gaming because my laptop is already old and it doesn't always work perfectly. If someone could tell me the right computers that I could get, I'd be very grateful. Recently I found a site that offers plenty of computers not only for games, and I was amazed due to their variety. Visit this website to assure yourself with this idea. The only problem for me is about choosing the right one.

 

[alanymarce]

For our last "big trip" we bought a MacBook Pro - retina, i7, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB storage, and carried an external HD as well.

 

[4x4tripping]

Today at 2021 I suggest a Notebook with USB-C / Thunderbolt Power-Plug. Any new camping/car Battery Boxes like this who will hit the market for this year, will support USB-C (with 100W). So you dont have to go over an 110v/220v converter or an seperate 12v Charging Adapter.

If Mac or Windows depends on your habbits. Less Virus on Mac dont help, If you are not able to work with it. I use Macs sind 8 years and are not really abe to work with, I alway start virtual windows machines to do the real work - beyond surfing and email. Also the MAC Books have a very high power usage of 59W who will kill many most Plugs like showed above quickly, who are mostly rated for max. 45W... But to be saver from Computer Virus can be nice, if a travel mate comes with his USB Stick to share GPX Waypoints or amazing recent tracked offroad tracks...

For Photographer and Drone Pilots (international drone laws) the CPU matters during rendering Pictures/Videos - for anybody else a weaker CPU means less heat, less powerusage, smaller size possible, less money - for me always positive values.

 

[IdaSHO]

I run a Lenovo X1 Carbon.

Its a hot rod, that's hungry for power, and I'm not terribly impressed with the monitor.

But the performance is stellar.

 

[autism family travels]

Revisiting this one. My Dell systems work great. I had to replace my notebook with a new one. My husky jumped on the computer and damaged the screen. My new Dell is a 14" touchscreen 2 in 1 with stylus support. It has a 4tb SSD on board, 64gb ram, Evo graphics with core i7 1165g7. I paid 949 cdn for it and it's a great computer.

 

[DCGibbs]

We run with the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 and a 3TB WD "MyBook"... The Dell has plenty of power to move video and photo's. I also like the fact that I can turn it into a Tablet. I keep trying to tell the Mrs., we need a Drone too...

 

[geoffff]

I run a Surface too. I love not having to use a keyboard or mouse when I have it mounted as a touchscreen tablet on my dash. And that I don't have to fiddle with bluetooth (ugh!) keyboards to use it as a laptop computer when I'm camped in the evenings. The screen is nice and bright for daytime use.

I still have my old Surface 3 Pro, which is still trucking along fine. No, it doesn't have an internal GPS - but the GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS works well with it.

 

[LisaLane32]

If you don't have a big budget to buy a laptop, you'd better buy a Lenovo or Dell. These are good models, but HP is better because it is a more powerful device. However, if you are willing to spend a large amount of money, I advise you to buy a MacBook Pro. Its cost is high, but the IOS system is very secure. Besides, it is multifunctional. In any case, I recommend you to be very careful when downloading applications because you can easily download a virus that will hack the operating system. If this happens to you, don't worry because data recovery specialists will help you.