laptop suitable for navigation

That should do the trick.

One other thought, if you get one with a DVD rather than a CD you could get a TV card and also have it as your entertainment system.

good luck!


D
 
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Laptops often suffer from bad batteries after a while. If you are going to need to use it on battery then I would recommend a cheap new one (currently around £299)

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Trouble with that is that most cheap new ones have very small batteries
 
Might I suggest buying a refurbished Panasonic Toughbook laptop.
They are fully sealed and drop-proof and ideal for marine use. You can get them for about GBP300.00 with a good spec. Most of the sellers will set them up as you need including RS232 ports which you will not find on any modern commercial laptop, very useful. Only drawback is that the CF-27, which is the one I would recommend, only comes with a 10" screen. It has a VGA o/p so you can also buy a larger marinised FTF screen. A simple search on the internet will throw up plenty of these.
I have a Panasonic CF-50 myself which is semi-ruggidised and will buy a CF-27 when this goes toes-up.
No commercial interest involved, just satisfaction
 
I've got a PIII laptop with only 256Mb of RAM and use it on the boat - but I'd not consider it powerful enough for use with XP - it's usual O/S is Linux and it dual-boots into Win2000. The main advantage of that PIII CPU is how economical it can be - I get 12-hrs run-time on twin 1.4ah batteries running Linux (only 6hrs on Windows)

It runs MaxSea with the utmost difficulty in Win2000 mode

There are some reported conflicts with many PC chartplotter systems running on IBM laptops, something to do with the video chipset.

On the whole I'd steer clear - especially with that minute HDD (though you can easily replace that, if you hurry - 2.5" IDE HDDs are being replaced by SATAs).

Price not mentioned on the link, but I'd guess about £100-185.

You can buy entry-level NEW laptops for under £290, with far better specs than the one you're looking at.
Send me a PM if you're interested and I'll let you have some addresses and models.
 
You might be interested in this site:

www.sterlingxs.co.uk

I have just ordered a refirbished IBM Thinkpad X31 with docking station for use on the boat, 12" screen and D.C. input.

They have various prices depending on the "defects" that it has ........... marks on screen, plastic bits damaged e.t.c. But they come with a warranty and I found them really helpful to deal with.

No connection with them e.t.c.

Alan.
 
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I've got a PIII laptop with only 256Mb of RAM and use it on the boat - but I'd not consider it powerful enough for use with XP - it's usual O/S is Linux and it dual-boots into Win2000. The main advantage of that PIII CPU is how economical it can be - I get 12-hrs run-time on twin 1.4ah batteries running Linux (only 6hrs on Windows)

It runs MaxSea with the utmost difficulty in Win2000 mode

There are some reported conflicts with many PC chartplotter systems running on IBM laptops, something to do with the video chipset.

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I have no problems running versions of MaxSea that don't require Win XP on a Thinkpad T22 PIII laptop under Win 98SE.
 
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It runs MaxSea with the utmost difficulty in Win2000 mode

There are some reported conflicts with many PC chartplotter systems running on IBM laptops, something to do with the video chipset.

I have no problems running versions of MaxSea that don't require Win XP on a Thinkpad T22 PIII laptop under Win 98SE.

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HWMBO runs Maxsea 10 on an old IBM machine with PII, XP and 64mb ram and it works fine. As he says it is wise not to load other programs onto it and keep it dedicated to the navigation job. Not only that but after another advised us of the possibility, he connected it direct to boats 12volt system.
 
Used a T23 Thinkpad for 2.5 years at work - took it out on the road everyday, dropped it, spilt water on it, stood on it, left it turned on for weeks at a time (just shutting the lid at nights) - lived in the car boot overnight all winter - couldn't destroy it, a great bit of kit.

(If you go for the newer versions they don't have serial ports which the T23 has). It doesn't come with built in wireless, but we used them at work with PCMCIA wireless cards without trouble.

I am looking at one for a back-up to our main laptop - certainly more solidly built than the T4x and T6x series (and the X60 I currently have).

Things to look for .... the case cracks at the edge of the keyboard near the '->' key, and also on the front right hand corner. They also had interchangable CD and floppy drives. My floppy drive consequently lived in the laptop bag and got squashed at some point and never worked properly.


Jonny
 
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