I am fortunate enough to be able to work from just about anywhere, if theres cellular service, I'm good. Just bought the FLHRSI in my sig with the intent of doing some 4 to 6 day trips. Planning on replacing my current Dell 15" laptop with either a Dell Mini 10 or Inspiron 11, pretty sure either will fit in the saddle bags. I may borrow a friends tour pack, just haven't determined I need it (riding solo).
So has anyone had an issue with taking their laptop for extended trips?

 

My current dell laptop has about 60000 miles on it riding in my tourpak. I usually carry it in my laptop carrier wrap in a towel for the added extra protection.

 

Never took anything extended but rode 25 miles each way to and from work with my Compac in small padded case in the saddlebag for 6 months and never had an issue..

 

I do a lot of commuting with my laptop and the hard drive seems to take a beating and I've had it crash a couple of times. If you're looking at a new laptop I'd look into getting a solid state hard drive.

 

My buddy brought his Dell mini 9 to Reno St Vibes last year. It died somewhere along the way and needed the operating system reinstalled when we got back. He is running OSX 10.6, but we are not sure what caused the instability.

 

We take our mac book on our trips with it just stuffed in our saddleman bag. No problems so far. Has about 30 k on it so far.

 

I throw my thinkPad in the tour pack and go, usualy a jacket in there for it to ride on, so far so good

 

I took my work laptop w/me on a road trip last year, about 2500 miles total. I had a Pelican computer case, that I strapped to the back seat. I sits in the middle of foam, so vibration and bouncing didn't bother it. It was waterproof, so I wasn't worried about hitting bad weather. Of course, I didn't have a tour-pak, so if I had one of them, I'd probably just pick-up a neoprene sleeve and put the computer in the tour-pak.

 

Dell Latitude with app.20k mi. with no problems.Takes more of a beating in my co. vehicle on a portable lap top table than my bike.I'm surprised how rugged it is.I've got a narrow padded case with hard sides,fits in the bottom of the tour pack,takes up very little room.Embedded Verizon air card works great.

 

I use a Mac and carry mine to work, or anywhere else I'm going on my FLHRC. Keep it in a laptop bag in my saddlebag. No problems at all. The key is to make sure you minimize rattle.