I’m new to Expedition and want to buy a laptop for use onboard - any recommendations for something reasonably priced and suitable for running Expedition? Thanks,
I have a refurbished IBM laptop that I got for under $400CAD that does fine and if it gets broken it is easily replaced. For back up, and to have a tablet on deck, I have a refurbished Panasonic Toughbook FZ-G1 tablet that is fully capable of replacing the IBM laptop. They can be had for $350 to $500CAD. A lot depends on how wet the boat is. I have a dry spot where the laptop lives. A remote screen, mouse and keyboard are in the nav station. If you can find electronics that run on DC voltage you can run them without an inverter and save some power. My laptop and monitor both run on 19V so I made a small 19V bus using a DC to DC converter and wired the power supplies for those devices directly to the 19V bus. The laptop and monitor use less than 3 amps at 12V. A more powerful computer will use more power so only get what you need to run what you need to.
My personal favorite is Dell Rugged Extreme - they are available in 13”, 15” and windows tablet form factor, so depending on the layout of the nav station and if you prefer external monitor or not, you can choose the right option. They are neither thin nor lightweight but are bulletproof. You can get them on eBay (at least in the US) for much cheaper than new.
Tried “regular” laptop on a wet boat and it survived but had to be kept in a waterproof envelope, so you can’t run expedition all the time.
Someone brought a Microsoft Surface on a dry boat and it worked just fine. It’s just a bit too fragile for my taste.
I think it very much comes down to personal preference, type of boat, budget, type of racing and nav station setup.
The computer you want for a TP52 VS Superyacht will be very different.
I personally run a LG Gram laptop with a Getac F110 on deck for bigger boats with a dry nav station. But then I also have a mesa3 for smaller wet boats.
I think Nick recommends 16gb of Ram, but Expedition will run on 8gb, as long as you are not doing any massive weather routing.
It’s worth searching online for companies offering refurbished devices. There’s often good deals to be had on items deemed end of life by businesses but perfectly serviceable for your use cases.
Tony, all depends on which version of Expedition you are looking at. The 4D version with downloadable C-Map charts has a greater graphics requirement then the non 4D version. The laptop if possible requires to be powered via 12V adapter rather than via 240V inverter as that saves on power. A decent screen size. an what you call reasonably priced. Ruggedised laptops are probably about three or four times more expensive than their non ruggedised counterparts and not really worth the money. Probably need to wait to sales as missed any Black Friday deals. Very recent Second hand laptops are fine as long as the meet the spec and understand that you may have to replace other parts, and that you cannot upgrade as Expedition gets more abilities. But you can not go too wrong with HP/Dell basic i5 256GB SSD (SSD are more rugged), with SD card holder to add memory. Graphics are more complicated but the basic graphics packages are normally not sufficient. If you have anything in mind let me know. (if you want to know why i know a little about this type of stuff, my job has been to provided IT systems to HM Subs!). Sorry to be so long-winded, but it really is horse for courses! Round the cans v Offshore Racing etc.
I have a refurbished IBM laptop that I got for under $400CAD that does fine and if it gets broken it is easily replaced. For back up, and to have a tablet on deck, I have a refurbished Panasonic Toughbook FZ-G1 tablet that is fully capable of replacing the IBM laptop. They can be had for $350 to $500CAD. A lot depends on how wet the boat is. I have a dry spot where the laptop lives. A remote screen, mouse and keyboard are in the nav station. If you can find electronics that run on DC voltage you can run them without an inverter and save some power. My laptop and monitor both run on 19V so I made a small 19V bus using a DC to DC converter and wired the power supplies for those devices directly to the 19V bus. The laptop and monitor use less than 3 amps at 12V. A more powerful computer will use more power so only get what you need to run what you need to.
My two cents ;)
My personal favorite is Dell Rugged Extreme - they are available in 13”, 15” and windows tablet form factor, so depending on the layout of the nav station and if you prefer external monitor or not, you can choose the right option. They are neither thin nor lightweight but are bulletproof. You can get them on eBay (at least in the US) for much cheaper than new.
Tried “regular” laptop on a wet boat and it survived but had to be kept in a waterproof envelope, so you can’t run expedition all the time.
Someone brought a Microsoft Surface on a dry boat and it worked just fine. It’s just a bit too fragile for my taste.
I think it very much comes down to personal preference, type of boat, budget, type of racing and nav station setup.
The computer you want for a TP52 VS Superyacht will be very different.
I personally run a LG Gram laptop with a Getac F110 on deck for bigger boats with a dry nav station. But then I also have a mesa3 for smaller wet boats.
I think Nick recommends 16gb of Ram, but Expedition will run on 8gb, as long as you are not doing any massive weather routing.
It’s worth searching online for companies offering refurbished devices. There’s often good deals to be had on items deemed end of life by businesses but perfectly serviceable for your use cases.
Tony, all depends on which version of Expedition you are looking at. The 4D version with downloadable C-Map charts has a greater graphics requirement then the non 4D version. The laptop if possible requires to be powered via 12V adapter rather than via 240V inverter as that saves on power. A decent screen size. an what you call reasonably priced. Ruggedised laptops are probably about three or four times more expensive than their non ruggedised counterparts and not really worth the money. Probably need to wait to sales as missed any Black Friday deals. Very recent Second hand laptops are fine as long as the meet the spec and understand that you may have to replace other parts, and that you cannot upgrade as Expedition gets more abilities. But you can not go too wrong with HP/Dell basic i5 256GB SSD (SSD are more rugged), with SD card holder to add memory. Graphics are more complicated but the basic graphics packages are normally not sufficient. If you have anything in mind let me know. (if you want to know why i know a little about this type of stuff, my job has been to provided IT systems to HM Subs!). Sorry to be so long-winded, but it really is horse for courses! Round the cans v Offshore Racing etc.