Best laptop for motorcycle touring - Review Thinkpad X140e

[pnelson]

I take several longer trips each year on my ST and I always take a laptop with me. This year I bought a new one and found what I think is the perfect laptop for motorcycle touring. It had to be small (11.6 in screen) and rugged with a long battery life. I also wanted something faster than the slower Intel Atom based netbooks. For close to $1000 the Mac-Air is a nice option but I wanted something under $300. The Lenovo Thinkpad X140e is what I got and I'm very happy with it. It gives me 6-8 hours of battery life, is plenty fast (with additional 4gb of ram) and it even has an always live USB port that will charge my phone. Upgrading the ram is super simple via a port on the bottom of the laptop. On the road I use the laptop to run Basecamp with my Garmin GPS and to check email and do work from any McDonalds with their free wi-fi. You can get a $12 bag with good padding that fits perfectly.

$256 on Amazon >> http://amzn.to/1wmuk7R

4gb extra memory for $39 >>http://amzn.to/1uvuczP

$12 for a laptop bag >> http://amzn.to/16efTKH

 

[Bushyar15]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing! I've been looking for a less expensive Windows based laptop.

 

[patrickg450]

In the closet is my present I gave my wife to give me.........


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NC06K3G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


I have yet to play with it but we have the same goals as for usage. I did some research and decided to avoid a HD for fear of the bouncing around my pannier. I have never owned a tablet so I have no idea what to expect.

I can report back in about 3 weeks.

 

[Karson]

I take several longer trips each year on my ST and I always take a laptop with me. This year I bought a new one and found what I think is the perfect laptop for motorcycle touring. It had to be small (11.6 in screen) and rugged with a long battery life. I also wanted something faster than the slower Intel Atom based netbooks. For close to $1000 the Mac-Air is a nice option but I wanted something under $300. The Lenovo Thinkpad X140e is what I got and I'm very happy with it. It gives me 6-8 hours of battery life, is plenty fast (with additional 4gb of ram) and it even has an always live USB port that will charge my phone. Upgrading the ram is super simple via a port on the bottom of the laptop. On the road I use the laptop to run Basecamp with my Garmin GPS and to check email and do work from any McDonalds with their free wi-fi. You can get a $12 bag with good padding that fits perfectly.

$256 on Amazon >> http://amzn.to/1wmuk7R

4gb extra memory for $39 >>http://amzn.to/1uvuczP

$12 for a laptop bag >> http://amzn.to/16efTKH

The cool thing about this is that it comes with Win7 ::008:: Something also to consider if this isn't your primary machine, or if you have a NAS for all your storage needs back home to upload stuff to, is ditch the spinning hard drive, like Patrick mentioned. Personally, I'd get a 120GB, or less, SSD and roll with that.

Nice find though! I used a Dell 2120 for awhile that work gave me to test on my travels, and everything about it was TINY.

 

[pnelson]

I read about other owners of this laptop who had added a SSD (solid state drive) and reported that it really speeds it up. I was planning on doing that too but decided to try the laptop with the normal drive first. (You can always spend more money later...) Anyway, it seemed plenty fast to me with the normal drive. I don't really care about boot times as I leave it in hibernate mode all the time when I'm not using it. Frankly, the best thing about it if you actually compare to lots of other laptops is the keyboard. I've always liked the Thinkpad keyboards and this one is nice too.

;-)

 

[terrysig]

Quite a bit more expensive but i think more versatile for
the road. Look at the Lenovo Yoga 2 with just solid
state memory...no hard drive or the new yoga 3.

Very small and I feel good about it in a reasoable carry
case.

I've entertained many at a campsite using my phone
hotspot and showing motogp.com old races.

 

[patrickg450]

I have never carried a laptop or a tablet, but one of my ridding buddies carries his iPad. I made my decision based on the no hard drive. Well truth being told the folks at ADV helped me a lot. I never thought about truing a HD based toy then upgrading to SSD later. I also never thought about speed as most stuff nowadays is fast enough for me.


My goal was to carry sun'in I could load several tracks on and look at. Trying to view on my 60CSX can really suck.........too small. So now (hope) I plan to load them all and I can transfer, edit, change my travel plans during a trip. For the record we take 6 or so trips a year and we typically follow tracks and plan a route. Guess I am a track-aholic as I have several.


Thnaks for the post about the laptop. I will post what I got after I act surprised and get it going.

 

[spam16v]

In the closet is my present I gave my wife to give me.........


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NC06K3G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


I have yet to play with it but we have the same goals as for usage. I did some research and decided to avoid a HD for fear of the bouncing around my pannier. I have never owned a tablet so I have no idea what to expect.

I can report back in about 3 weeks.

Just got the same one. Love it.

 

[pnelson]

OK, that Acer tablet (http://amzn.to/1INAODe) looks pretty cool though it's $100 more. Can you download Garmin Basecamp and see if it works? It's a free download.

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4435

 

[spam16v]

I'll try when I get home

 

[mbabc]

I bought an Asus X202E a while back. Very similar with an i3 processor. Used the 500GB HD for a good while but upgraded to a 480GB SSD on sale. The HD wasn't bad but the SSD boots in like 20 seconds and programs launch very quickly. The SSD should be more rugged for travel too, only thing is this computer probably get 4 hours but so far I've been able to access power to recharge. A week off the grid probably not.

 

[spam16v]

OK, that Acer tablet (http://amzn.to/1INAODe) looks pretty cool though it's $100 more. Can you download Garmin Basecamp and see if it works? It's a free download.

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4435

Yup, runs like a champ

 

[pnelson]

Yup, runs like a champ

Great, that was my one true requirement. Liking my Thinkpad... It's telling me to head down to the SW where it's sunny and warm!

;-)

 

[patrickg450]

Spam and Nelson,

there is a few good threads on ADV that I got my info from. but yea I was told as long as you have a full windows version that basecamp can be loaded.

 

[tkad]

This is a bit of a hot topic with me as well but I want GPS as well. I've been watching some deals on larger tablets... Refurbs since this device may be exposed to some less than ideal conditions... On top of a tank bag, throw in a small Bluetooth keyboard maybe. Some of the new cordless hard drives have SD slots with automatic copy... This is what winter forces me to consider...
Sent from my Nokia 920 using Tapatalk

 

[patrickg450]

cordless HD??????? Might be my next gizmo, what have you got?

 

[tomatocity]

Yesterday I bought a used iPad mini 2 with a Aduro FACIO case and keyboard. I mainly Email, FaceBook, and Internet when traveling.

I still have have an HP Pavilion dm1 10" display but fear the hard drive not handling the vibration.