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.
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 ;)