Tricia & Brian, I'm glad you asked this question, because a year ago I was faced with exactly the same decision, and found it very difficult to find a quality source of information to help me make my decision. For this reason, I'm going to provide a fairly lengthy response, in the hope that you will benefit from my experiences and lessons learned. This short answer to your question is both systems can provide a fantastic marine navigation experience. The difference in the two systems lies more in a philosophy than any single feature or product capability. As a member of the computer world for the last 25 years, I had a strong desire to use a PC based navigation system. It was my belief that using a PC based system would give me more choices, more features, and more bang for the buck than a proprietary system from one of the top vendors, such as Raymarine or Furuno. In some respects this has proven to be true, and in others it has proven to be false. Bear with me as I walk through my decision, and lessons learned; My primary requirements for my marine navigation system were 1) Powerful Navigation features (planning, tracking, estimating...) 2) Largest and most efficient use of screen space 3) Radar Overlay, at least 4kw 4) Ability for me to do the installation and integration with other systems 5) Ability to plan trips and routes at home, not on the boat You may have noticed that cost was not on this list? That's because I believed the PC based system had to cost less. I knew that the PC business was delivering far more power and capabilities to the market than the proprietary vendors could deliver. The PC marketplace delivers products by the tens and hundreds of thousands of units, sometimes by the millions. Tremendous cost savings come into play in this marketplace. I knew the PC solution would ultimately cost less. I was facing this decision because I was taking delivery of a Camano Troll in June of 03. I wanted to outfit the navigation system myself, mostly because I enjoy working on technical things during our cold Seattle weekends. The helm of a Camano Troll is compact, and I wanted to use the space wisely. The local Camano dealer has done a great job of refining the Raymarine system to fit perfectly into the helm on the Camano, and there are many boats that are delivered with a complete compliment of Raymarine electronics in a very appealing configuration. Passagemaker magazine even touted it as one of their examples of a quality installation in an article about designing helm stations. The problem I was having was that I believed I wanted more screen space than the 7 inch version of the Raymarine chart plotter. I thought bigger is better, as I find my eyes are in need of larger and larger type these days! I finally decided to purchase a Dell wide screen laptop, and place it on top of the helm console. I figured I would engineer a mount to immobilize it, and use a docking station to capture and control all the cables. Based on my need for Radar Overlay, I decided on Nobeltec V7.0 and a 4KW raydome. I actually bought the system before the boat arrived, so I could completely integrate the various components prior to installing them on the boat. You should have seen my F150 pickup truck driving down the road with a radome mounted on a ladder in the bed, and a laptop computer on the seat next to me! Anyway, this proved to be very wise, as it eliminated any issues during installation later. I knew the system worked. After the boat arrived, I installed the GPS (a Garmin 17N), and a Raymarine ST5000 autopilot control head (simply to derive heading via the fluxgate compass). Installation went without a problem, and I was up and running very quickly. There were a few "surprises". First, because I had purchased one of the most powerful Dell computers, I was told that a 12volt power supply was "in development" and would be delivered shortly. This wasn't a big deal, it just meant I needed to run my inverter when ever I used the computer. The surprise came with I tried to run the laptop on battery power, and found that Dell would not allow you do run on batteries when docked. Apparently the power consumption in a docked configuration could become high enough that the internal batteries would be hard pressed to meet the demand. No problem, I'll just buy an after market power supply, such as those manufactured by Lind. Well imagine my surprise when I plugged it in, and the Dell system then said "A non Dell power supply is connected to this system, press F1 to shutdown". Apparently Dell has begun to place a proprietary chip in there supplies, to insure you use one of their units. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, this is all information you have to discover as you build a system. I was just confronting a series of issues, most caused by the fact this is one of the newest generations of very powerful laptops. Anyway, as I mentioned before, the system worked just fine when plugged into the inverter. So, I'm off and going, and everything is working perfect. Well, not quite. Very quickly I realized the screen of the laptop blocked a very important field of view, especially if I was sitting in the helm chair. I quickly became concerned about this being a long-term problem. During this time I did learn that Nobeltec is a powerful software tool. I can tell you that in 170 hours of boat use the application has locked up 2 times. Each time a simple restart of the program restored full functionality. It was down for less than 30 seconds. I do want to say that this is a system DEDICATED to the Nobeltec application. No Internet, no wireless, no DVD playing, no games, no Microsoft office, no virus scanning... You can't build a more plane jane system than this. I am not concerned about the 2 lockups, because I believe over time I can stabilize the system even further, and weed out some of the junk that Nobeltec has added to the product. There are so many features that appear to be written for the boat show demo that I wish I could selectively return them for credit! Anyway, that's another thread entirely. To solve the problem of the lap top obscuring my view, I have moved to a new computer. I had purchased a Toshiba 3505 tablet computer for a daughter at college, and we simply traded systems. This is one of the HUGE advantages of a PC based system. You have the ability to upgrade or change systems very easily. The advantage of the tablet computer is you don't have a keyboard to worry about. The Windows XP Tablet OS included handwriting recognition, and a pop up keyboard that works great. I use a wireless mouse that has a thumbpad for input. This is very helpful when the boat is moving around. I do hardly any data entry while on a trip; so not having a keyboard is a good thing. The tablet has met my expectations perfectly. The only issue I have is the screen brightness could be a bit better. If the sun is shining directly into the screen, it washes out pretty badly. Now for the good news! Motion Computing has just introduced a brand new daylight viewable display. It uses Transreflective technology; which uses the ambient light to display the image. The brighter the sun, the better the display. The best thing about this is that they are only charging $395 as an upgrade from their base price. This means for the price of one of the lowest cost daylight viewable displays from Big Bay, you can get an entire computer system, in a space 11x9.5x1. If my Toshiba craps out, I am going to RUN to my local Capt'n Jacks and buy one of these units. They are by far the best value I've seen on the market. The second advantage to this system is the ability to use it on the flybridge. I should mention that I was concerned enough about reliability of the PC based system that I purchased and installed a Garmin 188C color chartplotter/sounder/gps on the flybridge. It provides complete redundancy, and a daylight viewable display in a waterproof package, perfect for the flybridge. I was surprised at how usable the small screen is, so surprised it has made me wonder if my priority on a large screen in the helm is justified? Anyway, I have found this configuration to provide me with everything I set out to achieve. One final note, and the biggest concern I would have about advocating the use of computers on board as a navigation system. Unless you are a competent PC user, I would NOT recommend this solution. Since this is a PC, it is by definition an open system. That means that you are free to screw it up to your harts content. It also means that if you hire a technician to come and install your system, you better get a complete description of exactly how he or she installed or fixed it. I have several friends that have had companies support their PC navigation system. When I ask them if they know what they need to do to restore their system, if they are wiped out, neither one could say yes. They are both just as locked in to their marine stores as if they had bought proprietary systems. On the other hand, if you are knowledgeable, understand the risk, and are willing to invest the time, a PC system can yield huge benefits. Scott Bulger Knot@Work, 31' Camano Troll, Seattle WA