Paul O 'Donovan is on netbook or slate computer with integrated GPS in search of off-shore navigation

Can you recommend a slate or netbook computer, GPS navigation, built for offshore? The boat has a Garmin GPS to give position and velocity only: no charts. I need a PC with a selection of nautical charts OpenCPN run, but also have a good battery life and a reasonably fast loading time.
Paul O 'Donovan

There are quite a few Windows PCs and slate with GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) devices built in, but these are mostly focused on commercial and industrial markets, and they are often ruggedised. Examples include the Panasonic Toughbook CF-U1 or as CF-H2.

Typical users are sales representatives and service technicians, health, police and military. You can, however, a better price by buying a standard PC or Notebook, and put a GPS on either a mini PCI-Express card, such as the Sierra Wireless MC8781, or via a dongle to a USB slot, as z get. Navisys as fits the models. In fact, if your Garmin GPS receiver can output NMEA 0183 data, you should be able to connect to a PC. (NMEA is the National Marine Electronics Association.)

Either way, the BU-353 WaterProof USB GPS Receiver (SiRF Star III) looks like the kind of things you need. It 's small, waterproof, has a magnetic storage and comes with a 5ft cable so you can position where it might get a good signal, while the PC in a sheltered position. Performance should be much better than the kind of GPS in mobile phones in general and multi-table built, often America 's laws on E911 requirements.

When it comes to choosing a PC, you need to find the right balance between screen size, speed, battery life and price. The cheapest option is a netbook like Asus Eee PC 1015PX, a 10.1in screen and a 1.5 GHz Intel Atom N570 has. I 'd recommend limiting your Netbook on the N550 and N570 hunt, as these two dual-core atom with low power requirements. If you are willing to improve the performance for battery life are trade, look for at netbooks with single-core N270, N280, or Z530/Z540/Z550 chips instead.

The disadvantages with netbooks, a limited 1GB memory, the use of Windows 7, and limited screen resolutions. You can easily upgrade the memory to 2GB for around ? 14. You can easily do an in-place upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium, if necessary, or you can install a free version of Linux alongside him. However, you can 't fix the 1024 x 600 screen resolution, which could be a bit tight for graphs and maps. It costs more to buy something with a standard 1366 x 768 pixel screen.

When buying a laptop instead of a netbook is the best compromise for price / performance / battery life of the 1.33 GHz Intel Core i3 380UM, where the UM called an ultra-low-power-consumption version of the mobile processor. Typical models include the Acer Aspire 1830T, Lenovo ThinkPad 11 (NVY5FUK), and the Touch-Screen Fujitsu Lifebook T580. If you want something cheaper, a laptop on the older Intel Core 2 Duo S9300 or similar chip would want. If you are a little faster, then there are several options like the i5 Core 1.3GHz i5 560UM and 470UM. There are also some new Ivy Bridge iX Core processors on the way into books like the Asus Ultra-UX21 and UX31. These use smaller, faster versions of the current Sandy Bridge chips.

Many PCs now claim a battery life of 6 hours over 11 hours (with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off), and you can only double that by purchasing a spare battery. Place the PC into sleep mode and you can replace the batteries in 15 seconds or less. However, note that battery power decays with use, and after a few years ago, your eight-hour battery could flat in less than half the time.

You can OpenCPN run on a Windows or Linux PC or a Mac, so you could also consider a MacBook Air, though it also runs other software that you need. However, you can also charting alternative systems such as Maptech 's Chart Navigator Pro or memory card that is not available for Mac OS X use

Another alternative would be an Apple iPad 2, since the GPS version comes with a tiny GPS chip Broadcom BCM4750 "designed to interface with host processors in mobile phones, PDAs, personal navigation devices and MP3-player '. (That is, he uses the device 's processor and memory to do the bulk of the work.)

I suspect that the open source OpenCPN won 't run on the iPad, because it would be entirely in Objective C. However, re-written, one could use iNavX on an iPad, assuming you can diagrams, you will receive. The website says that you 't use the charts you have on your PC: "iNavX downloads charts directly from a chart server, but many of the graphics card and see x-bar can be used on a PC Mac or "X-Travel offers Navionics 28XG UK -. Ireland - Holland - iPad - 2011 edition for $ 68.99.

Also, if you have Memory-Map on a PC, you can map to an Apple iPhone or send iPad, if you buy the appropriate app. Memory-Map is in the UK, offering UK & Ireland based charts. It is now developing an Android App.

There are also some Navionics charts for Android that working without an Internet connection active. Of course, you need to prevent GPS-based systems that download maps on the fly, because you generally won 't have an internet connection.

GPS is still present. However, it seems to me that the upgrade of the E911 location requirements, and the arrival of cheapish chips like the BCM4750 Broadcom GPS appear to lead into many other gadgets, and probably in most devices that have a cell phone. Finally, the majority of 3G dongles, GPS and expanded.