Well I lost my Galaxy Tab A 10 inch today after failing to secure it properly on the Binnacle and rounding Barrenjoey to be unexpectedly hit by 20 knots + putting the gunwale in the water (vs the 10 knots inside Pittwater).

Actually I was never that thrilled with it as despite specifications indicating that it was brighter than an iPad it compared very poorly side by side with a friend of mines old Sony tablet for brightness. Furthermore although it supposedly had GPS I could never get Navionics to work properly unless it was tethering from my phone.

Has anybody purchased a tablet recently which they are pleased with as far as brightness and running Navionics is concerned?

I don't need 4 G so looking for an economical one

Buddy,
jump to office work and get a cheaper 10" tablet currently on special down to 89 bucks. It will work perfectly. I hope you will find one in stock
Good luck

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Serb1980 said..
Buddy,
jump to office work and get a cheaper 10" tablet currently on special down to 89 bucks. It will work perfectly. I hope you will find one in stock
Good luck

Thank you for that. I'm going down this morning to have a look but brightness is very important and also battery size because I don't have power at my binnacle. Waterproof would be nice too but I can get around that with a silicone case and a few bits of electrical tape.

At least at $89 it wouldn't be a disaster if I lost it again :).


Meanwhile what is this new boat you speak of?

After messing around for hours and hours this morning in jbhifi, Officeworks and Bing Lee putting different brands of tablet on the same picture and then putting them next to each other after adjusting brightness to max and then checking viewing angles and after reading dozens and dozens of reviews last night I reach the following conclusion.
The nit brightness ratings in tablet tech specifications are often incorrect as tablets with brighter nit specifications are clearly dimmer than some with lesser specifications when placed side by side.
For example Samsung A8 is brighter than Samsung S6 lite and both are dimmer and have worse viewing angles than Lenovo P 11.
In the end I got a Lenovo p11 for well under half price (as apparently it is superseded) and I had to take the demo model. Got them to throw in a free 2-year extended warranty inclusive of battery so that should cover me. Dirt cheap $182 v 499 new price. Comes with a pen although that will never be used. Previously I would have suspected that Lenovo was junk compared to Samsung. Maybe time will tell but with 3 years of warranty and a steal of a price I don't care.

Thanks for that. Did you look at the Samsung active tablet by any chance? They are more expensive but waterproof and apparently have screens that can be seen in sunlight. Looking for a tablet at the moment as well. The price really jumps up quickly.

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tarquin1 said..
Thanks for that. Did you look at the Samsung active tablet by any chance? They are more expensive but waterproof and apparently have screens that can be seen in sunlight. Looking for a tablet at the moment as well. The price really jumps up quickly.

A friend just bought one of those but they are much more expensive. I just buy a sun shroud as below and a TPU cover with taped over camera, headphone ...buttons.
We are heading North on his boat next month so will get a good test of it soon. He has had it a couple of weeks and seems happy with it.

It (and everyone else) survived an explosion and fire on his boat Friday on the slips when a mechanic used a flame on his stuck prop shaft joint nut just after spraying penetrating compound :).

I should probably stop being so cheap as straight after losing my tablet overboard on Friday I loaded Navionics on my phone speared a wave at speed and took a bit of water into the cockpit which caused the speaker on my phone to go all weird. Fortunately sitting on the dash demister vent in the car on the way home cured it at least for now.

Turn it off and put it in a ziplock bag with rice overnight. Don't try and charge it or use it.
Funny I warned about using flammable sprays and blow torches on here recently. A long time ago we were on the hard and had been soaking a bolt in a chain locker in WD40. We thought we had waited long enough and hit it with the blow torch. Full fireball in the chain locker. The skipper and I both had singed eyebrows and hair. He said to me"Do you think anyone noticed". I looked around the yard and said "Yeh, everybody is looking this way". In the bar after work it was non stop piss taking, obviously you are one of the idiots that tried to blow that boat up this afternoon. Took a day or two more but we got it out.

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tarquin1 said..
Turn it off and put it in a ziplock bag with rice overnight. Don't try and charge it or use it.
Funny I warned about using flammable sprays and blow torches on here recently. A long time ago we were on the hard and had been soaking a bolt in a chain locker in WD40. We thought we had waited long enough and hit it with the blow torch. Full fireball in the chain locker. The skipper and I both had singed eyebrows and hair. He said to me"Do you think anyone noticed". I looked around the yard and said "Yeh, everybody is looking this way". In the bar after work it was non stop piss taking, obviously you are one of the idiots that tried to blow that boat up this afternoon. Took a day or two more but we got it out.

Yes thanks I read your previous post on the danger. Hopefully it served as a very useful warning to many on here.

My friend was a bit suspicious as well so had already grabbed a fire extinguisher and was standing well back on the bridge deck steps.It's a 43 ft cat with engines amidships. All the timber floor covers over the bilge were blown off including the one the mechanic was kneeling on and a roll of paper towel by the mechanic was ignited by the fire ball, unraveled and blown the length of the boat into the rear head in a strip of fire. Quite spectacular apparently but no serious injury except the mechanic grazed his head from being blown up of the floor.

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julesmoto said..
Well I lost my Galaxy Tab A 10 inch today after failing to secure it properly on the Binnacle and rounding Barrenjoey to be unexpectedly hit by 20 knots + putting the gunwale in the water (vs the 10 knots inside Pittwater).

Actually I was never that thrilled with it as despite specifications indicating that it was brighter than an iPad it compared very poorly side by side with a friend of mines old Sony tablet for brightness. Furthermore although it supposedly had GPS I could never get Navionics to work properly unless it was tethering from my phone.

Has anybody purchased a tablet recently which they are pleased with as far as brightness and running Navionics is concerned?

I don't need 4 G so looking for an economical one

It used to be the case rhat only the 4G tablets had built in gps. Hence why you had to connect it to your phone.

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jbarnes85 said..

julesmoto said..
Well I lost my Galaxy Tab A 10 inch today after failing to secure it properly on the Binnacle and rounding Barrenjoey to be unexpectedly hit by 20 knots + putting the gunwale in the water (vs the 10 knots inside Pittwater).

Actually I was never that thrilled with it as despite specifications indicating that it was brighter than an iPad it compared very poorly side by side with a friend of mines old Sony tablet for brightness. Furthermore although it supposedly had GPS I could never get Navionics to work properly unless it was tethering from my phone.

Has anybody purchased a tablet recently which they are pleased with as far as brightness and running Navionics is concerned?

I don't need 4 G so looking for an economical one

It used to be the case rhat only the 4G tablets had built in gps. Hence why you had to connect it to your phone.

Yes I believe that this is the case and has always been the case with iPads but it is not supposed to be the case with Android tablets. Apparently the reason is that with Apple products the GPS and 4G chip are one and the same.

Damn! Turns out my test method for tablet brightness which I used in officeworks and JB Hi-Fi was flawed. My son came up from Canberra and alerted me to the fact that a tablet will go brighter on auto-brightness than can be achieved by maxing out manual brightness. Apparently this is to protect the screen from burn-in associated with maxing out brightness long term.
See attached video and start at 3.5 minutes if you want the quick version.

Based on my research:

550 nits seems to be the brightest generally available. Most cheaper Android tablets are 400 or even lower so may not be fit for purpose..

ipad pro 12.9 inch can go to 1000. but one with gps is 2 grand.

Phones go brighter eg 1000 nits is common. So navionics on a phone is not so bad.
Chartplotters are typically 1200 nits (bg vulcan) or 1500 (raymarine axiom)

Given an 10 inch ipad 256 gb with gps (500nits or so) is about the same price as a 9 inch bg chartplotter..it gets very confusing as to which way to go. $1300.

Agree the Samsung Active pro 4 is a sensible option for a grand..550 nits but it ain't no ipad performance wise if that matters.

Seems like the pros and cons are such that there is no sweetspot. So perhaps the cheaper ones may be the way to go!

Just a heads up on the built in gps on the apple units, it's not purely gps it's a cheap blend of triangulation from towers, repeaters & wifi, If on the other hand you use a gps dongle thing like a bad elf or the like you will have a bonafide gps

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woko said..
Just a heads up on the built in gps on the apple units, it's not purely gps it's a cheap blend of triangulation from towers, repeaters & wifi, If on the other hand you use a gps dongle thing like a bad elf or the like you will have a bonafide gps

This is yet another confusing aspect of tablets and all indications are that embedded gps in an ipad is a real gps.

That's not to say a bad elf isn't better but the truth is the gps in an ipad is real.

These guys try to explain it.

ipadpilotnews.com/2015/12/ipad-real-gps/

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julesmoto said..

Serb1980 said..
Buddy,
jump to office work and get a cheaper 10" tablet currently on special down to 89 bucks. It will work perfectly. I hope you will find one in stock
Good luck

Thank you for that. I'm going down this morning to have a look but brightness is very important and also battery size because I don't have power at my binnacle. Waterproof would be nice too but I can get around that with a silicone case and a few bits of electrical tape.

At least at $89 it wouldn't be a disaster if I lost it again :).


Meanwhile what is this new boat you speak of?

New Boat is Hunter 356
struggling to understand what would be the benefits of my new prop 3 blades 15x13 or 3 blades 16x12. which one Will give better top speed (hull speed) with less rpm's.

will open a new topic.

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Serb1980 said..

New Boat is Hunter 356...

Congratulations!

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Madmouse said..

woko said..
Just a heads up on the built in gps on the apple units, it's not purely gps it's a cheap blend of triangulation from towers, repeaters & wifi, If on the other hand you use a gps dongle thing like a bad elf or the like you will have a bonafide gps

This is yet another confusing aspect of tablets and all indications are that embedded gps in an ipad is a real gps.

That's not to say a bad elf isn't better but the truth is the gps in an ipad is real.

These guys try to explain it.

ipadpilotnews.com/2015/12/ipad-real-gps/

Cheers, that's a good explanation of how it works and also explains why when in an area of zero phone reception like east coast of Whitsundays the iPad wasn't as accurate as the chart plotter or my fix on paper but still sort of knew where it was

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woko said..

Madmouse said..

woko said..
Just a heads up on the built in gps on the apple units, it's not purely gps it's a cheap blend of triangulation from towers, repeaters & wifi, If on the other hand you use a gps dongle thing like a bad elf or the like you will have a bonafide gps

This is yet another confusing aspect of tablets and all indications are that embedded gps in an ipad is a real gps.

That's not to say a bad elf isn't better but the truth is the gps in an ipad is real.

These guys try to explain it.

ipadpilotnews.com/2015/12/ipad-real-gps/

Cheers, that's a good explanation of how it works and also explains why when in an area of zero phone reception like east coast of Whitsundays the iPad wasn't as accurate as the chart plotter or my fix on paper but still sort of knew where it was

I didn't get that impression from the article but maybe the gps receiver on the charplotter has a better view of the sky.

As I understand it you don't need a cellular connection to use GPS on a late model IPAD, phone etc. However only the wifi plus Cellular models have a GPS chip in them. That article was from 2015, things have moved on. By the way to I took the SIM card out of my iPad to test this. Yep GPS worked. Obviously the nav charts need to be dowloaded to your device. I used my iPad Air on a charter boat instead of the very old MFD which was crap and it was fine. Their are android based tablets ie Sailproof rugged tablets which are bright (1000 nits) and waterproof (600 euros +)

You don't need a cellular connection but you need the cellular version of the ipad. It's the same as in 2015 in that respect.

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Madmouse said..
You don't need a cellular connection but you need the cellular version of the ipad. It's the same as in 2015 in that respect.

This.
it's the cellular interface that gives you GPS, nothing to do with the SIM card itself.
I do lots of wireless surveys that are GPS plotted where we buy iPads with cellular interface but never buy SIM cards for them.

Hmm. not sure what you mean by cellular interface. As I understand it like my GPS antenna on my boat (a B&G Z100) no wifi or cellular signal is required to receive satellite info. It's a stand alone GPS chip. Maybe the "GPS assist" as mentioned in the article is relevant in some applications, dunno. I might test this on the water next time I'm out to see how they compare.

For the sake of completeness there is another tablet called a Sailproof from Belgium which is Android but ruggedised and offers 1000 nits.

820 euro which work out about $1400aud ex website.

As the name implies its designed for sailing.


sailproof.shop/product/sp10as-10-inch-android-rugged-tablet/

Funny I thought I had mentioned the sailproof in my post. I actually have one. They are cheaper than apple and work well. Even have dual GPS.

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neilmac01 said..
Funny I thought I had mentioned the sailproof in my post. I actually have one. They are cheaper than apple and work well. Even have dual GPS.

You did..sorry!

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neilmac01 said..
Hmm. not sure what you mean by cellular interface. As I understand it like my GPS antenna on my boat (a B&G Z100) no wifi or cellular signal is required to receive satellite info. It's a stand alone GPS chip. Maybe the "GPS assist" as mentioned in the article is relevant in some applications, dunno. I might test this on the water next time I'm out to see how they compare.

It just means that the iPads with a mobile phone cellular network capability are the ones with a GPS chipset. Just like the GPS chipset on your B&G z100. Which is just like the GPS chipset in any chart plotter, or your car nav. Or a bazillion other devices like mobile phones.


The IPads that only have wifi, not wifi and cellular, do not have a gps chipset.

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neilmac01 said..
Funny I thought I had mentioned the sailproof in my post. I actually have one. They are cheaper than apple and work well. Even have dual GPS.

How do you rate the sailproof? How do you use it? Just as a plotter, Navionics or something or as a repeater for instruments?
Looking at getting something that can do both. B&G instruments.
Have been asking them a few questions recently. They seem very helpful.

For a standalone chart plotter its fine (say with navionics). The case allows for lots of mounting options. The screen is bright but you do pay for that in reduced battery life. I would have a 12v cable connected if your using it for while. I tried to integrate it with my B&G stuff but gave up as it was of no use for me. Controlling my MFD was way too slow and I had nowhere to mount it near to me.

Now if you could connect it to the B&G network and view a different screen (say the MFD chart or sail steer) then it would be great, but you can't and I don't think B&G would like that idea.

So a really good option for a chartplotter, better than iPad because of cost, brightness, and the rugged case with good mounting options.

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woko said..
Just a heads up on the built in gps on the apple units, it's not purely gps it's a cheap blend of triangulation from towers, repeaters & wifi, If on the other hand you use a gps dongle thing like a bad elf or the like you will have a bonafide gps

Yes, I'd also have to challenge this. I've used my IPad (running Navionics) well offshore, and with mapping software in Central Australia hundreds of km away from Cell towers etc, and it provides accurate latitude & longitude. Basic compass Apps also work accurately on IPad and IPhone.

I don't have a boat, (windsurfer) but use a Tripltek tablet for drone flying, 8" 1200 nit display, water proff, big battery, gps and built tough. Not cheap but does the job, I can see in bright sunlight now without a hood.
www.tripltek.com/

Neilmac01 thanks.
Do you have the B&G app. Have you tried the chart plotter on there? Apparently if you have an internet connection you can download weather and overlay it. Do some basic routing. Other nav apps have this, I was wondering how it compares.
You can connect it to the B&G network with the app. So you can use the nav app. From what I understand it's not a repeater for the plotter. One good function is you can do passage planning at home with the app then it will download the waypoints onto the plotter. Same for regattas.
As you said I don't think you can bring up sail to steer or use it as a repeater. B&G are listening to customers and saying they are going to do more work on the app. We will see.
Just looked at the B&G app and in the what's new part it says if you have Triton edge processor you can access information with the app.