Raymarine C Series Widescreen, really new
All hail Richard Brain. While the Consumer Electronics Show, year-end “best new…” lists and patent searches may all offer 2009 marine electronics possibilities, the real deal—mainly a passel of very interesting Raymarine preview products—is being shown at the London Boat Show. And Richard was kind enough to collect brochures, photograph them, and email them to me for your Panbo pleasure. So let’s thank Richard and say hello to Ray’s new “Widescreen” C Series, which is truly different from the original…
Raymarine has been very quiet about this and other developments like the unique Class B AIS500 transponder and the cool large screen ST70+ instrument system (you’ll have to wait a day or two for), but there is a Widescreen press release on the UK site. There you’ll learn that the screens are not just wide but quite high res: The C90W packs 800 x 480 pixels onto its 9” diagonal display while the C120W sports 1280 x 800, which is the same pixel count as the whopping 14” C140W. And these new Cs aren’t single station; the inclusion of SeaTalkHS (Ethernet) mean that at least two can network directly, and lots of HS sensors can be added with an eight port switch. Now included amongst those Ethernet sensors are new 18” and 24” “Digital” Radomes, which are both 4kW and apparently perform better than Ray’s current domes (which work quite well in my experience).
Like the relatively new A Series models, the Widescreens include built-in GPS and basic Navionics cartography (with most premium cards supported) and SeaTalkNG/NMEA 2000 (hopefully with the promised N2K message fixes and improvements). They can also control the SPX (N2K) autopilot series, display camera output, and have a new button lay out that includes that large “UniControl”, said to be quick and easy at cursor and menu scrolling moves. I don’t know anything about pricing and shipping dates for the Widescreens and Digital Radomes—or the goodies yet to come (thanks again, Richard)—but dare guess that more will be revealed in Miami next month. The question that may remain unanswered: If the new C Series is this powerful, what the heck will Raymarine add to the new E Series?
Aha; Richard has a price list too. These are in Pounds, without VAT (sales tax):
C90W, 1,595
C120W 2,195
C140W 2,995
Digital Radomes with no cable:
RD418D 850
RD424D 1,250