A scary milestone, an apt situational rant, and in the “about those numbers” department…
The key to saving money outfitting or cruising really devolves to the simple act of asking the right questions, doing the math, and making an informed decision. Dead simple, right?
So, as it happens, I want a tablet for navigation use in the cockpit and as a backup to our fishfinder/chart plotter (Raymarine Dragonfly 4). I’d prefer it to be about the same size and be able to run Open CPN or Orca charts. Since I have a dedicated depth sounder in the cockpit already, all I really need is a basic chartplotter. So a tablet makes sense.
Now, if budget were not a factor, I’d be tempted by the Orca tablet. It’s waterproof, or so they say, and has a screen bright enough for cockpit use. The downside is that it costs €999.99 plus whatever other stuff you’ll need for getting it up and running. Not to mention whatever tariff tax you’ll have to pay.
I’ve heard good things about the Hotwav R9 which has a list price of $369. Though, with a screen brightness of only 400 nits it makes me a bit nervous.
The other waterproof tablet that has a good buzz is the OUKITEL RT3 priced at $140. It shares the same 400 nit brightness as the Hotwav but certainly has the edge where price is concerned.
I should also mention that there are a plethora of marine companies that will sell me reasonable facsimiles of the above tablets at much higher prices but do I really need a tablet that costs $2k or $4k?
So, being that any of the above will work for my purposes and just doing the math the OUKITEL RT3 seems like a winner but I’m sure a bit more nits would make it a slam dunk.
Which brings me to something a bit different…
Yeah, a waterproof motorcycle GPS with 800 nits on the brightness scale! Throw in it’s less than $100 bucks and I think we have a contender.
So, what would you do?