Another "what to do" travel type question

nightspidy

I have just, literally yesterday, booked a last-minute, spontaneous trip to NYC with my Husband for our first married Christmas together. We are going from Dec 21-26, but will only be exploring NYC 22/23/24/25. We will, of course, be hitting up B&H, but I'm not sure yet what I will be buying.

I want to bring my laptop with me on this trip. I'm not concerned about the extra weight as I'm going really, really light on my lens', but I am concerned about it being damaged. I'm just wondering, with carrying it around in my backpack, if the cold could somehow damage the screen or something else? I know, I know, stupid question....but, a friend of mine left her P&S in the car the other night and the LCD screen cracked. I'm over on the canadian west coast, so it's not as cold here as in New York......I am just being a paranoid freak?!

I was also just thinking of leaving it in my room, inside my locked suitcase since it'd be warmer in there.....Not sure if the hotel has a safe that I could leave it in.

ziggy53

nightspidy wrote:

...

I want to bring my laptop with me on this trip. I'm not concerned about the extra weight as I'm going really, really light on my lens', but I am concerned about it being damaged. I'm just wondering, with carrying it around in my backpack, if the cold could somehow damage the screen or something else? I know, I know, stupid question....but, a friend of mine left her P&S in the car the other night and the LCD screen cracked. I'm over on the canadian west coast, so it's not as cold here as in New York......I am just being a paranoid freak?!

I was also just thinking of leaving it in my room, inside my locked suitcase since it'd be warmer in there.....Not sure if the hotel has a safe that I could leave it in.

I moved this to the Digital Darkroom Gear forum.

The operational and storage temperature range for the LCDs used in laptops appears to vary widely. Hopefully your user manual will list the specific parameters for your laptop.

Do be careful trying to open a cold laptop as that can put additional torque strain on the display. I would wait until the computer is close to room temperature to open.

cpagility

What hotel are you staying at?

We were in NYC in October 07 and stayed at the Casablanca Hotel at Time Square. They were awesome. Convenient location, super service, nice sitting area with free computer access and comfy fireplace, sofas, big screen TV, dining tables to enjoy the free wine, cheese and snacks every night.

I had gone shopping at B & H and bought a Gitzo Tripod (aprox $500) and they stored it for us while we were out shopping for the remainder of the day. The way that our trip worked out we were at Casablanca on the first and last night of our visit there and a B & B the other nights. Which is why they stored our stuff. Anyway, at the end of the day we returned to the hotel and picked up our stuff got in a Taxi and went to check into the B & B. After struggling with our luggage up 3 flights of steep, narrow stairs we arrived at our room. I quickly realized I was missing the Tripod. I panicked and called the cab company who said that if I'd left it in the cab there was a chance the cabbie would turn it into the police. I called the Casablanca who said they found it in their storage room. We went back to retrieve it and it wasn't there. They brought out a box that was about 5' tall. The hotel then offered to BUY ME A NEW ONE because they felt that they had accidentally given it to another guest who was storing their luggage that day. They just wanted a copy of the receipt and they would send their employee to B & H the next morning to buy me a new Tripod and then meet us at Grand Central Station Starbucks where we were to meet Andy Williams for a daylong private photography lesson. Meanwhile I was calling the police and wracking my brain as to whether it ever made it into the cab or not.

The amazing end to this story is the next morning we left the B & B to go meet Andy and there was a note taped on the stairway railing outside our door asking if we "lost Gitzo" and saying it was at the 17th precinct. We went to the police station and they had my tripod! They were surprised that I had lucked out and gotten it back. I immediately called the hotel who said their employee was already on his way to buy me a replacement at B & H. They called him and told him I'd found the tripod and I'm sure they were thrilled not to spend the $$$.

Everyone I've told this story to says how lucky I was and that "doesn't happen in NYC" :-) The hotel was AWESOME and the employees were WONDERFUL and the cabbie was a nice, HONEST man who did the right thing.

Have a great trip. We loved NYC.

nightspidy

Hi
We are staying at the Milford Plaza. I'm very excited, even though it will be my 4th time to the Big Apple, it will be my first time staying downtown as I usually stay with family in the 'burbs. Lucky you did get your tripod back!