Panasonic Toughbook ???????

[hammer4reel]

Anyone here have any experiance with them ???????

looking to put a rough service laptop on my Contender to use Windplot instead of standard GPS.

so what ever I choose it has to be able to take some shock.

 

 

 

[Haskell_Hunter]

The screens are generally smaller (13"-14"), but you can beat the everliving crap out of them.

 

Salt water, like anything else, will be very, very harsh on it.  You also need one that can be viewed in daylight.  Reading any LCD, especially a laptop screen, in direct sunlight is a PITA.  I think they have a model that's pretty good in daylight.

 

They are also expensive.  Some alternatives are getting small PCs and mounting them in a waterproof housing and using a bright monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse.  It's cheaper to replace the monitor and kbd/mouse than an entire laptop.

[not on the rug]

Do you actually need a computer or could you use a tablet with an otterbox or lifeproof case on it? A big touchscreen tablet in a case like that might be way more user-friendly depending on what you actually need to do with it

[hammer4reel]

The screens are generally smaller (13"-14"), but you can beat the everliving crap out of them.

 

Salt water, like anything else, will be very, very harsh on it.  You also need one that can be viewed in daylight.  Reading any LCD, especially a laptop screen, in direct sunlight is a PITA.  I think they have a model that's pretty good in daylight.

 

They are also expensive.  Some alternatives are getting small PCs and mounting them in a waterproof housing and using a bright monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse.  It's cheaper to replace the monitor and kbd/mouse than an entire laptop.

13" is still bigger than a normal large GPS with are 10"

on rough days its going to get a beating, thats why im thinking the extra money will be well spent.

hoping under the t top I get the visibility I need , the charts are so much better , and have alot more detail than normal marine GPS have.

the guys I have seen use this program are usually in enclosed cabins and have had both a lap top or a PC with a monitor.

I like the capabilty of removing the lap top at the end of the fishing day.

Just not sure how well  its going to work getting bounced around all the time. as most guys are doing it in a much heavier boat that doesnt leave the water lol

[hammer4reel]

Do you actually need a computer or could you use a tablet with an otterbox or lifeproof case on it? A big touchscreen tablet in a case like that might be way more user-friendly depending on what you actually need to do with it

I dont think a tablet has all the required ports to network everything into the nav systems and antennnas

[Haskell_Hunter]

13" is still bigger than a normal large GPS with are 10"

on rough days its going to get a beating, thats why im thinking the extra money will be well spent.

hoping under the t top I get the visibility I need , the charts are so much better , and have alot more detail than normal marine GPS have.

the guys I have seen use this program are usually in enclosed cabins and have had both a lap top or a PC with a monitor.

I like the capabilty of removing the lap top at the end of the fishing day.

Just not sure how well  its going to work getting bounced around all the time. as most guys are doing it in a much heavier boat that doesnt leave the water lol

 

Salt water is going to be the big factor in the life of your device.  Once it gets wet, bad things will happen.

 

You could consider something like this:  http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/desktops/prodesk-600-mini-244042--1?jumpid=re_r11260_us/en/pc_comm/prodesk-mlp/learnmore-600mini#!&Tab=features

 

Mount it inside the boat in a waterproof housing.  Silicon all of the holes going into it for the cables, but make sure you can get to it.  Then use extender cables into the box (like a USB extender or as many as you need).  This way you can connect things to it, but it'll be away from salt water.  The only thing I would be worried about would be ventilation to keep it cool, but there are ways to work around that.  Even if you couldn't put it in a box, mounting it underneath something or in a waterproof cabinet would work.  Then you can pick whatever size monitor you want and with a wireless keyboard/mouse you can stow them away.  Use something like a VESA mount for the monitor or some other arrangement.  Lots of flexibility.

 

Whatever you get make sure the hard drive is an SSD.  If you're going to be bouncing around, spinning parts are bad, so a traditional hard drive with its read/write heads and spinning disks will be a recipe for disaster.