Best netbook or tablet for travelling

Hi
My partner and I are heading to Southeast Asia indefinitely at the start of October. We are agreed that the iPad comes with us which we already own, mainly for FaceTime with family and friends in wifi areas.

So our dilemma is:
1
My partner is hoping to carry out various online Microsoft excel courses while we are away, and we both have 100 hours of online tefl to complete too, which the iPad doesn't seem to like.
2
Uploading of photos from our camera to social media sites isn't easy with the iPad is it? Or are there plug in sd card readers available.

So we are considering either a netbook with USB port which will support ms excel, or the Microsoft surface RT which has MS office built in already.

I'm aware there are pros and cons to both but has anybody any real life experience of a similar dilemma and able to share their wisdom with us?

Any advice kindly appreciated.

Kristian & Tara

I got a little (12.1") Lenovo i5 thinkpad X201 notebook with 128 Gb SSD on ebay for $250 including post. It's light and 9 cell battery gets 6 hours and is relatively indestructible. Immeasurably more useful with a proper size keyboard and much more powerful than any atom powered netbook.
Ultrabooks look light but ridiculously expensive and I haven't tried a Surface apart from tinkering in a showroom - seemed nice but very small screen.
I have an ipad toy which I love but when it comes to serious work, it is useless. Those people who say they dont need a pc and can do all their work on an ipad obviously do nothing more than use the browser, play itunes and games and send a few 2 line emails. Try editing a 200 x 500 line spreadsheet on one and you will see what I mean. Better still, type 10 x A4 pages on it without an external keyboard. To sum up: ipad + external keyboard = crap laptop.

OK there are a few things to be aware of here.

Yes you can easily get the camera connector kit for the ipad. It comes with a USB port for connecting cameras directly and a SD card reader. There are also many third party options available as well. The only issue is storing photos on the ipad is not a great idea, but its perfectly opk for putting photos on social medai sites etc. Just keep a copy of the photos seperate.

secondly the Surface RT tablet does come with office. But its a version written for the RT tablet. Its not the same as standard excel and as such many of the more advanced features like macros. I expect any decent excel course would cover the use of macros and probably dig deep enough into excel that the RT version may be an issue.

So I agree with 1, get a light small laptop/netbook/ultrabook, instead of a surface RT tablet.

OK there are a few things to be aware of here.

Yes you can easily get the camera connector kit for the ipad. It comes with a USB port for connecting cameras directly and a SD card reader. There are also many third party options available as well. The only issue is storing photos on the ipad is not a great idea, but its perfectly opk for putting photos on social medai sites etc. Just keep a copy of the photos seperate.

secondly the Surface RT tablet does come with office. But its a version written for the RT tablet. Its not the same as standard excel and as such many of the more advanced features like macros. I expect any decent excel course would cover the use of macros and probably dig deep enough into excel that the RT version may be an issue.

So I agree with 1, get a light small laptop/netbook/ultrabook, instead of a surface RT tablet.

Also an ipad is a pretty expensive form of SSD storage compared with just buying a hard drive (cant connect to ipad) or simply buy more SD cards.

We have just returned from a 3+ months trip Scotland to Turkey and back by road. For us the Samsung Galaxy Tablet 10.1 was perfect for wifi, photos, gps and so much more. From what we saw, when comparing it to people's i-pads, it did everything the i-pad did, but was over €100 cheaper. Bigger screen too.

#5, the difference between tablets is usually a personal choice, but tablets in general are not perfect for all travellers.

Absolutely correct. What's good for one traveller, is no fun for another. I just found and still find the Galaxy Tablet provided/es everything I needed/need for my journeys.

Thanks everybody extremely helpful from you all. The iPad is coming with us either way for ease, and it looks like a budget netbook is the way for our needs, including storage of media files etc.
Thanks once again everybody

Anyone try the new ASUS keyboard touchpad with external keyboard and Windows 8, etc.? I'm going on a 3 month trip where I'll want to blog, email, deal with photos, listen to music and read/listen to books. I don't need Excel or anything fancy. Just a way to access the internet and deal with photos. Any thoughts?

Ok, so rather than choose a netbook one actually chose me when passing a cash converter type shop. HP pavilion DM1, and initial reaction is it seems pretty cool. Enough storage for photos and music, nice and light and I'm getting 4-5 hours out of the battery. The 11" screen is surprisingly workable too.

Thanks all for your input, now lets hit that airport :)

Sounds like a good choice and pretty light too.

Well you seem set on the idea of taking the ipad - its an expensive piece of kit to carry considering it doesn't fulfill many of your requirements apart form facetime. Couldn't you take a smartphone (if you have one between you) to do the basic web browsing and use an app like skype for video calling? Just a suggestion.

Get a netbook. For what you need, it fits the bill. I had one till it finally packed up but now I'm using a Nexus 7 with an OTG cable to hook up external hdd's, card readers etc.