by legojenn » Tue Apr 30, 2013 4:07 pm
Considering that I spend between 8-10 hours a day due to my job, getting away from electronics when I am not at work should be a priority. I travel alone, frequently outside the country, and I am gaffe-prone, so I like to let people at home know where I am and that things are okay. I used to carry a netbook with me with a spare hard drive in case the one in the machine failed. It has never happened. The netbook is pretty versatile. It has games, television shows and music on the hard drive. I do find, when I want to check my email, to post a comment on Facebook to let people know that I am safe or just checking out tearjerkers.net to see if there are any changes to an event at a fast food place, getting the computer out waiting for it to boot, finding a connection and all that takes many longer than the work I need to do. So, this year, I got an iPad Mini. I don't find it terribly practical at home or when I am in the city, but I'm sure that it will prove its worth when I am travelling.
I also have my iPod Touch. It has more music than one can listen to in a week. it does everything that the iPad does, but the screen size makes it hard to type anything more than a short sentence. I have a Kobo mini, which stores more books than one can read in a month. The mini is a nice small size with an incredibly long battery life. It isn't backlit so, the iPad with the Kobo app can fill in at night.
My favourite gadget is my iPhone. I got an old refurbished 3Gs around Christmas. It is unlocked, so I can pop my AT&T SIM card when I'm in the US, and put my Rogers SIM card back when I get home. Having a US number while in the US means no long-distance or roaming charges which can make using a foreign phone prohibitively expensive. I also love having an internet connection available to me most of the time even if I never use it. The iPhone has made the iPod somewhat redundant.
I think that these gadgets are overkill and if I weren't travelling alone, I think that I would stick to my cell phone and ebook reader.
Jenn
