Some thoughts on portable media storage devices.

On most of my vacations I use both digital and film cameras. Up to last year I carried a laptop and found it a great device. Last year I bought a Digital Wallet (Mind Works) and I took it to Arizona. Between my wife and I we took over 3,000 images and stored them on the wallet. *Note* (Chuck I didn't say I didn't take digital just that I don't really like digital as much as film). In any event things ended up going bad and the wallet failed but after a great struggle I was able to save most of the images.

Now here are the prose and cons about wallets vs. laptops failure aside.

The wallet is small light and less expensive than a laptop. They are easily toted and you can carry fewer memory cards if that is a concern. While you can store massive amounts of information on the wallet you could not retrieve, view, share or edit the images to any extent. You take them, store them, and transferred them back home.

The lap top is larger and more bulk and was often left in the hotel making it necessary to have enough memory cards for a days shoot. While a bran new lap top is more expensive than a wallet, a second hand one approaches the price of a digital wallet. The lap top is a pain in the butt carrying it on a plane and also in watching that no one lifts it. On the other hand you can retrieve, view, share or edit and with a CD burner archive them after each days shoot. One of the thinks I like about the laptop is that you can view your images in much more detail and redo a shoot if necessary. We often keep a journal of our trips so the lap top also doubles for as a word processor. Of course with these advantages one could be tempted to do all sorts of editing and eat into precious vacation time.

After using both I do like the laptop digital camera set up quit a lot more. The only complaints with a laptop is you do need a secure base to store it and it is a bit more problem lugging it all over the place, but the rewards are far greater.

Now whether you use a lap top or a wallet please don't do what I did, but have the devices for a really good trial run before relying on them as a failure out in the boonies is not fun.

Grant

Basil Pap

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Portable Media Storage