[Bungalow_Bill]

A friend of mine sailed his boat from Toronto to the UK and then across to Le Havre and I'm helping him take it through the French rivers and canals to Marseille. I was already a big fan of the PlayBook and this trip has reinforced my enthusiasm. Some advantages are,
Size - it's a great size for slipping into a pack or pocket when you think you might find a cafe with wifi. We're usually anchoring out at night and so look for wifi during the daily excursions. For me, the advantage of size is not only the portability but also being a little more discreet at the table. Another advantage is that it fits neatly into the various pockets and nooks in the boat.
File Organisation - I find it really handy to be able to get the photos off the camera (alas, through a laptop) and then put them into folders, shrink the best ones down to email size using a photo editor and putting those in a separate folder for adding later as attachments when I find wifi.
Video Chat - this is so simple and easy to use that I regularly check who's online (keeping in mind the time difference) and saying a quick hello. My friend and his patient wife at home each have PlayBooks and use this a lot.
GPS - this has worked extremely well on the water and in the cities. We have paper charts that we're following but this quickly confirms our location on the very winding rivers and shows surrounding details of towns, cities and roads (using Navigator with offline maps).
Wikipedia Offline - I bought this app for $15 and downloaded 4 GB of articles. I use this so often to read up on places we're passing through and especially about their histories. It's incredible to have this much information in such a small device. Reach from the cockpit into the netting pocket, swipe the screen on, swipe over to the appropriate already running and read to your heart's content.
Low Energy Consumption. - we charge the main battery from a solar panel and it's pretty rainy/overcast here. The aforementioned laptop takes a lot so the PlayBook is the device of choice for music and videos and by leaning it up against an engine room panel we get even better sound with the added reverberation. It's quite remarkable.

Apps I'm Using
Navigator - it has offline vector maps for the whole country and it's fantastic to have it.
Groovy Notes - for keeping a log with photos
Hello Hello French - trying to improve my sporadic French with audio portions especially helpful.
Email - I love this email programme for adding multiple attachments and flipping between current and past emails.
Music & Video. - of course
What's Up - for the rare clear nights (hopefully more as we go south).
Wikipedia Offline - incredible to have this information available at all times.
Book Reader - trying to get through Around The World in 80 Days (in French)
File Browser - for finding, renaming and organizing not just photos but Web downloads
Pictures - for viewing not just photos but screenshot captures of salient Web Page info

There's more but that's enough for now. Paris awaits...

[anon(3641385)]

Wow what a fantastic trip!!!

Thanks for sharing and I hope all continues to go well.

Enjoy!

[Herve5]

(...) I find it really handy to be able to get the photos off the camera (alas, through a laptop) and then put them into folders, shrink the best ones down to email size using a photo editor and putting those in a separate folder for adding later as attachments when I find wifi.

To eliminate the laptop completely you could use an Eye-Fi card in the camera. You indeed still need a PC or mac to set everything up initially, but indeed after this the cam just deploys its own wifi network, you connect the Playbook to it, run the (android-port, sideloaded) Eye-Fi app, and off you go, all the pics come in the PB without you doing nothing at all. Eye-fi even offers a free service that'll further reduplicate the photos to your ftp server of choice when the PB is on the net.
I indeed experienced this on a 10-days tour this summer and am definitely satisfied.

Apps I'm Using
Navigator / Groovy Notes / Hello Hello French / Email / Music & Video / What's Up / Wikipedia Offline / Book Reader / File Browser / Pictures

Cool, I have almost exactly the same set, save the french teaching (because I'm french ). Thumbs up for the extraordinary What's up, and for wikipedia offline.
I indeed have the File Browser app (best GUI, fastest in the market, ftp support) but I added "Files and Folders" specifically for image handling, which is very efficient (up to sporting an integrated slideshow from any folder). They have a trial version if you want to check.
Have a nice time in Paris!
H. (from the french Riviera -only place with SUN at the time being here in France)

P. S. to process images on the PB (I mean process seriously, like with a 'curves' tool) you have Sumo Air Paint, which is an offline version of the Pixlr site. Unfortunately all the controls are reduced to the size of the PB screen, which turns them hard to use (I heard some use a stylus), but apart from this, if you really want an end2end process straight on the PB, Sumo Paint may help for the 'curves' part. Outside Curves, you have Photo Studio that's native and with a much more efficient GUI, for 'ordinary' adjustments.

[crackberryjill]

My sister went to Africa this past summer and she and her husband both took their playbooks as well as the laptop. They took a balloon ride over the Serengenti and both playbooks were shooting video. The couple beside them asked what t hey were using. They had never heard of the playbook and marvelled at how easy it was to shoot video and how compact to throw in your backpack.

When travelling on safari, my sister said it was just too hard to take good photos (unless you had a super camera) as the ride is so bumpy and you are bouncing all over the place. She just continually shot video and then took screen shots off of the video to send everyone pics of the trip. Some of her pics looked like they were straight out of National Geographic.

And then on long waits in the airport and the very long flight home, they were happily watching all the movies they had preloaded to keep themselves amused.

We video chatted with her from Nairoibi, She would simply flip the camera so she could show us the views from the room, including all the monkeys that practically lived on her patio.

Made me feel like I was right there with her.

[Bungalow_Bill]

Thanks Herve for the tip about the Eye-Fi card. I had no idea that it worked without a wifi network. I'll see if I can get one of these tomorrow.

And thanks Crackberry Jill for the video/screen capture tip. I like that. I think there is now an app that takes multiple quick shots which might work, too.

Being able to work with photos on a trip certainly adds a new layer to a trip. I think it's fantastic.

[anon(3641385)]

Bill here's a link to one of the Eye-fi threads:

http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...s-dslr-734514/

There are other threads on this topic too if you need some more help.

I appreciate the last thing you want to do is spend lots of time on your trip trying to work out how to get eye-fi working.

Bon chance!!

[DC506]

Great post!! Thanks

And I am jealous of your trip

[kdeckels]

Come on, without pic's or video it's hard to believe - just kidding. I do invite you to share though.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

i brought mine with me when I was in france last in and it worked great too

[Bumble2000]

My sister went to Africa this past summer and she and her husband both took their playbooks as well as the laptop. They took a balloon ride over the Serengenti and both playbooks were shooting video. The couple beside them asked what t hey were using. They had never heard of the playbook and marvelled at how easy it was to shoot video and how compact to throw in your backpack.

When travelling on safari, my sister said it was just too hard to take good photos (unless you had a super camera) as the ride is so bumpy and you are bouncing all over the place. She just continually shot video and then took screen shots off of the video to send everyone pics of the trip. Some of her pics looked like they were straight out of National Geographic.

And then on long waits in the airport and the very long flight home, they were happily watching all the movies they had preloaded to keep themselves amused.

We video chatted with her from Nairoibi, She would simply flip the camera so she could show us the views from the room, including all the monkeys that practically lived on her patio.

Made me feel like I was right there with her.

wow, this is a great thread on cool real world scenarios of where the playbook shines. reminds me of an ad (nike?) where they showed a person travelling the world and journaling their travels.

imagine if we saw a similar ad for the playbook with the scenarios above ....from the trip to france, to africa, ...90 days aroind the world with the playbook

maybe an adventurous traveller amongst us could make a video journal of their travels with the playbook...that would be insanely cool :-)

[Ishaq786]

I don't know what Safari your sister went on but safari guides always stop vehicles when coming across animals and vantage points.

Source: I live in Africa.

[madman0141]

Good Times!!!!!! Post some pictures of the boat!!!!!!

[crackberryjill]

I don't know what Safari your sister went on but safari guides always stop vehicles when coming across animals and vantage points.

Source: I live in Africa.

Yes, they stopped lots of times, but there is still lots to see (especially for a non-African) and she didn't want to miss a thing. She videoed all the time, and got some amazing shots. Here a few I clipped out of her slideshow.

[Snap51]

Great post! Enjoy the rest of your trip. Bon s�jour � Paris.

[Bungalow_Bill]

Wow... Those are great pictures above.

Here are a couple of much tamer ones. One is of the boat with the mast still up. We sailed and motored about 140 km up the Seine before taking it down. The other shot is from the water showing examples of some of the beautiful homes and buildings that line the banks. It's a beautiful country.

Staying on topic, though, the PlayBook has been incredibly handy. We've been in Paris for a few days now and it goes everywhere with me. I love history and so I love having the offline Wikipedia at my fingertips so that I can learn about the places and people and architecture that fill this remarkable city. I know some people have had problems with their tablet but mine has worked almost flawlessly. The GPS works well, the camera works surprisingly well (with good light) and the screen is very readable outside. Once again, I have to say that the size of the PlayBook is absolutely perfect for this kind of use. It's small enough so there's no reason to leave it behind and just large enough to read maps on it.

Love hearing about other people's experience, too.

[anon(3641385)]

I'm loving this thread!!!

[bungaboy]

A great thread. Thanks for sharing with us.

[el31415]

If only google voice was working on the playbook you could call home for free.
Also sadly there is only 1 voip application working on the playbook.

[bungaboy]

If only google voice was working on the playbook you could call home for free.
Also sadly there is only 1 voip application working on the playbook.

sadly there are your types who would rather troll a perfectly innocent thread.

take it elsewhere. we are getting pleasure from this thread. is that what bothers you?

[jonno_atamaniuk]

Very nice to hear you're making great use of your PlayBook on an excursion like this! It's really great to showcase just what the tablet is capable of and how well it works in the real world without too much of a stretch.

[pixieloulou]

Great thread, really enjoyed reading it. I have never tried Navigator but I am certainly going to try it now!

I don't know if this will help you with your photos, but I have another solution that doesn't require a laptop. When I was in the U.S in the summer, i would take photos on my camera and once back at the hotel (or wherever there was wifi), I'd take out the micro SD and put it in my phone (Bold 9790). From here I could load all the pics to dropbox or other cloud storage, or copy and paste the pics over to the playbook via Files and Folders. I know this obviously only works if you have a blackberry phone, but I felt better having everything backed up in Cloud storage as well as either on my phone or Playbook.

I also like the Print to go feature when I am travelling as I can scan copies of passports and important documents and transfer them as one PDF file on the Playbook for easy access. This was especially useful when we got to the airport and had to phone to confirm our taxi pickup. My partner was desperate for a smoke (after an 8 hour flight), so went outside while I used a payphone to call the taxi company. They asked for the booking reference and the hotel address which I didn't have with me as they were in my partner's hand luggage. Luckily Playbook had it saved in Print to go!

[Bungalow_Bill]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I really wish I'd got the Eye-Fi card setup before I left. I tried to buy one in Paris but no luck.

I'm reluctant to respond to a certain earlier post because I'm hoping to keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible on this thread so I'll just say that most of my friends have PlayBooks.

We've also been using the tablet to download PDF's for the canal closures and a couple for the motor details because of transmission problems. I know the Adobe Reader is far from ideal but for these it's sufficient. I do like being able to download these files, rename them if necessary and organize them into the proper folders.

[ny9900]

WOW! Thanks for sharing such exciting experience! Playbook works! and Worth much more than its current price!