Best Tablet, Light Weight device for travel?

Tired of lugging my 5lbs Macbook Pro when we travel. On trips really just need something that can run Lightroom/Photoshop and has port for an external drive we can save 10days of photos and videos to. On most trips I am just viewing and deleting. All the editing happens once we get home. An iPad would be great but no ports.

Suggestions????

Thanks!

I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab2 10.1, which I love for three reasons. One, I can take the SD card out of the camera and pop it straight into the slot to review and copy photos. Two, I use either the micro USB port or a third party adapter to connect a standard USB cable for transfers to a computer or external drive. Three, the microSD slot means I can expand storage up to 128Gb (times multiple cards) for both day to day use and backup on the go.

This device is now superseded, but the new Galaxy Tab Pro (either 10.1 or 12.2) are even more powerful. An alternative if some editing is desirable might be the Galaxy Note 10.1 or Note Pro 12.2 which have a very good stylus interface.

A Samsung Galaxy Tab2 or a Microsoft Surface Pro 3.

The Surface Pro will give you a full pc computer in a 12 inch tablet and the fastest versions are lightning fast.

Chris

Good suggestions, for me I am thinking even smaller than 12".

If you are a Mac guy, why not try an 11.6" MacBook Air? I'm looking at picking up a used one for a trip next year. Same needs as you.

I watched a fellow diver struggle like crazy last weekend to run LR on some little ASUS thing that charged over USB. No idea what it actually was, but he had that and a hub with two drives plugged into it.

MacBook Air at 2.5lbs!?!?!?! What a cow But probably the best option as of today.

And a surface pro with keyboard seems to be about 3 lbs from what I see.

If you really want to go light, get something like a Nexto DI and forget about importing/editing, just use it as a backup. I've done that on trips and been quite happy.

My 11" Air is amazing (and it's the base model) to use while I'm travelling. The only thing at annoys me. Lack of storage (so I'm running a USB3.0 drive with it) and the lack of SD reader. But for speed it's pretty amazing. Photoshop, FinalCutProX. It zips along.

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11" MB Air, since your use to a Mac. I have one, but prefer to just bring my iPad.

I just use my iPad Air with an Apple SD card Lightning cable and leave the heavy PS lifting until I get home. The iPad can crop and do minimal enhancements to show photos to others. I bring several 32 gig SD cards and leave the photos on them for storage, and just use the iPad for browsing and display.

iPad Air would be perfect if it had a port for connecting to a portable hard drive. I get nervous about packing a bunch of cards around from a 10day trip, for 2 shooters, shooting Raw and AVCHD.

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive/iUSBport2/

Haven't tried it but supposedly this will do it for you.

Bill

iPad Air would be perfect if it had a port for connecting to a portable hard drive. I get nervous about packing a bunch of cards around from a 10day trip, for 2 shooters, shooting Raw and AVCHD.

A lightning to USB cable ($19 at the Apple store) should allow connections to a portable drive.

And there is always the iCloud if you have wifi available.

If I am understanding the device Bill suggested http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive/iUSBport2/ it might be a solution but wondering what the "transfer speeds" are.

I tried using an iPad (from memory the 64gb ipad2).

The USB cable is good for offloading photos from a SD Card / Camera to the iPAD - but you cannot transfer the other way.

Editing on an iPad is fine (I use PhotoGene) and great if you are dealing with just stills, but once you get to video and don't have a large capability iPad things get interesting! Transfer speeds are USB2.0 - not 3.0 so if your RAW files are large (or even your video files) then the process is quite slow.

I have also tried a Kingston MobileLite which is great for adding additional storage to a iPad and you can transfer backwards and forwards, but again the speeds are slow. So in the end, I've gone to the smallest/lightest laptop I can - the 11" Air.

Ha! Macbook Air is now a big fat dinosaur (actually the article doesn't give a weight) NEW Thinner Macbook: http://www.photographyblog.com/news/apple_unveils_all_new_macbook/

2.0-something pounds. Smaller power brick.

Hmmmm 12" Retina, that is nice!

BUT... only ONE socket for everything????

So you will have to carry one of these things around all the time too

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multiport-adapter?fnode=51&fs=s%3Dnewest

Finally a laptop than can be charged through the USB port! And an unique USB connector type for everything, just for that it is a significant progress.

Concerning the number of ports, you'll never satisfy everyone, I'm sure accessories companies will bring what everyone needs.

I'm sure everybody will be satisfy with the display and battery lifetime.

I gave up the idea to have one device that can be good has a tablet and laptop so this new MacBook looks great for traveling and will be an excellent complement to an iPad.

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I was going to ask a similar question (looking for something lightweight that can handle Lightroom) - adding to this post.

I'm not an Apple guy, so am looking at some PC based laptops (these are the 2-in-1 type). I found one that had the following specs:

- Windows 8.1 64 bit

- Intel Pentium mobile processor N3520 (2.17 gigahertz speed)

- 11.6" multitouch high-definition screen w/1366 x 768 HD resolution. Energy-efficient LED backlight.

- 4gb DDR3L SDRAM (not expandable)

- Intel HD graphics card

This is a fairly inexpensive refurb laptop ($280) that weighs in at around 3lbs.

From a specs standpoint, does this have enough horsepower to be editing RAW files in Lightroom 5?

Thanks,
Dave