Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What do you use as your second travelling laptop

S

Samtb

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 6, 2013
1,508
34
If you have a second Apple laptop to use on the go, what do you use? MBA, MBP, an older Mac or do you plan on getting the new MB for this purpose?
 
I only have a single traveling laptop, I see no reason to own to laptops for traveling. While my household has two laptops (one is my hold 2010 MBP), its now my kids computer so I only use one computer.
 
If you only have one computer, and it needs to move around, a MBP or other laptop makes sense. I have three Macs - an MBA when I'm on the go, and iMacs and home and at my office. As maflynn said, why would you need two laptops?
 
I don't

I have one laptop as my only computer.

For my uses the 13 inch rMBP is perfect for on the go and docked as a desktop replacement at home. As always the best laptop is the one you have with you!!!!
 
My 13" rMBP was my travel machine, but I got an iPad Air and Logitech keyboard with it, and now thats my travel companion, if I dont have any real work to do.
 
I just got a 2014 11" air, and have a 2014 15" rMBP. There was a sale so the 11" was hard to pass up. Especially with reward zone points from the 15" and coupons..

Now I'm in the weird situation of having two laptops...and I think I actually prefer the air!

All my concerns about Logic Pro not working well on it have vanished - it works great. And I can rest it on my midi controller itself without issue.

I think I decided on giving my old mini HTPC to my father, and using the retina in clamshell mode in its place.

Kind of a shame, but the 11" is just perfect.
 
Well, I am a female so I always have a hugeeeee purse. No matter where I go my phone and iPad is in it. If I am traveling somewhere and I will be gone for at least 24 hours I will just bring my 1 laptop. I just got the 13" Early-2105 rMBP. Before I have a 13" 2007 MB. I have since sold that machine. I don't see the point in having 2 full laptops.
 
I recently purchased a 2014 macbook pro 15 (couldn't pass up the good deal BB had a few weeks back) to replace my surface pro 3. This machine is used as my home laptop. I also have the lenovo thinkpad x240 as my traveling laptop.
 
Samtb said:
If you have a second Apple laptop to use on the go, what do you use? MBA, MBP, an older Mac or do you plan on getting the new MB for this purpose?
Click to expand...

Well...I've got several rMBPs, but most of them are normally docked to external displays in my office and at home.

My traveling/mobile setup is either my late-2013 13" rMBP (i7/16/512) or my late-2013 15" rMBP (2.6/16/1TB/750M).

The 13" is for general tasks like light to medium photo editing, light-medium 1080p editing and running a single VM, plus regular web browsing and document handling.

The 15" is for heavy photo editing, running 2 or more VMs (for my day job - software engineer), 4K video editing at shooting locations (for my non-day job - cinematography) and also software development with Xcode. The extra screen estate helps.
 
Basically because I currently have a powerful 17 inch quad core i7 laptop with discrete graphics which is great for high performance but it's portability is poor, too heavy and big. So I thought I'd get something lighter and smaller for travelling? What do you think?
 
ZBoater said:
Then it would be helpful for you to be more specific as to what you want to accomplish while on the road...
Click to expand...

Transfer photos and videos from camera, hook up to TVs or displays & stream media.
 
Laptop - "a computer that is portable and suitable for use while traveling"

Just thought it was funny when reading this post :D

Even the MBP is just super portable compared to so many PC's.
 
I have the 15" rmbp late 2013, which is my main computer. My "travel laptop" is actually a Dell Venue 8 Pro (intel atom processor) with an external keyboard. It's an 8 inch tablet that runs full Windows 8.1. If Apple releases an iPad Pro with a file system, I might swap the Dell Venue 8 Pro out for that.
 
Samtb said:
Transfer photos and videos from camera, hook up to TVs or displays & stream media.
Click to expand...

Yeah - iPads have no problem doing all those.

There's even a lightning to SD card reader so you can import photos directly, or use the cloud or one of those wifi enabled SD cards. If you have photos on a computer and need to transfer them to the iPad, you could do that via wifi or even bluetooth. It's pretty easily actually...

If you're not trying to stream to a TV that allows Airplay - there's a lightning to HDMI adaptor that would allow you to accomplish it. That's also pretty easy, and something many people have done (including myself) without issue...
 
I'm kind of lost. How can you have 2 laptops one for travel and one for work/home?

Let's say, I have all my work on my late 2013 MBPr. Great.

Then I'm going out of town, and for whatever reason my MBPr feels too heavy so I pull out my brand new gold MacBook and take it with me.

I'm in a plane, I boot up my MacBook, and....WHERE'S MY DATA?

That's right...it's on my MBPr at HOME!

derp :mad:

Can anyone explain how it's possible to have 2 laptops with the same data on it so you could actually make the 2nd laptop useful for on the go????

I mean it would have to update in real time to the OTHER laptop so I could just take it with me...is this possible?

----------
yjchua95 said:
Well...I've got several rMBPs, but most of them are normally docked to external displays in my office and at home.

My traveling/mobile setup is either my late-2013 13" rMBP (i7/16/512) or my late-2013 15" rMBP (2.6/16/1TB/750M).

The 13" is for general tasks like light to medium photo editing, light-medium 1080p editing and running a single VM, plus regular web browsing and document handling.

The 15" is for heavy photo editing, running 2 or more VMs (for my day job - software engineer), 4K video editing at shooting locations (for my non-day job - cinematography) and also software development with Xcode. The extra screen estate helps.
Click to expand...

If there's a way, you would know. Please advise.
 
Hieveryone said:
I'm kind of lost. How can you have 2 laptops one for travel and one for work/home?

Let's say, I have all my work on my late 2013 MBPr. Great.

Then I'm going out of town, and for whatever reason my MBPr feels too heavy so I pull out my brand new gold MacBook and take it with me.

I'm in a plane, I boot up my MacBook, and....WHERE'S MY DATA?

That's right...it's on my MBPr at HOME!

derp :mad:

Can anyone explain how it's possible to have 2 laptops with the same data on it so you could actually make the 2nd laptop useful for on the go????

I mean it would have to update in real time to the OTHER laptop so I could just take it with me...is this possible?

----------



If there's a way, you would know. Please advise.
Click to expand...

I have a total of 13 Macs. All of them are connected to 3 different NAS (one for software development and VMs, one for cinematography and one for regular stuff like image libraries and iTunes libraries).

All my Macs have the same software installed as a base regardless for what they're used for, so that in case one breaks, I can easily switch to another on the fly.

Each of my NASes can be accessed from anywhere via sFTP, so I don't worry about not having the right Mac with me. Normally, before I travel, I just store what I want into my 960GB Transcend JetDrive SSD first before taking a Mac with me (I always carry a 13" and a 15" when traveling overseas). In case there's something which I don't have in my JetDrive, I just connect to the appropriate NAS via sFTP.

To make things clear, every Mac (rMBPs, iMacs and nMPs) all have the same software installed - VMware Fusion, FCP X, Adobe CC Complete (at A$30/month as an existing CS customer), Xcode, iWork, Office and Logic Pro X.
 
Hieveryone said:
I'm kind of lost. How can you have 2 laptops one for travel and one for work/home?

Let's say, I have all my work on my late 2013 MBPr. Great.

Then I'm going out of town, and for whatever reason my MBPr feels too heavy so I pull out my brand new gold MacBook and take it with me.

I'm in a plane, I boot up my MacBook, and....WHERE'S MY DATA?

That's right...it's on my MBPr at HOME!

derp :mad:

Can anyone explain how it's possible to have 2 laptops with the same data on it so you could actually make the 2nd laptop useful for on the go????

I mean it would have to update in real time to the OTHER laptop so I could just take it with me...is this possible?

----------



If there's a way, you would know. Please advise.
Click to expand...

Personally I just use DropBox. It works great. All files are updated instantly, as long as the computer is connected of course.

I use my iMac at home, and my rMBP while on the go (mostly). The iMac works as my main hub for media and other stuff. I sync all photos and movies et.c. to the iMac and store it locally. No need to have all that in the cloud.

For schoolwork, I simply use my rMBP 13". All important files (i.e. schoolwork, work-files, et.c.) are added to my 50GB DropBox. First of all, this lets me take lecture notes in class on my rMBP, continue working with the same files on my iMac at home if/when I need a larger screen for productivity. Moreover, my files are safe (although I'm sure some may find that debatable). In case my rMBP would crash/get stolen/whatever, I still have my important files in the cloud.

Also, come exam time I find it great to just pick up my iPad/iPhone and review written lecture notes while on the go. If I have half an hour to spare during my commute, it's super easy to just review lecture notes in the iPad.


Oh, and to answer the OP: I don't have a second laptop.
 
11" Air, no question.

I travel a lot and have to bring my work machine (HP 820) and the Air in addition does not add much bulk nor weight in comparison with an iPad but is so much more useful.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back