You
- Instant on
- Great battery life (8-10 hours of use per charge easy)
- Full Keyboard ( not the biggest deal in the world, but nice)
- Built in WiFi, and 3G (100 MB free and pay as you go plans)
- Light
Based on all this at one point I thought it was almost the perfect Lotusphere machine. Where it is lacking is in two areas.
1. The CR-48 has very limited USB device support, it can not read my camera, or any of the card readers that I own, so there is no way to upload photos.
2. No local storage – again this is really about photos, I take a bunch of them at Lotusphere and I really don’t like to trust them for an entire week on an SD Card. With the CR-48 there is no way to back them up locally or mass upload them to Dropbox or something similar.
So while I have other devices coming with me, my Lenovo S10 Netbook will be making the trip again this year, it is about the same weight as the CR-48, a drop heavier, and decent battery life, but adds a lot in functionality that I need.
All that said, I am sure the USB device support situation will improve over time and as Chrome netbooks hit the market, not sure what if anything they would do about small amounts of local storage. I also believe that unless they bring them to market cheap (I mean less than $100.00 cheap) they won’t even make a dent in the surging tablet market.
I also think a year from now this would not even be a discussion, and tablets will have (even) more apps, and I would not even be looking for a full laptop of any sort for additional functionality.
Mitch,
I am also bringing my Lenovo S10 netbook. I stop using my Thinkpad. I no longer use a full laptop anymore. This year my goal is to travel as light as possible especially with all the baggage fees. Everything now needs to fit in one small suitcase.
Thanks Mitch. Yours is a considered and well balanced decision based on your requirements.
Mine was simpler. There’s no way the Lenovo 701DS was going to fit in a #LS11 Backpack.
🙂
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Sounds like I’m in a similar boat. Ive had a (used/refurb) thinkpad X60 for over 4 yrs now. It’s the longest living computer I’ve ever had. It’s basicly a netbook by today’s standard. If I need a computer, it’s the only one I travel with. That said, I’ve been able to do a few trips with just an iPhone. I bet I could do that at LS (if I were attending).