Small pc for touring

[andym]

You can get PAYG in France but I'm pretty sure it doesn't include data. Last time I looked, I think Orange gave probably the most practical solution, a 3G key where you prepaid for set period of time (evening, weekend, etc). For occassional use, I didn't think it a starter. Besides, 3G coverage is pretty poor outside of urban areas, i.e. most of France!

On the plus side (if it is a plus) McDonald's do free wifi.

Hi yes I was referring to 3G. Actually looking again at the orange.fr website they do seem to have bought out a new product since I looked a couple of months ago: Internet Everywhere offers an hour of 3G or WiFi for 8€ (follow the link for other prices and time periods), valid for 15 days (which I'm assuming could be 3 sessions of 20 minutes each). The USB stick is 29€ - so unless you can buy the SIM on its own, it's a pretty pricey solution just for picking up emails and a bit of casual browsing.

 

[andym]

I couldn't honestly say but I would doubt it.

Why?

In fact they do:

http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/restaurants/whats-on/whats-on-wifi.shtml

 

[ASC1951]

it's a pretty pricey solution just for picking up emails and a bit of casual browsing.

Yes, it is, isn't it. I can remember beefburgers when they contained meat, so perching on designed-to-be-uncomfortable chair in Le Macdo wouldn't be my choice. Looks like back to the rucksack of pigeons and the lightweight paper.

 

[jay clock]

YES http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/restaurants/whats-on/whats-on-wifi.shtml?dnPos=-605

loads of them.

 

[yello]

In fact they do

Well there you go. You live and learn. I guess I just figured that as the cafenista places charged then so would everywhere else.

 

[BentMikey]

Big fan of the Advent 4211 (Well, MSI Wind really) myself, like PBT.

 

[jay clock]

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=222833 The Asus EEE Linux version now for under £150...

 

[rich p]

Is that the same Asus that people were mentioning on page 1 or is it a lesser spec? It looks good value.

 

[rich p]

The asus one at Maplins has been removed and replaced with another for £139

 

[Cathryn]

The husband has bought me a small pc for christmas. Bated breath to see what it is. I'm very excited.

 

[Enogeze]

I'm thinking of a Dell Mini 9 with XP - here's why

I'm quite keen on a CD-less solid state hard drive notebook PC.

I'm not an anti-Linux fiend (in the past I've used Linux on a Mac) but had bad experiences of the Xandros version of Linux which is used in Asus eee pcs. I installed Xandros on an Acer laptop of mine which worked. But anything extra seemed to not work - in particular while there was some cool Linux GPS software (can't remember the name now) I couldn't get it to work with Xandros. Nor could I get the Linux version of Picasa to work.

I'd hope to use my PC on a bicycle to -
- transfer photos from digital camera to PC
- label and edit photos
- transfer tracks from GPS unit to PC
- geotag photos with GPS info (this basically means inserting GPS coordinate information into the EXIF data in your digital photos)
- when in wifi area, upload geotagged photos to Flickr where they are automatically placed on a map
- keep a diary
- read and write emails/blog posts while offline
- when in wifi area send/receive emails
- transfer video from camcorder to PC
- edit video on PC

I can hear you crying out that a lot of this can't be done on the Dell mini 9.
- default 16GB solid state hard drive is too small to store large numbers of photos - true. But upgrade SSD to 64GB see video on how to do it.
- but that's still not enough hard drive space - I was thinking of either this 32GB or this 64GB usb flash drive on which to store photos. In fact I was thinking of getting 2 of these just in case one got destroyed or corrupted you'd still have the other. The other option would be to get a "drop proof" external USB hard drive like this 500GB option from La Cie. Google for reviews - there's one claiming to have dropped it off a table 3 times with no ill effect. But I think I still prefer the flash drives.
- video might not be possible. Sony Vegas Pro editing suite needs 1GHz processor - so maybe the atom 1.6GHz CPU would be able to do basic editing. However the large amounts of disk space required might necessitate the external hard drive option.

That's my 2 cents anyway

 

[HJ]

The husband has bought me a small pc for christmas. Bated breath to see what it is. I'm very excited.

Come on Cathryn Christmas is over, you can tell us what it is now...

 

[clownfishrob]

Iphone might be more use to most users unless you're writing pages of type or transferring video etc .

The new version has google earth available, GPS and geotagging of it's photos (the camera isn't great but acceptable)

It will also automatically connect up when it does find a signal it can use and collect your email etc. It can use free wireless, 3G and good old 2G

Oh and it comes with 8Gb or 16 Gb of storage which you can read word doc, pdfs, jpegs etc .

The mains charger is small and compact and you can charge from either a USB port or a mains connection. I believe you can even use a juice bar to charge it. It is meant to last up to 6 Hrs of use compared to 3 hrs for most small computers. 6 days on standby or 24 hrs use if you turn 3G off.

There are loads of programs available for free or less than £10 .

While it won't suit every use it will suit most people.

I use mine at work where there is no available wifi connection and I can view 95% of most websites including this one. I have an application for writing blogs and another for twitter updates. You can even use it as an emergency torch.

 

[Gotte]

There was a small laptop (I forget what the little word processor/internet browsers are called - ebooks?) for about £125 at Maplins before Christmas.