Something that seemed to click with me before I even left on the first trip away trying out the mobile office was that I needed smaller equipment to take with me. Unfortunately not everything started out as small as I had hoped, or has the features I started to realize might be important. However with a little work and trial and error this is becoming more defined and within a short time will be more then suitable.
First came the laptop, and this change was more driven by everyday use than the occasional time that initially I saw myself traveling with my laptop. I was finding that carrying a 15″ Laptop at 2.8kg everywhere was having an impact on my shoulder, which was not good. It did not take long to come across a good little alternative in the Samsung NC20. Which at 11″ weighs in somewhere around 1.5kg.
The benefit of making this move to the smaller and lighter laptop, was that I was getting a 4hr+ battery life, which means no need to carry the charger. However there was two downfalls, the first as that there was no optical drive in this laptop. Which can be solved with a external drive, however this again adds more weight. The second problem was that while multi tasking is possible, the performance does drop off fairly quickly when you start doing a few things at once.
So while I have a laptop which does really fulfill the majority of my needs, when I am traveling it still would be nice to find a laptop which was around the same weight and includes the optical drive. Another nice addition would be a SIM card slot for mobile broadband, however these are not so common.
Second item on the list was the Camera. This has been where I had a false start of sorts, but now have a solution which pretty much covers my needs. Initially I decided on buying a Canon EOS DSLR, Even though it was one of the lower models, these camera’s are still not a small item to try and pack anywhere. Especially when you have a lens or two. I initially did travel with this camera to both Canberra and Melbourne, and it did take a considerable amount of space in my carry on bag.
When I decided to travel overseas I had really decided there was two options, either buy a single lens which would cover all my needs, or buy a second camera which would be more compact and easy to take with me, while not taking up all the space in my carry on bag.
Well of course I went for the second option, who doesn’t want a new camera to play with. The choice end up with one of the new format Micro four thirds camera, specifically one my Olympus. This camera come in at half the weight and I was able to store it in a bag which takes up about one quarter of the space. An absolute benefit when you are traveling and every bit of space matters.
These are really the two things that I have had to downsize my thinking on to ensure a easier time with my travel. The weight of these items does make a really big impact when you find that you are carrying them around between flights and airports and hotels, and at the end of the day it may cost a little more but this is really worth the extra time and money.