Nav decisions to make

[Sunsetrider]

It's 2017 so older threads quickly become dated in terms of technology. To justify opening a discussion which has been well travelled in the past.

Up until now I have relied on an iPad with iNavx for local navigation and have become comfortable with it. I can actually plot a course and follow it. I have a slew of apps on my Android phone as well, none of which seem to work but that is likely because I have not bothered to download relevant charts to them.

My wife uses the ipad for Netflix extensively, for insomnia amusement. I will be abandoning her at some point soonish to strike out on my adventure, so I am looking at replacing the ipad for my own purposes aboard, and I prefer Android over IO. Unhappily iNavx is IO only, but happily OpenCPN is Windows and Android compliant. I will take my personal laptop but I understand the laptop can be an energy hog, so I do not want to rely on it for use at anchor (remember I am not sail, I am diesel only). I don't want to deprive my wife of the ipad as I disappear over the horizon. (what a champ!)

So my plan is to put OpenCPN on the laptop (with a connected GPS thing), for use principally when connected ashore. And to get one a them new-fangled hybrid tablets like the Samsung Tab S2 and put OpenCPN and Navionics on it for principal navigation.

All this to basically ask: will Navionics (along with Tides and Currents etc.) provide me with nav support as useful, complete and user-friendly as iNavx? For example, I do rely on the iNavx instrument readouts quite a bit as my own engine instruments are somewhat suspect, being ancient.

Comments from folks relying on these kinds of apps rather than the big chart plotters especially appreciated, since these are the sorts of things I will be relying on, albeit on a variety of redundant platforms like smartphones, aforementioned laptop, and tablet. Until Mr Trumpet has his way the GPS satellites should continue to be functional. (Fingers crossed!)

[Sunsetrider]

Trying to figure out what I get and what it will cost for Navionics with google earth and auto-nav, 2 features which impressed the heck out of me as I have been checking out Navionics. But with the "free" app it gets confusing, with the 3-week trial, Navionics+ and all that. Does anyone have the real scoop on that?