More on weighty portables

You will endure excruciating back pain. You will buy expensive luggage. You will even forgo a change of clothes.

All for your laptop computer. At least that’s the gist of the responses I got after last week’s rant about heavy portables and the peripherals that make them tick.

Seems as if the relationship between you and your laptop is one of ambivalence. A classic “love-hate” affair. You love what your so-called “portable” does for you, but you hate the price you pay for it. And I’m not necessarily talking about the retail cost of the computer.

Several readers wrote in to tell me about the pain they experience when hauling their electronic carry-ons. “My arms grow longer each year with all the crap that I take along,” complained Val Shelley. “My Micron with a spare battery weighs in at almost 10 pounds, which is just too much.”

Chandra Sekhar, a frequent traveler, “developed severe neck pain – enough to get into traction, and strong pain killers to get by. Last summer I ultimately had to get under the knife for disk surgery and walk around now with a stiff neck,” he says.

“Moral of the story – and what my surgeon told me – is not to carry anything heavy. I do not carry any peripherals and stick to the lightest laptop even if it does not make power computing possible. I check bags – no more carry-on. Why did I get into back and neck trouble? The docs think it was all my travel and the weights I used to lug around.”

Sekhar wishes computer manufacturers would consider ways to make the total travel weight of their machines under five pounds. “That would be the day,” he quips.

Lilian Burch switched from hauling a computer in a briefcase to a backpack, but adds, “unfortunately, the damage to my shoulder was already done. I had what’s termed a frozen shoulder and needed physical therapy to unfreeze it. Even though I have recovered my former range of motion, I still experience intermittent discomfort, muscle stiffness and nerve twinges. My orthopedic surgeon told me it’s from carrying too much weight on my shoulder.”

Several readers, in fact, thought new luggage could solve the portable computing dilemma. “I want a briefcase with wheels,” wrote Margaret Riel. “I know that suitcases have wheels and I keep my suitcase with me to carry my laptop. But I would love to get rid of the suitcase and carry the laptop. But I need a luggage cart – one more thing to mess with and fold up on planes. I just need a lightweight traveling briefcase.”

Mark Jackson, a self-described “nerdy nuclear chemist” reports that he and his colleagues have discarded their briefcases in favor of a Kensington backpack. “These have been back-savers for us,” he says. “The shoulder straps hide into the unit for the big meetings and come out easily as soon as I leave the office.”

Jane Isaac says she became so overburdened that she finally went out and bought a PC bag with wheels and a retractable handle. “It means I walk through the airport trailing two bags, but it is wonderful,” she says. “Mine is by US Luggage and cost me around $49 at Office Max. It is roomy, lots of good pockets but still fits nicely under the seat. It also has a handle that can be used as a shoulder bag.”

I’d say $49 isn’t bad at all. I’ve seen cases priced in the hundreds of dollars. For example, a carry-on with wheels in this month’s TravelSmith catalog is marked down to $149 from $249 – hardly a bargain. A Top-of-the-line Tumi “Wheel-A-Way Vertical Office” will set you back by about $600.

Also, luggage that rolls is less likely to slip past the Gestapo agents at the airline check-in counter and will be counted against you as a carry-on. What’s more, the new luggage doesn’t solve the weight problem. It just temporarily shifts the heavy burden to wheels or to a different part of your back.

Perhaps the most disturbing note I got was from Diane Scholfield, an editor from San Diego, Calif.

“I just got back from a trip yesterday, so I weighed my computer bag. 21 pounds, packed in a Lands’ End canvas briefcase in a effort to cut down on the weight,” she wrote. The bag is filled with only the essentials: A Compaq Presario computer in a padded computer sleeve, a battery, an AC adapter, a phone cord, a five-pack of computer disks, a daytimer, three magazines, reading glasses, a small toiletry kit, two slim file folders, a guidebook and a point-and-shoot camera.

Two weeks ago after arriving without checked luggage in Aspen for an assignment, “I had no change of clothes, other than underwear, socks and a shirt – which is all I can handle weight wise in my carry-on luggage.”

Says Scholfield: “It’s a choice between clothes and the computer, and the computer wins.”

I would bet she’s not the only one out there who distrusts the airlines’ baggage handling and, given the choice between taking a change of clothes and a computer, picks the portable. It shouldn’t have to come to that.

There’s no shortage of solutions. Here are a couple of them:

- Move anything non-essential to your check-in luggage. Reader Randy McClary tosses his Zip drive, disks, power adapters, and paperwork in the big bag and surrenders it to the airline.

- Lose the printer. Beth Glasser believes the hardware is frivolous. “There are places in hotels and stores such as Kinko’s worldwide where one can print in an emergency,” she writes.

- Try a subnotebook. Fellow business travel columnist Joe Brancatelli points out that the new computers are “a legitimate three pounds before extra battery and CD ROM. It’s the next wave. Worthy investment, even at a 40 percent premium over the eight-pound laptops.”

- Get a PDA. “I just finished a one week trip to Europe,” says reader Bruce Larson. “I left the laptop home and went with my new Palm Pilot III. Great way to go.”

- Go ultralight. That’s the advice from readers Ray Olsen and Boris von Luhovoy, publisher of the German mobile computing magazine Palmtop-Pro, both of whom recommended a Psion Series 5. “I’m an Apple PowerBook user myself,” adds von Luhovoy, referring to an example I used in last week’s column, “but I do not carry thatload anymore.

- Pick your peripherals carefully. This from Darrell Musick, a vice president at Portable Energy Products, which manufactures a one-size fits all notebook battery that weighs three pounds. With its versatility and long battery life, he says “it more than carries its own weight.”

These are all insightful fixes, but they treat the symptoms without curing the problem. Portables are still too darned heavy, and manufacturers continue to behave as if they’re selling their products by the pound.

The fact remains that if you need all the functions of a real computer on your next trip, you’d better start lifting weights.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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