7" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

[demonboy]

7\" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

I'm currently pulling my hair out over possible set-up of laptop and monitor for navigation purposes. One option is the inverter/large monitor route but if I wanted to just run on 12v I could install a 7 or 8" VGA screen (they all seem to be touchscreen).

Does anyone have any experience of these? If so are they a pain to view? I just wonder if viewing something like Maxsea on 7" might be a little frustrating......but then my current B&G plotter is only 5.5".......

 

[CPD]

Re: 7\" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

I have used a PDA for a couple of years now, it works just fine and apart from daylight viewing (brightness) I cant think of a reason to change.

 

[Jonny_H]

Re: 7\" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

We use a Raymarine C70 which has a 7" screen and is great.

Re touchscreen - won't make much of a difference. The only thing I have noted (I have a tablet PC which is kind of touchscreen) is that the screen is less sensitive when you press on it than a normal laptop screen (presumably as its designed to be pressed) which is a good thing I would think?

Why a laptop and monitor over just a laptop? I have just bought a second hand IBM T23 from here:
http://www.sterlingxs.co.uk/scpages/ibmthinkpadt23DVDRW.html
At that price I won't mind if after a year it dies and Ihave to buy a new one. In fact you could buy a spare for less than the cost of a monitor and then you have complete redundancy.

Just a thought?

Jonny

 

[demonboy]

Re: 7\" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

Yeah, I've been thinking that. The problem is not the laptop though....if I trash the laptop it's fine cos it's a cheapie. The problem is being at sea with an open laptop i.e. the screen bouncing around and wobbling backwards and forwards. I'm thinking of hiding the laptop away completely and having a separate monitor....which is why I was asking about 7". Installed chart plotters are designed with big menu buttons but Maxsea is designed for a computer screen - so will seeing the menu items on a 7" be problematic is what I was trying to get at.

 

[Jonny_H]

Re: 7\" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

I see your point now - it depends what screen res MaxSea runs on - if you can bring the screen res down (800x600 say) things look much bigger (try it on your computer now). But some applications don't like running at such resolution as they require a high res display (ie 1024 x 768 - which is what most laptops run at as standard).

Might be worth having a play.

Jonny

 

[ShipsWoofy]

Re: 7\" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

When Tom (Tome) wrote a while back about a new nav system his company were making for commercial boys, I asked if they had touch screen, his response was that touch screen makes the screen quite dark.

Move that to this sector, it will probably mean having to beef up the light and thus the power consumed by said screen. By far the most power hungry part of an LCD screen is the light. Measure the current on a laptop and turn the brightness up and down, I was shocked, from memory, full bright to full dim was near an amp!

I wish they would hurry with super bright lcd components and implement them into screens, then laptops really will become portable!

 

[roly_voya]

Re: 7\" VGA touchscreen - too small for navigation?

Depends what you are doing, monitoring progess/position an a rolling road is fine on a small screen but if you want to look ahead/plan a psssage it would be like doing passage planning on habour charts. What about a setup where you can use the laptop for planning then switch to the mall screan under way either by feeding the signal to it and switching the main screen off or by saving to a chart cart and putting it into a small plotter at the helm?