carrying two laptops
 

just wondering what the consensus was on carrying two laptops for both domestic and international travel. I have my work laptop(PC) but my personal machine is a macbook with all my itunes stuff and other entertainment. Is it worth while carrying around the extra weight and additional stuff to have your personal machine with you? Also, what's the best way to carry around two laptops?

I had to carry two laptops for a trip summer. It is basically a pain and i would not have done it unless my circumstances really aligned the same way again. I ended up having one computer in my normal bag in the laptop pocket then got a cheap backpack and a laptop sleeve case for the other one to spread out the weight. If I had just been on a short trip i would not have done this. Though this was a several month trip and I wanted the benefits of each computer.

In your case it sounds like if you want to keep you personal computing separate from your work comp then get an iPad or something way lighter to carry around to do basic Internet surfing and music/videos.

I carry two. One work, one personal (Netbook). Due to corporate policies, I have to keep personal stuff separate.

Yeah, it's heavier than I like, but with the netbook it's not too bad. Chargers go in the rollaboard, computers in the shoulder bag.

Do your company policies and the practicalities of your software let you put enough of your personal stuff on the work laptop for the duration of the trip, and remove it afterward? Granted, it's Windows and not Mac, but iTunes is also available for Windows, most other Mac software has an approximate Windows equivalent, and you obviously know how to use it.

Or, could you run Windows emulation on your Mac and take enough of your work stuff? (Depending on who you meet with on the road, this might look wrong.)

That said, lots of people carry two laptops. You won't have a problem with security. Whether or not it's worth it is totally personal.

Just boot from an external hard drive for your personal stuff.

That doesn't work for everybody. My company locks down the work laptop - need company help desk to authorize any install. Booting from external drives is blocked, and they have installed spyware to enforce their policies (including what you may have on your laptop, or what you may take off your laptop on portable drives/email.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'd like to keep work and personal stuff on seperate computers plus the Mac screen is just so much nicer for watching a movie or something when travelling internationally.

Did you carry 2 separate bags for this? How about using the dedicated laptop bag then the other computer in a sleeve in the next compartment? I could do that but it would be tight.

Sounds like your IT department is top notch. Give a user any more freedom than they need and they are bound to screw up things up.

If you travel internationally then you will run into restriction of single bag for carry-on sooner or later -- so having 2 laptop bags will be a big problem. You might have to upgrade to F in order to carry 2 bags onboard (I'm sure your corporate travel policy allows for that :) ). Note also that carry-on weight restriction is strictly enforced at some airports (typically 7kg and weighed with 7.1 kg requiring checking the bag or removing the weight). For some trips it is simply impossible to travel with 2 full-size laptops, fwiw. Hence the advice to use a netbook etc for the 2nd one, if you must have 2. I've traveled with 3 at times so I know all the the problems -- and there are many.

Most laptop backpacks I've had will easily carry 2 laptops (15"'s) OR a 15" and a netbook. You have to mind the weight if you're going to travel international.

I've even carried a 17"(!) laptop along with a 15", both in the same backpack. Heavy, yes. But it worked fine.

HTSC

Has iTunes changed? I didn't think iTunes liked syncing the same device to 2 computers.

I don't do apple or mac stuff at all. I have a personal laptop that stays at home and a work laptop that goes with me. I have logmein installed on my home laptop so I can remote into it if I need to do something I don't want to do on my work computer.
I keep music and movies on an external hard drive and I bring the external hard drive with me. To do that with Mac and Windows you should verify what format the drive needs to be in. Macs can't write to an NTFS drive. IIRC FAT32 can be written to by both Mac and Windows, but files are limited to 4GB so things like virtual machine images couldn't be loaded on a FAT32 formatted portable hard drive.

I have some personal stuff on my work laptop, such as personal files and some basic personal apps like my RSS reader and Twitter client (I use Windows Live Sync to keep my files in sync across all of my PC's). But my work laptop is pretty fast so I deliberately try to avoid installing most non-work related apps on it so that a) the Windows image stays de-crappified and fast*, and b) it forces me to focus on work when I'm on my work laptop and not get distracted with other stuff.

My personal laptop is an Asus UL30A, so it has the advantage of being very thin (thinner than most netbooks) and a long battery life (12 hours, more than most netbooks). So I can easily fit both my work and personal laptops in the same bag. That said, there are only 3 reasons that I'll bring my personal laptop with me on a business trip:

1) If I'm bringing my dSLR and need some RAW processing utilities (which I don't have installed on my work laptop)

2) If I have a long flight and want the long battery life of my personal laptop for the plane

3) If I'm going to be at some sort of conference where I'll be walking around all day and I want the light weight and long battery life of the Asus

If none of those 3 apply, than I don't bring the Asus.

*On an unrelated note, my employer rolled out Windows 7 images last September and my build is still running just as fast now as when I built it almost a year ago. Keeping the garbage apps off your machine really adds to the longevity of your build.

I'd disagree with that assessment. The lockdowns, in many cases, prevent some of us from doing our jobs & substantially decrease efficiency. And the way it's been done certainly sends that message that our professionals are not responsible.

For example, I needed to access an outside data room that was built on Active X. It cost 2 days of my time trying to get the IT department to let me do my job.

It's as bad as TSA, except I can escalate matters (although the CIO has been known to turn down requests from the CEO - not exactly "career enhancing").

You will not have any issues with two machines. Just when you put them in the bin don't put them one on top of each other.

I just got one of the belkin laptop backpacks. It's all over the internet for as little as $14 to as much as $60. It's well padded, and could easily handle two machines, like I believe most bags could.

If you want to save some space and weight consider a charger with tips so you don't need to carry two chargers around with you. It won't let you charge both at once, so there's a trade off.

Costco has carried this backpack for about $30.

When Mrs. Swede and the kids fly to Sweden for the summer, she carries an Asus netbook so that the kids can watch movies on the plane and in the summer cabin. When I fly over a few weeks later, I carry my Ful backpack with my work laptop in the padded compartment in the back.

When we all fly back together, I carry my work laptop in the padded compartment. Then I put the netbook, all chargers (including cell phones), camcorder, digital camera, toiletries and some spare clothing in the large center pocket. I carry books and magazines in the front, full-sized pocket. Laptop lock and, when going through security, all things normally in my pants pocket (i.e., wallet, cell phone and keys) go in the small, square side pocket. Travel wallet and other various small items go in the small, front, zippered pockets. Everything has room in the backpack without it looking like it's bulging at the seams.

Highly recommended if you need to travel with a lot of stuff.