Knight44
3rd December 2005, 08:50 AM
Morning all,
I've finally gotten around to taking a couple of photos of the laptop/GPS I've got in the Prado.
The GPS is a Garmin 76 with an external antenna and the laptop is a NEC T400 tablet with power for this coming via a Targus unit. I chose the tablet primarily because it was on special ($900) at the local Domayne store - it was a display unit they had been trying to sell for months and had progressively marked down from $2500. Couldn't resist it at $900.
The big advantages of the tablet are its compact size and the touch screen - the biggest disadvantage is the lack of an inbuilt CD/DVD drive.
As you can see from the photos, the tablet sits on the central console. A length of wide elastic (looped under the lid of the console) with velcro on the ends holds it in place when it isn't required for actual navigating. It's quick and easy to move to the navigator's lap when required or when going over rough roads. The laptop is on top of a cooling base I bought from Dick Smiths and the two are held together by wide elastic bands - one is on the screen in the photo. The GPS is mounted on a RAM mount down low as I don't really need to look at it when travelling. The external antenna is on the vent immediately in front of the windscreen and held in place by two cable ties looped through the vent. The cabling to the tablet runs through a length of split plastic conduit to keep things neat.
I had some problems on our last trip away. If I turned the GPS on before the computer, then the latter would not recognise the GPS for what it was and do a big dummy spit needing rebooting. The Targus power supply was not giving the correct voltage at the tip due to user ignorance but once home I contacted Targus and they supplied the correct tip. The low voltage caused slow battery recharge and also caused a major problem when trying to restart the computer after hibernation if the battery was low - the battery would go flat and there was not enough "oomph" coming from the Targus to kick the computer into action.
Cheers
Richard
I've finally gotten around to taking a couple of photos of the laptop/GPS I've got in the Prado.
The GPS is a Garmin 76 with an external antenna and the laptop is a NEC T400 tablet with power for this coming via a Targus unit. I chose the tablet primarily because it was on special ($900) at the local Domayne store - it was a display unit they had been trying to sell for months and had progressively marked down from $2500. Couldn't resist it at $900.
The big advantages of the tablet are its compact size and the touch screen - the biggest disadvantage is the lack of an inbuilt CD/DVD drive.
As you can see from the photos, the tablet sits on the central console. A length of wide elastic (looped under the lid of the console) with velcro on the ends holds it in place when it isn't required for actual navigating. It's quick and easy to move to the navigator's lap when required or when going over rough roads. The laptop is on top of a cooling base I bought from Dick Smiths and the two are held together by wide elastic bands - one is on the screen in the photo. The GPS is mounted on a RAM mount down low as I don't really need to look at it when travelling. The external antenna is on the vent immediately in front of the windscreen and held in place by two cable ties looped through the vent. The cabling to the tablet runs through a length of split plastic conduit to keep things neat.
I had some problems on our last trip away. If I turned the GPS on before the computer, then the latter would not recognise the GPS for what it was and do a big dummy spit needing rebooting. The Targus power supply was not giving the correct voltage at the tip due to user ignorance but once home I contacted Targus and they supplied the correct tip. The low voltage caused slow battery recharge and also caused a major problem when trying to restart the computer after hibernation if the battery was low - the battery would go flat and there was not enough "oomph" coming from the Targus to kick the computer into action.
Cheers
Richard