Thread: Boat Computer?
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Sjouke Burry[_2_] Sjouke Burry[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Oct 2008
Posts: 39
Default Boat Computer?

hpeer wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:26:53 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:32:10 +0000, Larry wrote:

I needed....well, not quite true....WANTED a new laptop. The 17" monsters
eat batteries, are heavy and cumbersome, too much. So, I started
researching netbooks.
In my experience the two most important qualities on a boat computer
are screen brightness and durability. The Panasonic "Toughbook"
models do well on both counts. They are designed for use in the
outdoor environment. I picked up a used CF-48 two years ago for about
$300 and it now has 5,000+ nautical miles on it, all of that spent
exposed to the elements on the flybridge. It has survived numerous
salt spray incidents, one 3 foot drop and a lot of slamming around.

Amen. I bought a used toughbook CF-29 for cheap a few years ago. Came
out of a police vehicle, so I'm sure it's had coffee spilled on it
many times. The battery was no good, but I just removed it, and the
thing runs just fine on 12 volts from the boat. It has enough intenal
regulation that it isn't affected by transient overvoltages. Unlike
"normal" laptops, this one is designed for viewing in direct daylight.


My desktop died so I bought a laptop as a replacement. I got a Dell as
I have them at work and have very good luck. They gave me the option of
a 128Gb SOLID STATE hard drive for $350 extra. I opted for that as, in
my experience, the thing that goes first is usually the hard drive.

Also should make the machine light, cooler, faster and less power hungry.


And a broken disk much earlier, flash memory has a limited number
of write cycles.......