Josh wrote:

I'm interested in interfacing my GPS unit with my laptop and utilizing
plotting software. I've looked at Maxsea wonder what other products
people have used and what they think of them.

I've used all the popular ones except Maxsea -- Maptech, Nobletec, The Cap'n,
and a couple of others I can't remember.

By far the best is still the original Maptech for DOS! Sadly, we can't get
charts for it anymore.

My favorite at the moment is Maptech *Pocket* Navigator, running on an iPaq PDA
with a Navman GPS. The PDA is so much easier to use for so many reasons, it's
well worth the extra money.

My second favorite would be Nobletec. It's generally better designed, with
better usability, than the cluttered, complicated Maptech programs (not Pocket
Navigator though). But don't run it on Windows 98 like I do (many people's
"boat computer" is an old, slow laptop) -- it crashes, then you have to reload
everything to get it to work again. It's fine on 2000 Pro or XP. The only
thing I don't like about Nobletec is you can't resize the boat icon to make it
more visible when you're zoomed out.

The Cap'n is fine too, just simpler with fewer features -- not a bad thing.
It's probably the easiest to learn, and the cheapest too. There was some silly
thing I wanted that it didn't do, which is why I don't use it. I can't remember
what that was though!

Maptech's programs have the most features, but they're cluttered and confusing.
This is made worse by being slow, even on fast computers with gigs of RAM. They
hang up and cause drive swapping, etc., when you don't expect it. So they're
frustrating to use. Again, this is not true of Pocket Navigator on a PDA.

A casual poll of the boaters we meet suggests Nobletec is the all-around
favorite. I think Nobletec has the biggest marketshare too.

I'd really like to try some of the newer programs which use the new vector
charts.

I also think a tablet PC running Pocket Navigator would be brilliant -- like a
dedicated chart plotter, at a small fraction of the cost.

Matt O.