<<Oh yes, for an additional $99 you can schedule reservations (which has to be done for warranty work and since I was caught in traffic, had to reschedule for next available and waited 5 1/2 hrs for app.) to "fit your needs".>>

You do not have to pay the $99 to schedule a reservation. That is only if you want the option of scheduling up to 2 weeks in advance. Please check the Apple website for a complete explanation.

<<However if you pay for an additional $249 for AppleCare protection plan they pay for shipping for warranty work; also it extends the 90 days of telephone support. >>

This extends your warranty period for 3 years. What is Dell's plan?

I agree with Lydia that the $249 not only extends the 90 days for telephone support; pays for shipping of warranty work, but also extends the warranty to 3 yrs.

I am not sure if Lydia has had any warranty work on her Mac, but I speak from experience and you must have a reservation just to take and drop off a computer that needs warranty work. My point was that if I had paid an additional $99 I would not have had to wait and additional 5 1/2 hrs. because I could not possibly make my 1st appointment.

Fishee: What ever computer I buy I will check on service and warranty work and you may want to do so as well. It pays to ask someone who is not selling a computer over the phone as I have had the service dept tell me they were wrong, and they are the ones that you have to deal with. Good luck in your search. I am taking both Mark and Robespierre's advice as they seem to have computer savy, and I have narrowed down my choices. In fact Robespierre has earned all our respect and we are fortunate that he has shared his vast computer knowledge with us!

This thread has gone off track, but I'd like to make one last posting in regards to Apple service. The following is from their website. Please take note of the last sentence.

Support Options
Make an appointment to get help from a Genius

Apple Store experts can answer your questions, offer advice and solutions, handle repairs, and provide technical support. Apple provides hardware service for eligible warranty repairs within the product's first year of ownership. Find a store and make a reservation through the online Apple Store Concierge.

Reservations are strongly recommended.

I have had to make use of warranty work exactly ONCE in the 20 plus years of owning Macs. This happened just before this past Christmas. My grandson somehow dropped my laptop off my desk. This was on a Saturday. I made an appointment via the Apple website for the next day (Sunday). The techs determined the hard drive was gone as well as the trackpad was not working. Left the laptop with them and got it back on Tuesday. Everything working as new. Of course, this should be a cautionary warning to all to make sure you backup your computer regularly. I only lost 2 days worth of stuff.

To TurnstileTraffic re:
“Speaking of which, I bought an iBook last year but haven't taken it anywhere yet as I'm afraid it will still be too heavy.”

We have been traveling with an iBook for 5 years now. Since then we’ve gotten newer Mac laptops, but keep the iBook as our travel computer. It’s very rugged, and has never given us any trouble (knock knock). We’ve even collected travel stickers for it from some of its various trips. Here’s a picture of my husband with the iBook in an Italian cafe (where we just happened to find free wifi available):
http://rozault.com/images/ibookcafe.jpg

We would never go anywhere now without our laptop because it enhances our travel experiences so much. We try to find accommodations or other facilities that provide Internet, but even if we can’t, we like to offload our digital pictures and have a glass of wine in the evening while we review our recent adventures on a slideshow.

Plus, of course, it gives you peace of mind about photo backups. Yes, you can get a big storage card for your camera, but that doesn't provide backup like your computer would.

And by the way, I do strongly recommend Applecare for Mac laptops. You can schedule an appointment for service online from home, but you can only do it the same day you want the appointment, unless you have the special $99 extra plan.

Glad to hear that the ibook is "good to go". I think really I'm just afraid I'll do something silly---like drop it.

Nice stickers!A good conversation piece I'm sure...

Also.. perhaps I just need a better beg to transport it in. I recently saw small backpacks specialized for the ibook. Any thoughts? Does anyone love the bag they tote their laptop in? I have a briefcase type of bag but that seems impractical for a trip. Perhaps a messenger bag with adequate padding...

My husband has a wheeled carry-on bag with various compartments inside, one of which fits the laptop. (I think he bought it at Costco.) So that works for the plane. Usually we leave the computer in the hotel, but if we do want to take it out, as to a cafe, he’ll put it in a daypack, inside another padded zipper bag that fits tightly around it. I don’t remember now if that internal bag came with the carryon, or if he bought it separately.

Well none of you have traveled with a laptop & had it stolen? Around 5 months ago we bought laptop for the purpose of using it for travel. Last year in Italy there were no tv's with American programs on it. Couldn't even find a recent newspaper to catch up on the news from home. Evenings were boring.

So we decided to buy the laptop to watch dvd's and do email & look up restaurants etc on the web when we traveled.

We took it to a convention in Atlanta a month ago. Before leaving for Atlanta I wrote to the Baymont hotel & asked them if their safe would hold our 15" laptop & also would they keep our luggage for us when we checked out until we could come back later to pick it up. Their email back to me told me that yes, of course the safe would hold our laptop & also we could leave our luggage there until we could get back there. They lied...There was No safe anywhere.

We left it with the front desk people in a locked secured area with all of our luggage while we went to get a rental car & a little sightseeing. We returned several hours later to find that our laptop was gone!

We called the police & the hotel security man, both of which wrote out reports & also the hotel manager came & told us he would contact the insurance company on Mon. & get back to us. This was a Friday. That was 4 weeks ago. I have contacted the manager several times with promises to get back with me etc. Called the CEO of the company & several other people in the company with no returned calls. I feel stone walled by these people. I guess they feel as if they ignore you long enough you will go away. So beware of leaving your laptops in hotels-at least at that hotel. Because it was Not Safe!

Luvitaly

We have taken two laptops ( one mac, one pc ) all over europe with us as well as Morocco ( even to the Sahara) and Turkey and have had no problems what so ever.

We have been traveling for a year straight so far and our laptops are our key to life ( we homeschool, blog, do piano classes from chicago via skype webcam, handle photos and video, webcam home to grandparents often daily etc etc).

http://www.soultravelers3.com/

We have brought them on endless ferries thru Greece, Italy, Croatia ( and sometimes there is wifi on the ferries as well as pools!!), in fancy hotels, and cheap pensions as well as endless campsites in our RV.

We are low key, but never had a problem. If things look iffy, we carry them with us. They were the smartest things we have brought on our trip and we would be lost without them.

YES! We LOVE the bag we have that can carry one or two regular sized computers. It is a Targus backpack and even has a pouch in front for refrig. snacks which is very handy with a young child. It has also been one of our smartest buys.

I absolutely hate internet cafes and avoid them like the plague, unless it is the only option.

Sometimes internet connection is not available in Europe ( we had some problems in Burgundy and parts of France last fall) but it seems to be gettting better and better.

I am writing right now from free secure wifi from a resort campsite in Croatia. Turkey was fantastic with wifi and we also had no problem with our hotels ( riads) in Morocco.

There is always some risk to everything, but if you use common sense and a low profile, you will not have a problem. We often use ours at outdoor cafes ( in Venice and Athens etc) which also makes things nice.

I used it all the time at the pool in Santorini, so they could swim while I prepared for our next moves in the shade.

Good luck!

I wonder why people travel with 19" laptops. I thought the rationale was to leave the big, heavy system at home.

As a side note, I wonder why people demand the biggest, fastest, hottest CPU and GPU in their laptops, then whine when the battery croaks after two hours.

The alternative: a small machine (many are under 4 lbs. now) with limited capability (read: battery drain), but more than enough power to surf and email. I'm talking 12" screen and sub-1gHz clock.

<i>p.s.</i> If you plan to watch movies on battery, transfer them to the hard drive before you leave home. A DVD drive's laser consumes vastly more power than the HDD, dramatically depleting the battery charge.

This forum has been so helpful. Thanks to all you posters who made me feel a bit more at ease in bringing my laptop. I went from being on the fence to bringing my computer with me during my travels. My 5 weeks in Europe will have a friendly face for me every night in the form of my computer. Thanks again!

My iBook died and it isn't worth fixing it (over $600), so I am hoping to buy something else in advance of a trip that we are taking in October. I am not wed to Mac's - I bought the laptop as my daughter liked hers so much. However my desktop is a PC and I never really got used to the Mac.

I remembered this subject line and so came here first to do research.

I use it to: take meeting notes for a group where I'm a secretary (my typing is faster than my handwriting), write up trip journals (besides being slow, my handwriting tends towards the illegible), access the Internet while on the road, and upload photos. I can live without the photo uploading if necessary.

I guess that's all to say that I don't need a laptop to do heavy duty gaming or other high-needs computing.

Weight is a consideration and I would also like a decent keyboard. I tried a mini-keyboard with a Palm once and it worked OK but wasn't ideal. (Unfortunately, it was battery driven and when I swapped out batteries at the end of our first trip to Europe, I put them in backwards and lost everything - hence a bit of reluctance.) I'd rather pay a little more, I think, and have more options.

I was sold on the Compaq that Robespierre mentioned, but it no longer shows up on the Circuit City site. I'm not sure if it has been discontinued or what.

Robespierre do you know if Compaq has updated the one that you mentioned?

Debbie

Hi, Debbie -

Remember: the figures of merit in a portable computer are weight and battery life. Forget all that fire-breathing CPU power and fancy-schmancy graphics - that's for desktops.

How about 5.7 lbs? tinyurl.com/37c68a

Or 6.1? tinyurl.com/3bw7px

Or even 6.6? tinyurl.com/3y9qw7

Excellent point. Thanks for your quick reply. I'm going to check out the ones that you mentioned.

Debbie

13&quot; Macbook - 5.1 lbs

And it runs all of your Windows software, Robbes. On Windows!

And it comes with amazing software for audio/podcasting, video editing, DVD creating and photo organizing.

Also, a built in video camera, bluetooth and wireless.

And I know you love Macs, Robbes.

bookmarking

I love price/performance.

Apple makes nice computers with a very slick user interface.

When I see a Mac for $449 that will do what my $449 Compaq (which includes bundled audio/video software) does, I'll buy it.

Is the Windows software available for the Mac? My trouble with using the Mac was that I wasn't used to the lay-out. I'm sure it was all simple enough - but it was different and I never got used to it.

I wonder if the Compaq comes with a smaller screen. My broken iBook is about 11&quot;.

Debbie

PS: Someone once said...

Top Ten Reasons for Upgrading to a PC instead of a Mac:

* 1. You enjoy reading computer manuals
* 2. Buying parts 'not included' is your idea of being patriotic
* 3. Blaming it on the PC is a great excuse... for anything
* 4. Tech support is your idea of telephone dating
* 5. Your favorite computer game is figuring out where your files are
* 6. You look forward to today's new virus (or worm, or both)
* 7. You like listening to telephone support hold-button music
* 8. Letting the kids play on the Mac next door frees your time (eliminates after-school kid sitters)
* 9. You think Bill Gates deserves the money
* 10. You have nothing better to do with all the extra time

Macs are for the right-brained (artistic, inchoate, artsy).
WinTels are for the left-brained (logical, sequential, rational, temporal).

This is a concept that the right-brained cannot grasp.