I don't have one - (I have a dedicated plotter and my laptop as backup, running VNS) - but from what I have read they can be a valid alternative, as long as you have no need to drive an autopilot.

I have both an iPad and laptop. I use the iPad a lot for harbor information and weather, but the chart potter apps I've found are all pretty stupid. One of them even defaults do downloading a chart when you go into an area that needs it, assuming that you'll always have a cell tower in sight. Really worthless when you fall off the edge of your current chart 20 miles off shore.

I have not found anything that beats OpenCPN, which only works on a laptop. My laptop and OpenCPN is my backup to the Raymarine chartplotter. Of course the backup to the backup is a paper chart.

I would not be without a laptop until OpenCPN is ported to Android or iOS. There's talk of that, but it has not happened yet as far as I know.

We have a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet which has a slot for a 4G SIM card, it cost $300. It is unlocked, rooted and running Android and works well with our extremely cheap cellular data provider ($10 a month unlimited web). It can function as a wireless hotspot and it is really simple to set that up. Also has regular WiFi built in.

The apps all come from the Google store and there's zillions of them there, most are free but not all. I'm not a big app fan, apps will eat you alive if you are on a restricted data plan, they are constantly chatting away eating your data. We only have a couple installed, the navigation one from Jeppesen/CMap being the most important and useful one, it uses the Galaxy's built in GPS, the charts are extremely cheap compared to charts for the chartplotter and they look the same to me. It has an extremely sharp display which to my eye is as good as the Apple display but I don't operate at the pixel detail level.

The Galaxy has everything needed to use it in place of a laptop, we just completed our first trip away with just it and no laptops. The biggest failing with all tablets for doing real work is the built in screen keyboard is pretty useless compared to a real keyboard, I am getting a bluetooth keyboard for it. We also like that it has HDMI output to use it to watch movies on our flat screen on the boat. What I don't like about it is that they use a proprietary connector to do everything outside of the tablet and in the age of USB that is a crappy idea.

You couldn't give me an Apple anything, too many bad experiences with their low quality/overpriced stuff over the years, I could write a book. Android devices are outselling Apple in most of the world for very good reason. Apple fans may now flame me.

The biggest problem with every other mobile device out there is the lousy implementation of websites on mobile devices. The Galaxy is big and powerful enough to be able to display a web page designed for a laptop/desktop without issue, the problem is sites that force redirection to their mobile site which as often as not is badly built/poorly tested/lacking content and largely useless.

I just purchased the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 mainly for some grad level courses I am doing but hope to try it out this summer on the boat. My wife has an IPad. :rolleyes:.... she wishes she did not now that she has seen my Android... Lots of Apps for me great for reading etc... Not sure if I would make it my trusty navigator though.... GPS / chart plotters are design for that.:)

Ditto on the never again buy an Apple. My nearly new iMac has made me wish numerous times I had stayed with a PC. The Admiral has an iPad (wireless only) and she likes it, except if she nods off while reading in bed and it conks her on the nose.

Changing from a PC to IOS is like changing religions. You really get sucked in, and it is very costly buying duplicate software for another operating system.

I love my ipad, the software (apps) i have for navigation seem to work well and track on par with my garmin handheld. the ipad i have is in a LIFEPROOF case and is waterproof down to below where i hope it will never be.. I am in the process slowly of integrating my instruments with the ipad so that i'll be able to interface all of the instruments with both my wheel pilot and the ipad. I've set up a test so that the instruments are producing simulated data. I have a combiner that collects all of the nmea data output streams and it feed both the autopilot and the IPAD via a wireless network. it may not work for everyone and it may not be as robust as a dedicated chartplotter but for my needs I think it will work pretty well.
as a note i did use my ipad when i took an advanced coastal navigation course and i have to say the using both the navionics and and the iNavX software both tracked the course of the boat well as we went from Galveston to Freeport (about 50 nm). in fact the instructor had an iPad and iNavX as well. hard to beat the price of about 40 bucks for the software. FWIW

For three years we've had the Navionics maps running on a series of Android phones (I say "a series" because, alas, far too many have met untimely ends through the usual user mishaps, not because they were defective), which we've used as backups to the helm mounted chartplotter and the paper charts. Very impressed with the detail and accuracy, and -- if I recall correctly -- a set of charts for the entire US East Coast was only about $13. The map data is downloaded only once and resides on the mini-SD card, so there is no need to worry about internet access. (We upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 recently, an absurdly large phone with a 5.5" screen that is probably close to the size of our existing chart plotter, and doesn't seem too bad in the sunlight)