laptop

[Anonymous]

Just a thought, but if you are on a long ocean passage you only want to be doing any serious nav once or twice a day so you don't need your laptop on at all for boaty things, other than, say, 30 minutes a day.

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[neutronstar]

I was advised to get more than one laptop but from a trade supplier and I am glad I did.

I now have back-up (lots of it) and the top of the range laptop 3 to 4 years ago costs between £300 and £400 each now.

They do get broke at times and spare units easily swap or interchange drives etc.

The older ones have a com port but may just be on the cusp (as it were) of DVD capabilities.

The cost of repairs are easily covered by your own ability to "fault find by substitution" as its called. You could even charge yourself the initial fee for looking at the unit say £ 80 ..... and then spend it yourself after you fixed your dud unit!

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[ccscott49]

Sent you a PM, I need juist what you are talking about!

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[Talbot]

Dont be shy tell us who your supplier was - pretty please /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

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[neutronstar]

Sorry for the delay as I only get a minute at work, or at a friend's house, to get online. (can't aford a monthly contract on a data card for the laptops, I'm strictly a pay as you go chap).

I was advised to look in Micro Mart, which I did. Then I rang around secondhand dealers to see what number of units you had to buy to get into 'trade' territoy.

The normal price would be £500 for the DEL Latitude unit with USB and COM ports. Trade price £375 !

I got 5 of them and sold some to my kids (you know how it goes, they will get round to paying Dad some day).

I then set up the units with the ARCS and Chartworx software plus dongle etc. Plus 12v chargers.

I outlined what I did with the one that is viewable from the binnacle some months ago. Possibly you can get a view of this posting by looking at my profile and looking at my past contributions.

In one year of use one drive has lost sectors (but that's the one my son had!) and one keypad was faulty on one unit but I failed to spot this on purchase.

If you can go to the dealer and test the units first it is a good idea, but either way the best test for the keys (which tend to get some hammer by coporate users) is to open WORD or a similar package like notepad, and press every key to see if it responds. Play minesweeper on them to test the fingerpad. When you get the units home use them until the battery power runs out then fully charge them immediatelly as this revitalises the battery.

The main gains you get from this strategy is spare backups (a God send at sea), and no relyance on repair men as the substitution of parts isolates any problems. One unit will soon become your one to keep as the 'spare parts doner'.

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