Best cellphone for sailing

[a64pilot]

I hate to say it, but when I get in tight somewhere like on the intercostal and want really good charts, I always ask for the IPad with the Garmin app. The integrated Active Captain alone makes it better, I like reading to stay towards the red if that is what I need to do.
Does this irritate me that an electronic toy with an inexpensive app has better maps than my thousands of dollars of chart plotter? You betcha it does, to no end, but yes I have two IPads and two IPhones on board and all have both Navionics and the Garmin app, as well as having Open CPN loaded on old Panasonic Toughbook.
Now I'm no IPhone fan for many reasons, ended up with one cause the wife wanted one and I ordered two by mistake and once you get sort of married to one, it's hard to switch everything over, but I'd rather still be Android I believe.


Sent from my iPad Pro using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Tom and Maje]

[QUOTE=singlespeed;2176311]
Buy the cheapest unlocked brick cell phone you can find and buy the chips for each island as you head south. Go onto Amazon and buy a Kindle Fire HD and save a ton of money and headaches. You'll end up with phone that drowns just like a smartphone at a fraction of the replacement cost and a decent sized screen on the Kindle to use as a backup for your chartplotter. I have lost count of the number of cracked screens, bad chargers/cables and drowned smartphones I've seen down here in the Eastern Caribbean. Amazingly, people will pay almost four times what I pay for a brick phone for a waterproof housing for a smartphone. Heck, the baggie I carry my brick phone in is a recycled luncheon meat package.

QUOTE]

DO NOT buy the cheapest one you can find. The damn things don't work. We already tried it. Get a moderately priced one and a waterproof case.

Maje

[belizesailor]

[QUOTE=Tom and Maje;2176362]

Originally Posted by singlespeed

Buy the cheapest unlocked brick cell phone you can find and buy the chips for each island as you head south. Go onto Amazon and buy a Kindle Fire HD and save a ton of money and headaches. You'll end up with phone that drowns just like a smartphone at a fraction of the replacement cost and a decent sized screen on the Kindle to use as a backup for your chartplotter. I have lost count of the number of cracked screens, bad chargers/cables and drowned smartphones I've seen down here in the Eastern Caribbean. Amazingly, people will pay almost four times what I pay for a brick phone for a waterproof housing for a smartphone. Heck, the baggie I carry my brick phone in is a recycled luncheon meat package.

QUOTE]

DO NOT buy the cheapest one you can find. The damn things don't work. We already tried it. Get a moderately priced one and a waterproof case.

Maje

Except...for Nokia...for years I had a cheap Nokia dumb phone...so long I had the case taped together due wear related failure. Never failed despite hard use, and at least one brief dunk in salt water. Still have it in the old electronics bin and I think it still works. Finally was replaced by a Samsung smart phone, which is great.

However, I have had bad luck with off brand phones. Lots of cheap Chino junk on the market here in Central America. Bought one once in a pinch and it lasted just long enough for me to replace it with another Samsung.

[leftbrainstuff]

Any old iphone or android phone will work. We have several spares. Prefer the androids because we can replace batteries and swap sd cards with our encrypted data quickly.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Siberian Sea]

Although there are indeed waterproof cell phones I've opted to put my older Galaxy S4 in an Otter Box brand case. The phone is left in a charging cradle hooked to a Wilson power booster and this booster is in turn connected to an external fiberglass antenna mounted on the aft rail. I use a Parret X-250 Bluetooth headset with approx 40ft of range this allows not only the phone to be safe inside the cabin but both my hands free as I go about the deck or as one might need one hand for the helm and the other for a cold drink

[OndinePLC]

Question: Will the Xperia Aqua run openCPN?