Im using laptops...(4 of them) for just about everything and a Nook tablet that was modified for light browsing.

I found over last summer by having 2 laptops onboard that both of us could do our own thing without a problem and I use an old laptop as a wifi hotspot using the park wifi when available.

2 of my laptops onboard are for business use only one of them is dedicated to a CNC cutter , so thats why there are so many!

I use a Lenovo laptop and Kev uses a Samsung tablet

guess it depends on how much you use it and how much you need it to do....

me.......I go into walmart and bought 2 Toshiba's for under 500 and an external harddrive for storage....

they are going to break and there outdated 3 weeks after you buy them so I dont spend alot on them.

We have a Macbook Pro and Mac Mini on board, each hooked up to 27" monitors. We also each have an iPad and an iPhone. We're a bit Apple crazy around here.

A bit over a year ago I switched from having a laptop to a desktop (the Mac Mini), because I found that using my iPad was 'good enough' for most things that I'd need away from my desk. The Mac Mini is quite affordable, and offers a lot of oomph in a very small package.

The Mac Airs are a nice small and more affordable laptop, if staying Apple is something you desire.

Can't offer any advice on non-Apple products, as we haven't tracked those as closely.

- Cherie

We have two iPads, two iPhones and a laptop. We use the iPads 90% of the time but the laptop for Quicken, making labels, etc. if we had it to do over we'd buy an Apple as recommended by Cherie and Forest.

It's easy to do our banking, bill paying from the iPads and to check our accounts daily. I do take our JetPack and my iPad with me anywhere we go. I've been able to get a signal on that when I had no bars on my phone so I feel more comfortable for emergencies or detours.

Sherry

Two personally owned Mac laptops and a Windows one Connie uses for work. Two iPhones, 3 iPads, and a Mac Mini used as a file server and media server.

As a former computer guy…I seriously believe that about 80 percent of RVers can get by with just an iPad and the other 20%…about 80 % of those can get by with the cheapest Macbook Air or an equivalent cheap Windows machine. The remaining few percent might need a more powerful laptop like a Macbook Pro.

 

 

Since Jo has had her career in Information Technology, we've pretty much had to stay up to date and buy new computers every few years.  With retirement coming up, we're hoping we won't have to buy so often.

I use an Hewlett Packard laptop with a 17" screen for about everything that I do, including all my photos.  I use a Motorola RAZR Maxx HD for my smart phone, and with my usage, I use the "smart" more than I use the phone.  Jo is the one with all the rest, including an HP 15" and HP 10" laptop, as well as a Kindle Fire and her Samsung smart phone.

In all of our years of computing, HP's have been extremely good for us.  The only "major" problem I had was the controller going bad in an external hard drive.  The drive ended up being okay, so all we had to do was change the controller/case.

Terry

Terry how much computer do you have, my wife also does a lot of photo stuff?
Is 8G enough or dowe need 16G. Any special graphics needed. How fast is fast enough. Anything special needed in the computer to help with getting a good wifi signal?

Thank you all for the great input. Seems to be 50/50 with Mac,s versus windows, we know windows but very little about apple except for what we do on our IPads.

 

   Bobc wrote:

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Terry how much computer do you have, my wife also does a lot of photo stuff?
Is 8G enough or dowe need 16G. Any special graphics needed. How fast is fast enough. Anything special needed in the computer to help with getting a good wifi signal?

Thank you all for the great input. Seems to be 50/50 with Mac,s versus windows, we know windows but very little about apple except for what we do on our IPads.

---

  

folivier wrote:

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On the photo stuff it depends on whether you are processing Raw files or just Jpgs. Raw files take quite a bit more processing power. And if you're running Photoshop you need more power also. Lightroom isn't quite as power hungry.
That being said my macbook pro has 2.6 Ghz Intel core i5 processor with 8Gb ram and a 250Gb SSD drive and handles raw files in Lightroom fine. Not sure how a Windows computer would compare. One thing with Lightroom or Photoshop on Windows are the memory leaks. I would have to reboot after using either or the laptop would be very slow. Macs don't seem to have that problem. I only reboot it every couple weeks just to watch it boot up in 6 seconds :)

---

 

Bob,

Folivier makes a good point on the amount how much "memory" is needed.  I don't deal with RAW as I'm not big on manipulation of my images in software.  I'll have to get the computer guru (Jo) to check things out tomorrow to see what memory we have.  My "big" computer is the HP ENVY dv7 Notebook and the link that is the title takes you to a review.  Much of the specs are on page 2 of that review.  It appears to be an 8gig RAM, but I'm not geek enough to know if that applies to speed up photo usage.

I'm seldom ever in a big hurry to get things done, so speed isn't a factor to me.

Terry

Where having more memory matters is if your new computer uses an SSD (solid state disk) instead of a normal hard drive (rotating rust). With SSDs it is best to not use virtual memory since it causes a lot of disk writes, so more RAM is better to keep from doing the writes. Still, most laptops with SSDs come with 8GB of RAM, so the manufacturers must think it is enough. SSDs make for fast boots, including with Windows 8.x.

Editing photos is not that memory intensive, 4GB of RAM should be plenty for Photoshop Elements, so you don't need 16GB.

Windows 8.1 boots fast with a hard drive, I know. Remember, Windows is a moving target, just like Mac OS is these days.

This is truly an interesting question from my perspective.

 1) I've advocated laptops to all of my customers for years and years (except if they were doing gaming)....

 But I currently have a bunch of desktops that I'll be taking with me.  Although Cheryl (My DW) and I have negotiated.  I have a huge stack of PC's and laptops that I am NOT taking with us on the road.

 

I have  a theory (closely related to Murphy's law) that is called The  "Critical Needs Theory"

Example:  (See statement 1 above) .  Guess who's laptop blew his motherboard 1 day out of warranty? 

That is the critical need theory in action.

and the worst part of that example?  I repair (among other things) laptops for a living..

You need it?  Murphy says it WILL fail.

 

THUS some more rules:

a) ALWAYS buy a extended warranty from someone (but NEVER the store you bought it from like best buy*) --I use Square TRADE see link for a 30% off coupon I hope...

a1) I always use them for all of my cell phone warranties too..

B) Buy as MUCH as you can now, EVEN though the technology will get cheaper, and faster and better. 

C) Yes, buy a laptop, with extended warranty, and an EXTERNAL hard disk.

D) MAKE sure to buy your extended warranty for your TABLETS too!

*-- interesting side note, Staples gave up the ghost, and now uses Square trade for all their warranties.

--------------------

now.   does it pay to try and just have a tablet?

I am android rather then IOS (apple) based..

•  I find that 40% of the time I CAN use just my tablet.  But not for spreadsheets, playing with photos, or word processing.

• Even with a bluetooth keyboard, I still can't use my tablet except in emergencies for work.

That being said, I STILL need a desktop or LAPTOP for my work...

• I am moving my two desktops to an A/B switch, but may wind up NOT using them except remotely.

 

Can you survive with just a tablet?  We'll let you know.  Since I upgraded Cheryl from her kindle to a HP Playbook/Android, she hasn't used her kindle any more.

Me?  I use my tablet daily, and love taking it on jobs with me for documentation.

And yes, I think I am replacing my blown laptop...

more about WHAT kind of computer/minimum config's later.

 

 

sure  it's not a problem for a desktop.  They make wifi USB cards.  it plugs into a regular USB port, and could cost as little as $10.00.

Highly recommended to make sure to get the fastest one possible.

here's a link from one of the stores I use often.

meritline.com

It will be a while, as it may ship from china...says 3 weeks, figure 4 weeks. But you can buy one in brick and mortar (staples/bestbuy) at a premium...

 

 

-- Edited by cheryls-other-half on Monday 19th of May 2014 07:32:49 PM

-- Edited by cheryls-other-half on Monday 19th of May 2014 07:33:58 PM

Well that all makes me feel better about putting the money into the old unit.( about 500.00) after replacing the hard drive there should be no reason to not keep this one for another 3-4 years. The bad thing is we will lose the Old Photoshop we have after the up grade we do to Windows 7 ( don't want to deal with windows 8 yet and really no need at this time)

The only reason why i spent the 500.00 is that the computer even at 5 years old was top of the line at the time and had all the brand new Technology in at the time. ( it was a 3,000.00 desktop)

as i was researching what i would want for a laptop i was up around 2500. so we desided to spend the 500.00 for now and re-address the issue in 18 months or so when we hit the road fulltime

I would normally never buy extended warrantee's , I most case,s for me they are just a waste of money
The only time i have done the extented warranty is for our smart phone ( Because they do take a beating) and if i any buying new technolgy which i did when i bought a new plasma TV, at the time they were pretty new and desided to pay it. in this case it did pay off because 2 months after the standard warranty expired the TV blow up. so for a 300.00 extented warranty i got a free replacement on a 6,000.00 TV so the 300.00 was well spent.

When we do buy a new computer for our fulltime travels i will have to think about it a little harder because of the abuse it may get from all the traveling.