Laptop for campervan travelling advice please

Eliza_2

Hello wise people.  I will be travelling quite a bit this year in my little campervan and could really do with some advice on a suitable laptop to take with me.  I will be mainly using it for basic personal/work office type stuff (small spreadsheeets, documents, emails and browsing).  On my home laptop I use Chrome for browsing, Libre Office for office stuff and Thunderbird/gmail for emails and would like to use the same just for simplicity.  I've looked around till I'm cross-eyed and although -book type laptops are cheap enough they seem to be tied to MS products or need the internet to save stuff.  I usually use Google Drive to backup in the cloud but don't always want to use up my data to store stuff while travelling until I arrive somewhere with free wifi.

Decent battery life would be good as I'm only planning on staying on sites with electric hook up every 3 or 4 nights.

The other thing is that I don't want a numeric keypad, so a full width alpha keyboard please.  I may not be using the best search terms while googling so if anyone can point me in the right direction that would be great.  Thank you so much.

Liz

km1500

I am not quite sure what has to be special about a laptop for a camper van as opposed to an ordinary laptop

you say you have a home laptop already - why could you not use that in the camper van or something similar.

Miser1964

I'm also confused why don't take the laptop you have to use in the camper, unless it's a Chromebook or similar and all the apps you mention are accessed online and therefore need a permanent internet connection.

NB for battery life, most campers I see now carry a portable power station such as from Jackery so they can keep laptops, mobis etc. powered when off-grid.

Veteransaver

Have you got a way to charge it up in your camper van? I presume you have 240v via an inverter or something? But can't see what needs to be different about a laptop for camper.van use. The whole point of laptops is that they can be used anywhere.
You can hotspot a windows laptop to your phone, if you are concerned about data use then you can set the WiFi connection on your laptop as a metered connection, which means it will not do large updates until you are on an unmetered WiFi point.

cerebus

As above....

You seem to be looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist 

matelodave

You can get a 12v laptop power supply or use your existing laptop PSU with a small inverter. Both are available from a well known South American On-line store for around £35-£40.

I have a small 12v 150w inverter that I got out of the bargains bin in Maplins about 20 years ago which runs my laptop and my TV from my caravan battery (and previously from my 12v boat battery)

Eliza_2

Gosh, sorry I should've said.  The laptop I have at home was expensive and provided by one of my jobs so  I want to keep it safe. It's also quite big and fairly heavy too - not the newest but perfectly good. No I don't have an inverter - just a leisure battery so would charge up when I stop at campsites.  I don't feel the need for a Jackery as the laptop would be the only thing I would need to charge - no telly, camera etc.  Perhaps I should get an inverter though.  I was thinking of a small cheap (£150 or so) laptop for travelling which could be tucked into a tiny space and hope the dog or I don't sit on it.  Maybe I should look at tablets but I would want to connect a 'proper' mouse too so thought a cheap laptop would be better.

Yes hotspotting from my phone is what I usually do - I shall look into how to meter it, I didn't know you could do that.

Thanks for the advice all.  Liz

cerebus

matelodave said:

You can get a 12v laptop power supply or use your existing laptop PSU with a small inverter. Both are available from a well known South American On-line store for around £35-£40.

I have a small 12v 150w inverter that I got out of the bargains bin in Maplins about 20 years ago which runs my laptop and my TV from my caravan battery (and previously from my 12v boat battery)

Why can't you just say Amazon , its much easier to type, the world won't cone crashing down and you won't get done for product placement 

cerebus

Eliza_2 said:

Gosh, sorry I should've said.  The laptop I have at home was expensive and provided by one of my jobs so  I want to keep it safe. It's also quite big and fairly heavy too - not the newest but perfectly good. No I don't have an inverter - just a leisure battery so would charge up when I stop at campsites.  I don't feel the need for a Jackery as the laptop would be the only thing I would need to charge - no telly, camera etc.  Perhaps I should get an inverter though.  I was thinking of a small cheap (£150 or so) laptop for travelling which could be tucked into a tiny space and hope the dog or I don't sit on it.  Maybe I should look at tablets but I would want to connect a 'proper' mouse too so thought a cheap laptop would be better.

Yes hotspotting from my phone is what I usually do - I shall look into how to meter it, I didn't know you could do that.

Thanks for the advice all.  Liz

Take a look at all the refurbished ex corporate laptops on eBay and either buy a bigger battery for it or a second battery.

Inverters pretty much Essential as a backup especially as they can be bought pretty cheaply , especially if you use your laptop to watch telly, films, play music etc 

Bonhomie

cerebus said:

As above....

You seem to be looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist 

How ironic...

GDB2222

Eliza_2 said:

Gosh, sorry I should've said.  The laptop I have at home was expensive and provided by one of my jobs so  I want to keep it safe. It's also quite big and fairly heavy too - not the newest but perfectly good. No I don't have an inverter - just a leisure battery so would charge up when I stop at campsites.  I don't feel the need for a Jackery as the laptop would be the only thing I would need to charge - no telly, camera etc.  Perhaps I should get an inverter though.  I was thinking of a small cheap (£150 or so) laptop for travelling which could be tucked into a tiny space and hope the dog or I don't sit on it.  Maybe I should look at tablets but I would want to connect a 'proper' mouse too so thought a cheap laptop would be better.

Yes hotspotting from my phone is what I usually do - I shall look into how to meter it, I didn't know you could do that.

Thanks for the advice all.  Liz

I think I might buy an inverter, as it would be difficult to find a laptop or tablet that would give me 3-4 days usage on one charge. But, you didn’t mention how many hours per day you use a laptop, so …? Buying spare batteries for the laptop would probably cost much the same as an inverter and be less useful in the long run.

If you do buy an inverter, you would be wise to buy a pure sine wave one, as you want to use it with an electronic device. The laptop charger might cope with a less good inverter but it is not possible to predict. 

How do you charge your phone in the camper van?