Notebook or iPad needed for travelling in Kenya

Any of them will be fine. but this will depend on the places to visit. When organizing the safari inquire if the places to visit will be having internet or WIFI access so as to plan accordingly.

Safari Africa Guide

Internet cafes are readily available for keeping in touch with family and friends, but for planning your trip, I'd have thought a guide book and talking to other tourists and locals along the way would be more useful.

Unless things have changed drastically in the last 2 years, there isn't much wifi about and you can do without an extra bit of expensive kit to worry about.

@kaz: Wifi is spreading quite rapidly and most of the backpacker-oriented places offer it now, usually for free when you book a bed, or even stop by for a drink. The same applies in Tanzania, Zanzibar and Uganda. I find most internet cafes are still grimy little places with virus-ridden computers. I wouldn't plug my camera or insert my memory card into one of those machines.

Internet cafes don't have much of a future with more people buying their own web-enabled devices. Hence the operators don't invest in them.

During my last trip I had an IPhone, IPad, and Notebook (don't ask why!). Definitely found myself relying on the IPad for most of my needs - access was cheap, reliable, and of course it's much more portable than the notebook. Getting set up for access was as simple as dropping by the Safaricom shop in Nairobi and in 20-30 minutes I was out the door and ready to go. Also had lots of fun using the navigator/map feature on both the IPhone & Ipad - did quite a bit of mountain biking (30-50km daily) and really enjoyed seeing where I was on the map.

Found network coverage to be very good in most areas that I visited - felt a bit strange checking my e-mail during the game drive at Masai Mara, but it was very convenient. I used the IPad extensively and couldn't really burn through 1,000Ksh in a month - was also able to use it for Skype on occasion.

Would totally take the IPad with me again - really only used the notebook when I need to type longer stuff on a real keyboard.

Thanks for all your advice. It's really useful! I decide to take iPad with me. One last question: I should buy the iPad with cellular, right? I'm a tech idiot..

@MZUNGU
You were checking your email during a game drive in the MM? 0_o

@christopher - call me an ignorant luddite (which indeed I probably am) but why would you need to plug your camera into an internet cafe computer? I use them to send emails and maybe check Trip Advisor for hotel details, or websites like this one to see if I can answer a question, but I wait until I get home to review my photos.

I'm sure the internet cafes will survive a while longer though, maybe most of the tourists have their own machines now, but the locals don't, and there are always plenty of customers.

We spend so much of our daily lives and working time using technology, I'd have thought most people would prefer to get away from it while on holiday, but I guess that's just old-fashioned.... Next time you're in a guesthouse and there's someone sitting at the bar, chatting with the staff with not an electronic device in sight - that might be me, please say hello!

Hi Kaz,

My laptop broke down a couple of times (it's getting old) and I wanted to upload some photos to Facebook. That is why I plugged my camera into an internet cafe computer, but only after I verified that it had up-to-date antivirus software protection. It was only done as a last resort.

Yes, I totally agree with you that electronic devices put up walls between people. I'm 48 and I suppose you are around my age or a bit senior. However, I am seriously into photography and I like to post regularly to my account. But perhaps I will bump into you somewhere!

As for the internet cafes, yes, they are still heavily used by Africans. But fierce competition has driven the rates so low that most of these outfits just can't invest in better PCs and other equipment. In Kenya the public internet only costs half a shilling per minute, so imagine trying to pay your shop rent out of that, much less your staff wages. That is where I am coming from when I said the cybers are a struggling business. I also find the cramped seating inside them irksome - you barely have room to sit down - but when rents are high they have to make the most of their space.

It is somewhat ironic that in a huge place like Africa, markets, restaurants and shops are cramped little places where you bang your head on doorways, etc. But this is because there are too many people in a typical town selling the same goods and services, and it is hard to accumulate enough capital to upgrade one's business. Most of these people are just subsisting, at least until the big corporate chain retailers arrive and put some of them out of business.

The low margins also help to explain why many markets and retail strips in Africa are still unpaved and dirty, with puddles everywhere in the rainy season. In most parts of the world, Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) would be formed to clean up the area, but here people are either unable to part with any dues or are just unwilling, figuring that people are going to come and shop anyway.