(+) How I Ditched My Laptop for a Tablet Computer

As a frequent traveler in a high tech world, I am always looking for ways to travel lighter, with less luggage and less effort. I started out years ago traveling with a 12-pound laptop computer with a black-and-white screen and two floppy disk drives (and no hard drive). I think the charger added another three or four pounds to my luggage weight as well. That was state-of-the-art in the 1980s. Of course, I was younger and stronger in those days, and carrying an extra 15 pounds or so wasn't much of an issue.

In those days I had a separate suitcase just for the laptop, charger, modem, and assorted cables plus some tools needed to take apart the telephone in a hotel room in order to hook into the phone system and connect to the outside world. This was before the airlines started charging extra for every piece of luggage. The normal method of connecting online in those days was to use a dial-up 1200-baud modem to connect to CompuServe. The World Wide Web and the phrase "Wi-Fi" had yet to be invented.

Luckily, technology has improved greatly since those days! As time marched on, I went through a long series of laptop computers with each new generation weighing less than the previous. My most recent laptop computer is a 3-pound MacBook Pro that is far more powerful than the 12-pounder I carried years ago. I also carried a charger that added another pound or so to the carrying weight.

There’s even a better solution for today’s traveler.