small laptop advice

[+cachehunny]

ok having just secured my very first gps handheld unit, (garmin etrex H ), being delivered tommorow, woo hoo can't wait , it's gonna be the best xmas pressie ever, i now need to pick you guys brains on the best small compact laptop and internet service as i want to have a laptop with me out on the trail, oh also have seen on the geocach web shop a bag that i can put on my dog for him to carry his own water etc, has anyone else got one of these for their dog and if so how are they finding it, anyway if anyone can recommend a laptop (small) and a good internet service i'd really appreciate it

thankyou

Merry xmas and a happy new year to all

muttitt

[+Prime Suspect]

Laptop on the trail... not the best of ideas. Buy a cheap, used PDA and use that for paperless caching. Take all the money you'll be saving and use a small bit of it to get a Premium subscription so you can have Pocket Queries of caches sent to you, that you can upload to your GPS and PDA.

[+Team Birdaholic]

I use an Acer 9 inch screen laptop in the car. Great for seeing the big picture. Fitted with mobile pc and all the caches loaded you can see whats around you better than a mobile gps. All jeeps have a 120 volt plug so power is not a problem for us. I have never carried it out on the trail though, it is left in the vehicle when we hike (out of site of course). With satellite internet you can get updated info if needed.

[NordicMan]

I agree with Prime Suspect about using a PDA instead of a whole laptop, have you considered that option? A PDA will hold all the information about thousands of Geocaches and it all fits in the palm of your hand I can take mine all the way to the cache site (with cautious handling of course!) and can review the cache info, read past logs, etc,, right at the cache site if necessary.

 

Now I have a Palm Pre smartphone which also has a built-in GPS. I can log my finds right at the site too, provided I have a cell signal

[+CacheFreakTim]

Any of the Netbooks in the $200-$400 range are all very similar in specs. Most of it is look and feel. Go into a Best Buy and check em out. I tend to hear good things about the Acer's and the Dell Minis get good marks too.

 

With all that said I cant imagine going caching with it in the woods. Maybe to keep in the car to tether to your cell phone for internet but other than that I would think a iPod Touch, iPhone, or PDA would be a good choice....and cheeper too.

[+Sol seaker]

I had the cheapest notebook for a while that Best Buy carries.

It was 250. Nice size, but still too big.

 

The other problem is that it needs to be recharged frequently.

 

I got a PDA for 25 bucks on Craigslist. Works better.

 

Smaller and I can replace the batteries.

 

And if it gets ruined in the rain or I drop it I'm not out that much.

[+ras_oscar]

acer aspire one to plan the trip using microsoft streets and trips. Stays in the car,

Garmin etrex vista HCX with 2 memory cards stores topo and routable road maps for most of the country, and PQ with about 2500 caches, updated twice a month.

 

Palm M515 with cache mate stores all the cache pagbe information including the last 5 logs. Stored and one database per state to reduce the length of the list I have to scroll through. The Palm plus the GPS go in an eagle creek fanny pack that has been fitted with a sholder strap and also stores TOTT.

 

Cache on

[+cachehunny]

wow guys ,i wasn't expecting quite so many helpful answers but it does seem like a pda wins hands down, now to find one that doesn't cost the earth, any reccommendations on a good one would be much appreciated, there was a slight hic -up with my gps (garmin etrex h) but that's all sorted so it should be with me in the next day , mean time i'm still using my garmin nuvi 300 sat nav it's ok but it doesn't like rain and i can't attach it to a lanyard

thanks once again for all the info and like i said any help on the best pda would be greatfully received

[ThomasFamily102]

wow guys ,i wasn't expecting quite so many helpful answers but it does seem like a pda wins hands down, now to find one that doesn't cost the earth, any reccommendations on a good one would be much appreciated, there was a slight hic -up with my gps (garmin etrex h) but that's all sorted so it should be with me in the next day , mean time i'm still using my garmin nuvi 300 sat nav it's ok but it doesn't like rain and i can't attach it to a lanyard

thanks once again for all the info and like i said any help on the best pda would be greatfully received

Without a doubt buy a used palm,you can get them anywhere for 20 30 bucks,we love ours.

[BCProspectors]

You can get those little netbook things but they're not exactly field computers. You want one of these. You can use them outdoors and out on the trails without worrying about it getting broken or dropped.

 

If you'll be within cell phone coverage on your hunts a Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Stick will work for an Internet connection. Otherwise you'll need one of these.

[+hukilaulau]

Another option: I upgraded from a small Nuvi (200?) to a widescreen for the truck. I got a hardcase for the smaller one and carry it in my backpack. If I get stumped on a cache i can pukk it out and have all the cache page info and previous logs. After I've used it a couple of times I plug it in as use it as the car mapper for a while to recharge the battery.

[+rambrush]

e bay or craigs list for a palm use GSAK to put together info.

 

My 1st was a etrex serial port and I printed and killed a lot of trees. so keep that in mind not to print a lot of the pages.

 

I use a Delorme PN 40 it has the cache info on board so I am paperless and only 1 device. plus I also use Topo 8 and a laptop kept in the vehicle a friend uses the basic nuvi and loads caches in there and it gets him to the location and then he switchs to his garmin 60

 

welcome to the obsession!

Edited January 1, 2010 by rambrush

[+trevorh7000]

As someone else suggested - why not just use your nuvi 300 for paperless caching

[+popokiiti]

As for your dog's jacket/bag...have you tried any online pet stores? I have seen something similar to what I think you may be after - like a saddle/with pockets and a velcro strap under the belly and around the chest. Police and search/rescue or service dogs have those sorts of jackets...you may even find something in an outdoors store. Maybe someone could make one for you if you could give them a rough idea of design. Good luck!

[+Ed56]

I agree with Prime Suspect about using a PDA instead of a whole laptop, have you considered that option? A PDA will hold all the information about thousands of Geocaches and it all fits in the palm of your hand

 

This sounds like a good solution for me but I'm not at all familiar with PDA's. Can someone walk me through exactly how to load geocaches into a PDA and please....really spell it out in detail like See Spot Run, assuming I know nothing (true). Thanks !

[+ras_oscar]

My Palm M515 cost me $40 on amazopn and presently has 4000 caches stored in it. No idea what the limit is since I haven't found it.

[NordicMan]

This sounds like a good solution for me but I'm not at all familiar with PDA's. Can someone walk me through exactly how to load geocaches into a PDA and please....really spell it out in detail like See Spot Run, assuming I know nothing (true). Thanks !

Hi Ed56 yes I quite understand, the learning curve to Geocaching with a PDA is a bit of a hill to climb. But if you take things one-step-at-a-time you'll eventually figure it all out. And, at the end of the day you'll look back and say "geez that actually was pretty simple!"

 

Start by going over this site

http://www.ggaonline.org/resources/paperle...ss_caching.html

 

It's a good tip to learn to use the PDA all by itself first, and I don't mean learn it "while Geocaching" that'll frustrate you right away. Just learn to use the PDA all by itself first. The same advice is good if you've also just bought a GPS receiver, learn it all by itself first, THEN add Geocaching to the blend.

 

Good luck with it. Any further questions ask away!