I tried to post this a day ago, but it didn't appear. I'll try again.
Michael has written about the problem of taking a laptop in the field to download and backup files when in the outback where electric power, weight, and space is at a premium. He has reported on some useful products to help when a laptop is not the answer.
I have such an expedition coming up and have spent a lot of time arriving at, what for me, is an optimum solution.
It all revolves around the Dell Inspiron Mini 8 computer and two of those USB powered portable hard drives. Since the hard drives are “old hat”, I’ll just report on the computer.
I got mine from the Dell Factory Outlet site (
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh) that sells refurbished equipment. I paid less than $300.00 for it and added a 2GB memory chip that cost about $24.00. Here are some observations:
1. It is smaller than a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper and weighs a little over two pounds. All of this with a keyboard that seems to have everything except F11 and F12.
2. The hard drive is a 16GB solid state device. That is, of course, small, but very rugged. Being very rugged is of great importance for this service. It’s speed is not the fastest, but I found it fast enough.
3. The resolution is 1024 x 600, and that gave me pause. One very important consideration for me was to be able to run Lightroom on it but I was concerned because the published minimum resolution for Lightroom is 1024 x 768. I don’t expect to do much, if any, editing on it, but I greatly desire to use the full Library Module to import and organize the files. I didn’t expect to be able to calibrate the screen, but was prepared for that.
4. The good news is that it runs Lightroom just fine. To be sure, the screen is a little crowded, but everything is there and the speed isn’t bad.
5. The extraordinary news is that the screen can be calibrated and the color isn’t bad at all. I used the Eye 1 pro application/hardware and had a few problems at the beginning, but they got solved. It also requires 1024 x 768 resolution, and when first run on the 1024 x 600 machine, the buttons at the bottom of the screen could not be seen nor accessed which made the application useless.
But wait, here is the solution.
Right Click on the Desktop>Properties>Settings>Advanced>Monitor. Uncheck “Hide modes this monitor cannot display.” A note will caution you that you could cause problems and even damage by doing this, but I did it without any problems at all – use your own judgement. Click OK. You are now at the screen which lets you set the monitor resolution. Select one whose vertical resolution is greater than 762. Click OK and return to the Desktop.
When you run the Eye 1 application, you can use the up and down arrow keys to get to the whole screen and do the work you need to do.
Go back and check that box after using this method for a particular program.
I am more than satisfied with this solution which gives me not only the photo solution I was looking for, but all the other features of the laptop, including email, internet, and printing.
Good luck!
Wil
