This is a basic mini-itx that you could put together yourself in a few
hours for about $400 less. If you have some parts lying around (I had a
notebook dvd player, plus various keyboards and mice) you can save
more. I even had a small disk with win 98 loaded, but ended up with a
bigger disk and XP.

You can buy all of the components from the company that makes the case:
http://www.caseoutlet.com/shopdispla...2DITX+Syste m

Or you could shop around and save a bit more. It really is quite simple
to put it all together. If you buy a place like caseoutlet, they should
do all of the assembly for you.

Overall, I'm happy with mine, but I am a bit disappointed with
price/performance. You can get a better performing laptop for less
money. Also, it was advertised as "silent" but the case came with a
noisy fan and it took some experimenting to get it as quiet as I wanted.
(I used a small cpu fan.) On the plus side, this is a notebook-like
system that I can replace any or all of the components on. For
instance, I can upgrade the motherboard for about $140 and an hour's work.



Pete Anderson wrote:
VERY, VERY late to this thread, but you need to look at islandtimepc.com .
They offer a very low power computer that operates on 12 volts and
supports DVDs. chartplotting, email, TV, whatever you might want a
computer to do. I have a good friend who has one and he loves it. I'm
buying mine soon. Its based on a line of Windows supported computers that
are optimized for low power applications.

pander

Parallax wrote:


I thought I'd have left on my cruise by now but am still finishing my
nesting dinghy so while that is happening, I am wondering about taking
a computer. Is a computer really desireable on a cruise? I like to do
weird calculations with spreadsheets and work out bizaare optics for
fun and profit. Supposedly you can watch a movie on a computer
although I have never done so and am almost unable to watch movies but
a cruise on a sailboat has a lot of free time...I would never trust my
navigation to computer charts so that isnt a reason. Is being in
touch via e-mail and news groups really desireable or even practical?
At work, we have a plethora of new computers but all are too big and
run on 110 volts. My electrical capacity will be limited to when the
engine is running, whatever charge is in my 2 batteries, and whatever
my 10 watt solar panel makes. This argues for a laptop.
My last experience with a laptop had me trying to get it stolen in
airports but nobody ever took it. Even though it had a damned crappy
power supply, I kept it going far longer than I should have by
open-chassis surgery and soldering iron. When it finally did die, I
gleefully extracted its hard drive and installed it in an adapter for
my current home computer so that every time I see it I imagine it as a
brain in a jar and I have gotten my revenge. I can almost imagine it
saying "Dave, I know we have had our problems but.....Daisy,
Daisy...."
So, what do y'all think?
Is there any practical way to do e-mail while underway?
Should I just go back to using my slide rule for calculations?