Poll on using an MFD vs a smart device

[Fluenta]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Although I have a second Zeus at my nav table, I do not use it for navigation or planning. I use a hard-installed Windows computer running OpenCPN and displaying on a 23" 4K monitor, preferably with raster charts.

The big screen and hard installed computer is on "to do list" for the next lap !

[danleach]

So tired of this fight.



It always comes down to; Always an MFD. No they are obsolete and overpriced, you only need an iPad. Coastal Explorer on Windows, no, build a RaspberryPi box and run OpenCPN. Real sailors only use paper and a compass and a sextant. Oh yeah, how about a lodestone and an astrolabe?


Folks, first learn to use what you have. Decide what you need given the sailing you are doing and your budget. Add that and then learn to use that stuff too. Never give up a back up system and use it every once in a while so you remember how to.


OK, back to our regularly scheduled internet back and forth.


Oh, I almost forgot: B&G Zeus 3 MFD, Coastal Explorer on Windows (also tapped into the N2k backbone), Navionics on my phone, and paper covering from Olympia to Anchorage. But again, that's just what works for me.