Laptops for electronic charts

Can not remember the make, but do remember a laptop at the boat shows of recent past with water pouring over them, they claim to be water resistant but ot waterproof.

I would imagine they would stand the test of time longer than a home or office laptop.
 
you could pay for a waterprotected laptop, or for quite a lot less you could buy 3 or 4 normal laptops and spare hard drives, and with the spare change provide a dry and protected stowage onboard.

Personally I use a standard Novatech Riva 6000.
 
Electronic charting tends to be pretty simple in terms of hardware requirements, so old laptops are great for this. Buy some cheap old Pentium III brick on ebay for a hundred quid and try it - maybe even buy two and set them up the same so there's a spare at home or in a dry locker.

I use a Panasonic toughbook - all discussed in this thread here. Cheap and very effective, and I won't cry too much if it dies.
 
IBMs are very good for boats as they have good opening mechanisms that dont mind the movement so much. I would get a second hand IBM T40, which will have all you need for boaty stuff. They can be had on ebay for about £200, very good value. Acer are also very good value if you're buying new.
 
IBM Thinkpads ....

The old 600E .... compact, tough as old boots .... runs near all you need.
T20 ... T40 Thinkpads - even better ... but 600E's are two a penny on e-bay etc.

My nav Notebook is a 600E PII job with a 20Gb drive in. It has Win XP Home installed - yes it will run slow if you want to run Office or fancy s/ware ... but for Nav and e-mail only - fine. It also has the advantage of both USB and Serial ports. The floppy drive can be cable connected or swapped with CD ... you can even upgrade to DVD drive on same connection if so wished.

Cheap - cheerful and won't break the bank. Install Nav software ... have charts on USB memory stick or even a Hard drive caddy via USB ... I have 2 such : >

Sweex Model AG000010 - this has a 20Gb 2.5" notebook Hard disk in .....
The other Q-Tek with a 10Gb hard disk in ... depending on job doing at time - I swap ......

One word of advise .... better to not run charts from CD - unless you don't mind slow redraw when changing chart .... it also drains notebook battery ....

Onto power ..... the IBM 600e will run happily of direct 12V ... just take out battery. Or even better - is to get a DC - DC converter and set to 16V (600e charger input voltage) and run that way - you will have slow battery charging but will work fine.

My other machine that also runs all nav stuff I need - is the Acer I bought new at £499 .... has survived all sorts on the boat .... even falling of the table ..........

Conclusion - you certainly do not need an all singing dancing fancy piece of kit unless you want to watch movies, catch Navtex, etc. etc.

If I can help in any way ... or the GPS nav group ..... Yahoo Groups - let me know ....
 
Don't ignore an IBook. They're quite tough, having been designed for students backpacks.
Mine has survived several summers at sea, including the occasional drop.
See GPSNavX.com
 
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