On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 06:21:51 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

While hanging around the mall waiting for my wife yesterday afternoon, I
wandered into an electronics store and noticed a perfectly reasonable
laptop computer with what looked like a 15" screen selling for under
$700. Add $400 to that for nav software, and a USB GPS, and you have
something far more usable than the typical 10" chart nav display, which
probably sells for at least twice as much, or close to it. If you're
controlling your boat from inside a cabin, where the unit is protected
from the elements, it seems to me a far smarter purchase, since you can
do so much more with that laptop.

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There are many good used/reconditioned laptops available in the $300
range which makes the argument even more compelling. These laptops
are typically Compaq or IBM Pentium 3s with decent screens, hard disks
and sometimes a DVD.

The argument for a dedicated marine chartplotter is screen brightness,
waterproofing and better zoomed in detail. The ideal is to have both.