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Does anyone have an opinion on the relative merits of Solteknik ($99) versus Navionics ($29) charts for Finland and the Baltic? Are Solteknik worth the extra $$? Using INavX on my iPad.

You can email a lat/lon to inavx at me dot com to receive a screen shot of both charts on iNavX on iPad.

I have the same question regarding 'Swedish Marine Charts - 2010 ed.' ($99.00) vs 'Navionics 44XG Baltic, Finland, Sweden, Norway South - iPad - 2011 ed.' ($53.99).

Thanks in advance
Eric

Suffice to say, I prefer the classic style raster charts Unfortunately no Swedish charts publicly available for our app yet, but I can testify that the Solteknik charts work great!


//Kalle


eSeaChart testing by kalleh, on Flickr

I just came back from a sailing trip through the Swedish skerries south of Stockholm. That was gorgeous!
I have the Solteknik charts on the iPhone and the MacBook Air and the Navionics on the iPad.
I clearly prefer the Navionics Charts in the narrow waterways between the skerries. The vector charts really show their potential when you zoom in really much. The chart display gets really clear as all buoys etc. are rendered in the same size independently from the zoom level. When you zoom into the Solteknik charts everything is just shown bigger so it does not get any clearer but just bigger. Another advantage is thet the Navionics charts are more colourful. E.g. buoys are drawn in their actual colour so you can see at a glance if the next one should be green or red or a cardinal one. On the Solteknik charts all the buoys are black with tiny letters indicating the colour.
But there is also a drawback in the Navionics charts: I think it takes a little to get used to the varying scale and to judge distances.
Another little thing: although I purchased the 2011 release of both charts, changed buoys close to Öxelösund were only represented in the Solteknik charts and not in the Navionics charts. These showed the same as the 2010 Solteknik charts so the change seems to be quite new.