"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
David,
There are several issues that make PC screens unsuitable for marine use.
There are considerations for power, protection from the harsh enrinment
etc., but a real driver that few people are aware of is night viewing. It
is
imperitive that the display dims to black. PC monitors will not.

Steve,

For night viewing, a special monitor is not needed, because software can
compensate. For example, Fugawi, one of the popular Nav programs has this
feature. To quote from their feature list:

"Dusk and Night vision display with color shifts designed to international
maritime standards."

We use this program on our boat and our car nav program 'iGuidance' has the
same feature whether I am using the laptop or iPaq.

GBM

GBM,
I'm not speaking about the dimming of just the displayed data. I'm talking
about the back glow of the powered up screen itself. The back glow on some
of these PC screens will light up the whole cockpit ruining your night
vision. No software fixes that.
Steve

"GBM" wrote in message
...

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
David,
There are several issues that make PC screens unsuitable for marine use.
There are considerations for power, protection from the harsh enrinment
etc., but a real driver that few people are aware of is night viewing. It
is
imperitive that the display dims to black. PC monitors will not.

Steve,

For night viewing, a special monitor is not needed, because software can
compensate. For example, Fugawi, one of the popular Nav programs has this
feature. To quote from their feature list:

"Dusk and Night vision display with color shifts designed to international
maritime standards."

We use this program on our boat and our car nav program 'iGuidance' has
the
same feature whether I am using the laptop or iPaq.

GBM

"Steve Lusardi" wrote in message
...
GBM,
I'm not speaking about the dimming of just the displayed data. I'm talking
about the back glow of the powered up screen itself. The back glow on some
of these PC screens will light up the whole cockpit ruining your night
vision. No software fixes that.
Steve

Steve,

Perhaps some laptops may do that, but we have sailed with a conventional
laptop sitting on cabin top, under bimini day and night and not found it to
be a problem.

We also use our iPaq day and night with the software compensating for
day/night conditions and it works perfectly - even in car where any glare
would be distracting. The iPaq has adjustable backlighting (as do most
laptops) but I don't find any need to adjust it - it's mainly a power saving
feature.

Do the low cost chartplotters by Garmin and others have any special nightime
visibility built into their displays? I seem to recall that they too have
software that changes colours for day/night use and perhaps they too have
adjustable backlighting like the iPaq.

I am sure that the commercial displays are better, but for us at least, we
see no problems using standard low cost computer hardware for recreational
navigation purposes.

GBM