An often over looked specification when buying a laptop for on board
use is how much power it draws. I met one fellow sailor last summer
that showed me his shiny new 17" wide screen multi - media laptop. The
shine had worn off as soon as he realized it was drawing more juice
from his battery than his fridge (ouch).

I bought a new laptop last spring. It is a high-end small display
Toshiba that is built for use on the road. Gel mounted HD, spill
membrane under the keyboard, magnesium case yada yada....

A month or so ago someone in the NG I subscribe to bought a "Sea PC".

Have a look he

http://www.seapc.se/index.html

If this had been available at the time I would not have bought a
laptop. A boat is not a nice place for any non-marinized electronic
device. This includes palm pilots, camcorders etc. The copper traces
on today's PCB are very very tiny. A small amount of (shudder)
corrosion and the device is dead and unlikely to be repairable. This
happens. Unless your laptop has been specifically made for the marine
environment you will eventually have problems due to air borne salt
laden moisture.

Personally I think the 8.5 in. version looks real tasty....


Hope you find this useful, and nope I have nothing to do with this
firm (sure would like to though), however I have contacted them by
e-mail. All of the main players in the company are sailors. Cool
product, prices with high-end laptops but much lower than "tough book"
type of gear.

regards,


Capt. Ricky Spamson

(to reply leave spam IN my e-addy, the spam bots drop the word spam)
Works for everyone except about 7400 deposed Nigerian Generals (:-)