Raymarine E Series Wide touchscreen -quick review

[jfm]

I fitted one of these, E140W, on the weekend. It's brilliant. As usual with Raymarine, the user interface is intuitive and i used it for a day without ever opening the manual. The touchscreen stuff is very nice. To pan the map you put your finger on it and drag it, like an iPhone. When you see an AIS or marpa target, touch it and a semitransparent data box pops up on the target giving you detials of the target. Touch it again and it disappears. Ditto a buoy or any other object that you want data for. If you have multiple windows open you just touch the one you want to make active. The 2D-3D transitioning is seamless and the overlay of images etc works like the existing e series. All the functions can be done using buttons too, but I found the touchscreen easier. Wonderful bit of kit imho and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone equipping a boat or upgrading. Top bit of kit by Raym and I wish them well with it

Picures below are before/after E120/E140W, then the hole size increase to replace E120 with E140W, then the dash so you can see the scale of the E140W

It has several nmea in/outs so you are unlikely to need a multiplexer and you can configure them individually at your choice of baud rate.

Supplies are a bit short so I only have one of these machines so far. My supplier (the helpful Eurotek in Brighton) just got another for me today and it'll be a week or two before I can get a third

 

[MapisM]

When you see an AIS or marpa target, touch it and a semitransparent data box pops up on the target giving you detials of the target.

Ah! I was wondering why you removed that comment from the first version of your post in the other thread...
It really fits nicely, looks like it was designed for that dashboard!
Is the seat moved forward? The space for the legs looks pretty tight.

 

[jfm]

Ah! I was wondering why you removed that comment from the first version of your post in the other thread...
It really fits nicely, looks like it was designed for that dashboard!
Is the seat moved forward? The space for the legs looks pretty tight.

Yes, the seats are electric Recaros and move in every direction. It is far forward in that picture but it moves back.

 

[DAKA]

I only have one of these machines so far. My supplier just got another for me today and it'll be a week or two before I can get a third

One upstairs, one downstairs and the third ? , Just curious

 

[jfm]

One upstairs, one downstairs and the third ? , Just curious

Two upstairs (cos I've got room) and one downstairs (cos no room for two)

 

[benjenbav]

Very nice. Are some of the functions doubled up between touchscreen and the buttons on the right and at the bottom of the screen?

I would like to see a plotter produced on a full touchscreen like this 3M model:

 

[mjf]

I'm delighted that you have posted this as i was about to post myself on touch screens...now that raymarine have introduced one.

I think i am right in saying that only one touch screen radar was ever made in commercial use and its no longer produced as it suffered badly from salt and greasy fingers. I guess outside a quick swish with a hose and a leather off solves the issue but what about in a bridge environment?

The other day I went by motor scooter into Chelsea & Westminster and had to use my iphone to pay for the parking.........Rain, sleet and then snow prevented me from using the iphone as the touch pad kept being corrupted by the pricipitation! Adding bloody numbers to the process. Horror story.

So touch screens seem ok in ideal situations but what about on a F/B in choppy sea where some spray may contact, or the motion makes it difficult to 'touch' the right bit of the screen? In this case I like the furuno remote (tv type) control as its in your hand.

 

[benjenbav]

Actually that's a rubbish screen cos all it shows is a red cross;

This one is miles better

 

[DAKA]

Two upstairs (cos I've got room) and one downstairs (cos no room for two)

Yes sorry I wasnt thinking (out of season), I thought one might have been for the tender ,you can watch full size screens and not need split radar etc makes sense.


I have two for the same reason but I just kept my old plotter as a separate back up that can even be removed and placed in the oven during lightning, how pessimistic is that.

Is the sensitivity of the touch screen effected by cold wet fingers or neoprene gloves ?

 

[Hurricane]

Like mjf, I'd like to see how you get on in a rough sea when touching anything on the dash is difficult.

Multi screens - really good if you can fit them.
We tend to set out with the intention of one set up with the whole screen as a plotter and the other for colision avoidance as radar.
But end up with one defined as a "main" and then everyone can "fiddle" with the other without affecting the main system.
Radar can be a bit confusing because there is only one radar feeding two separate systems.
This means if the radar is set up at a different range on one system and (for example) you overlay the radar on the plotter on a second display, you can get the radar only ranging to part of the display. Not a problem if you think carefully about it though.

Anyway, two displays at each helm position is a good luxury.

 

[jfm]

I'm delighted that you have posted this as i was about to post myself on touch screens...now that raymarine have introduced one.

I think i am right in saying that only one touch screen radar was ever made in commercial use and its no longer produced as it suffered badly from salt and greasy fingers. I guess outside a quick swish with a hose and a leather off solves the issue but what about in a bridge environment?

The other day I went by motor scooter into Chelsea & Westminster and had to use my iphone to pay for the parking.........Rain, sleet and then snow prevented me from using the iphone as the touch pad kept being corrupted by the pricipitation! Adding bloody numbers to the process. Horror story.

So touch screens seem ok in ideal situations but what about on a F/B in choppy sea where some spray may contact, or the motion makes it difficult to 'touch' the right bit of the screen? In this case I like the furuno remote (tv type) control as its in your hand.

On the Raym, all the functions can be operated using the traditional keys and the trackpad/dial wheel. You dont have to use the touchscreen function at all, if you dont want. It would still be a brilliant pice of kit if it had no touchscreen. also, the touchscreen buttons that pop up are pretty big. You can be quite fat-fingered/hamfisted/drunk and still hit your target.

On the rain/spray thing, I dont think you should compare with iPhone. That works (I think) by capacitance, so it will be disabled by water/gloves. The Raym screen works (I think) by pressure, so it will work if wet/gloves. Happy to be corrected there, but I think that's the case. But as I say you can use the buttons if you want. They're as intuitive as Raym's user-interface always is. To be honest, I hardly ever get spray on the flybridge helm in the Med. Normally it's bone dry up there. But on a 20 something footer sportsboat I can see that you'd get some spray

Seriously, i wouldn't be so sceptical about touch screens. In nice weather, say you want to get data on a AIS target or marker, it's fab just to touch it and up pops the window. Or drag the chart to where you want it to go. All LOADS better than highlighting with a trackpad/ball then pressing "select" or whatever. Sure, you might have to revert to buttons in rough weahter, but for most of the time this touchscreen stuff is a seriously nice/useful toy I reckon

 

[jfm]

Very nice. Are some of the functions doubled up between touchscreen and the buttons on the right and at the bottom of the screen?

RTFQ BJB I wrote "All the functions can be done using buttons too"

 

[strakeryrius]

Is there such a thing as plotter envy? If so I've definitely got it. No room for a display that big on my current boat, but when I change up then.... definitely.

 

[BartW]

The picture shows that you still have the
Echopilot Forward Looking Sonar fitted, (the remote controll)
any usefull advice or practical experience on this ?

I am considering a "Side Scan Sonar" from Lowrance or Humminbird at the moment, any experience with these ?

 

[jfm]

The picture shows that you still have the
Echopilot Forward Looking Sonar fitted, (the remote controll)
any usefull advice or practical experience on this ?

I am considering a "Side Scan Sonar" from Lowrance or Humminbird at the moment, any experience with these ?

I hardly ever use it Bart. The picture is kinda ok, just about, but it's not brilliant. It displays on the Raym screen and they've written the code so it displays as a small window within the screen, ie it doesn't fill the whole screen. So that's a bit craap

Fact is these days charting is so good that if you want to know what's ahead you look at the chart not the sonar. If I were Marco Polo and going where no-one had ever gone, the sonar would be useful. If you boat in an area with moving sandbanks it could be good I suppose

I didn't specify the machine. My boat was built as a stock boat for the southampton boat show and the factory fitted this thing, so I'm kinda stuck with it. But I definitely wouldn't put one on a boat if I were speccing it from scratch. But it doesn't do any harm I guess!

 

[Nick_H]

The touch screen looks great, as you say anything of interest you can just plop your finger on it and get the info. I've given up clicking on things just for general info, as the Furuno trackball makes that very difficult and time consuming (see kcrane's new boat thread). Thing is, I can't convince myself I really need new nav kit, but then again I guess you didn't need these new screens, you just wanted them

 

[scubaman]

The picture shows that you still have the
Echopilot Forward Looking Sonar fitted, (the remote controll)
any usefull advice or practical experience on this ?

I am considering a "Side Scan Sonar" from Lowrance or Humminbird at the moment, any experience with these ?

Based your earlier posts I'm guessing that your interest in the side scan sonar is for diving purposes?

Our local dive club has a Hummingbird (can't remember the exact model) fitted to their RIB. I can ask how they have gotten on with it.

Again, pardon me for drifting from the original subject.

Jfm: that touch screen user interface sounds so much more intuitive than the traditional clumsy 4-way rocker switch. I haven't googled it but I'm supposing it's a resistive screen, ie. based on mechanical depressing of the display's surface (rather than iPod capasitative stuff)?

 

[BartW]

Based your earlier posts I'm guessing that your interest in the side scan sonar is for diving purposes?

Our local dive club has a Hummingbird (can't remember the exact model) fitted to their RIB. I can ask how they have gotten on with it.

Again, pardon me for drifting from the original subject.

yes that's right, in stead of doubling the Raymarine screen, I am considering another tool to have more vieuw over the bottom. Have seen the Lowrance and humminbird in Dusseldorf, but user experience is more helpfull thanks!

yes, excuses for the thread drift

 

[jfm]

Again, pardon me for drifting from the original subject.

Jfm: that touch screen user interface sounds so much more intuitive than the traditional clumsy 4-way rocker switch. I haven't googled it but I'm supposing it's a resistive screen, ie. based on mechanical depressing of the display's surface (rather than iPod capasitative stuff)?

Dont worry about thread drift! Yes I think it is resistive. Two films, like a traditional touch screen. Not hard glass, capacitance method, like iPhone. So I think it will work with gloves and water on the screen. I'll experiment at the weekend by spilling my coffee on it

 

[mjf]

Thats good news as the iphone screen, as I found is fine, until you need it in the rain and cannot find shelter where you need to use it (ie by a sign that gave sms # and location etc)

Have to say the raymarine display and whole package does look nice. The HD radar and the plotter techn. has moved on very fast in what? 5 yrs or so.