new laptop any suggestions ?

[catmandoo]

A lot of you guys carry a laptop for various reasons , weather, navigation etc

Mine recently expired when it fell of the bunk in heavy weather so I am looking for a replacement .

not to heavy or bulky , robust ie shock proof , wi fi , inbuilt camera , main concern though long lasting battery / low power consumption . 13.3 inch screen or 15.6

Any recommendations on make and model What to avoid ? etc

 

[Heckler]

A lot of you guys carry a laptop for various reasons , weather, navigation etc

Mine recently expired when it fell of the bunk in heavy weather so I am looking for a replacement .

not to heavy or bulky , robust ie shock proof , wi fi , inbuilt camera , main concern though long lasting battery / low power consumption . 13.3 inch screen or 15.6

Any recommendations on make and model What to avoid ? etc

I have access to all sorts of portable computer thru my work, my preference is a 10" netbook, good enough for email, inet and chart work. Most importantly, they are very frugal on the amps, plus nice and light to carry around, plus they all have cams for the binlids to talk to their mates!
Stu

 

[SilverBreeze]

Dell Mini 10.

Loaded with SeaPro chartplotter and Firefox and Outlook Express.

It did 1000 miles solo in 2008, OSTAR and back via Azores in 2009, Round Ireland in 2010 and various cross channel solo adventures.

Downloads GRIB files via satphone.

Still going strong, large velcro glued to underside of Dell and soft Velcro on chart table. Stays put.

 

[JFowler]

Try a search & you should find a very informative post on this subject- the nub was that the Samsung N150 netbook was hard to beat. We did further research and found generally rave reviews for this machine - we bought one and are delighted with it.

 

[charles_reed]

Samsung or MSI mini-notebooks - one up from the Atom-powered netbook - better screen, more CPU power, in a footprint vary similar in size to a netbook and only slightly more power-hungry.

Cost should be less than £400, with a battery to give 8 hrs life.

Mine's an MSI with a Celeron CULV chip.

To reduce power usage and get faster computing, dual-boot it into one of the Linux distros - 40% faster than WIN7 and nearly double the battery life.

 

[White Horse]

We have an Apple Laptop. We use it on the boat and it's totally brilliant!

 

[Mr Cassandra]

A lot of you guys carry a laptop for various reasons , weather, navigation etc

Mine recently expired when it fell of the bunk in heavy weather so I am looking for a replacement .

not to heavy or bulky , robust ie shock proof , wi fi , inbuilt camera , main concern though long lasting battery / low power consumption . 13.3 inch screen or 15.6

Any recommendations on make and model What to avoid ? etc

Panasonic Toughbook bit expensive but you can drop it from 2 meters and it will not break?

 

[mjcp]

This post is brought to you by a well used (2.5 years, still going strong) Dell D430. They are a snip at C. £200 and since they are a TRUE laptop with a Core 2 Duo CPU, can run proper software. Mine runs Win 7 Pro VERY well, much better than Vista (no surprise there).

It has 3 x USB ports (for a GPS) and you can get a 12V power supply for it too.

There is No Camera but it has a built in 3G modem (no dongle required) and built in WiFi and Sound.

With a long life battery I normally get 4 hours business use between charges.

There are people out there who have got MacOs running on them too...

There are some 32Gb and 64Gb solid state versions too (better battery life, less moving parts)

mjcp

 

[Norman_E]

I find netbooks a bit fiddly, and their small screens, lack of separate numeric keypad, and limited RAM do not appeal. I bought a cheap 15.6 inch Acer laptop from Tesco, about £400, and it does everything very well. Mine is now nearly two years old, so has Vista, but the latest ones have Windows 7.

 

[duncan99210]

We've got 2 on board (stops squabble about who's turn it is to use the thing), both normal domestic laptops. One's a Compaq, the other (this one) is an Acer, both about 250Gb HDD and running Vista.
Actually, we'd only have had the one but the Compaq was given a glass of red wine and didn't take too kindly to this experiment, so the Acer was bought as a replacement; little chap in UK then fixed the Compaq after atempts in Spain to get it repaired met with failure.

 

[tjc]

+1 on the Dell Mini 10. Just bought an ipad which whilst three times the price does run Navionics software which is excellent but power hungry. Dell battery lasts forever well 6 hours anyway

 

[Ex-SolentBoy]

A lot of you guys carry a laptop for various reasons , weather, navigation etc

Mine recently expired when it fell of the bunk in heavy weather so I am looking for a replacement .

not to heavy or bulky , robust ie shock proof , wi fi , inbuilt camera , main concern though long lasting battery / low power consumption . 13.3 inch screen or 15.6

Any recommendations on make and model What to avoid ? etc

Recommendation - Apple Macbook
Model - depends on your disk requirements. They are all great.
What to avoid - Anything that runs Windows or is produced by Microsoft.

 

[PerformanceSailor]

inexpensive Mac's

Recommendation - Apple Macbook
Model - depends on your disk requirements. They are all great.
What to avoid - Anything that runs Windows or is produced by Microsoft.

+ One on that sentiment.

And whatever you choose, don't be afraid to buy a (much) less expensive computer that's one or two rev's behind the current "state of the art".
This applies no matter what kind of OS you use.

Heck, we're still navigating with a 6 year old G4 iBook. Like another friend with his older HP, it runs current navigation software that uses the same usb gps antenna. (I surmise that marine nav applications do not make much of a call on modern CPU's.)


I like having a little (14") laptop that can fetch my email via built-in wifi wherever we dock, and being a Mac there are no (as in zero) viri to catch.
Being able to update our charts (all US charts are a free d/l) on the fly is a great benefit.

Cheers,
L

 

[Stu Jackson]

I just bought an el cheapo Compaq laptop, all plastic, celeron processor. Runs the Gamrin Map Source for our GPS MAP 76 Cx and my Maptech software which allows me to do what L just said to download the free NOAA US charts. Coulda spent a lot more than what I did, but chose not to. NOw working on putting together a wifi booster antenna system. Step-by-step.

This "which laptop should I buy" is a recurring question that always brings up a lot of options, and probably not many more than the choices you had when you started thinking about one.

The other threads I find interesting, like this one, are:

--- what navigation software should I buy

--- what boat should I buy

--- what anchor should I use

Just kiddin'

 

[catmandoo]

yes good idea

can I ad dto list

What type of Zimmer should I buy

 

[Ripster]

Just to share my experiences of laptops and netbooks. Bought a Netbook as I thought the small size and increased batt life would be useful. But the lack of an optical drive and the small screen along with a very fiddly touch pad mouse arrangement (on mine anyway - its an HP) mean't it lasted about 2 weeks then I went back to my old ACER and upgraded the battery! Netbooks are good if you need to transport them about a lot with you - otherwise IMO Laptops are better.