[cyberhusky]

Just to clear up some of the previous incorrect statements.

I only wrote what I was told by the guy who demonstrated TZ and MaxSea.

MaxSea TZ with all the modules (AIS, weather etc.) is more expensive than MacENC with a Macbook.

The full software with all charts for the US, weather, tides, currents, 3D, satellite imagery, etc is about $350 street price. You must be referring to the previous MaxSea software.

Check here to see that http://www.maxsea.fr/timezero/Products/S...fault.aspx

AIS, 3D, Routing etc. are optional at extra cost. At least for Europe and the Navigational Pack.

TZ costs 749 Euro (>1000 US Dollar) with ONE SMALL map of choice WITHOUT the AIS, ROUTING, FURUNO modules!

With a Wide chart like Western Europe you're at 1099 € (1638 US Dollar) that's a MacBook Pro 13" with MacENC and GPS and WorldChart charts for Europe!

http://maxsea.nexway.eu/fiche.html?REF=671783

And you still need to buy the charts.

Totally false for the US. There is a full range of international charts available and they cost extra.

Well the thread starter was talking about Australia and these charts aren't free. The NOAA US Charts are free for any nav app, it has nothing to do with MaxSea.

It true Maxsea TZ has great zoom in/out feature and the GUI is more suitable for touch-screens but that is due to FURUNO, who has bought MaxSea, to integrate TZ in their chart plotters.

TZ works exceptionally well (best, I think) with a wheeled mouse. Furuno, I believe, owns a minority stake in the company who owns MaxSea. It's interesting that the parent company has also just purchased Nobeltec from Jeppesen.

Even if Furuno only has a minority stake in MaxSeas, it was thze reason, TZ was done, because the old MaxSea isn't very usable on chart plotter, too many menus.

At our sailing club I did demo MacENC and a friend showed MaxSea TZ. He was impressed by the features of MacENC which costs only as much as an expansion module for MaxSea.

Again, different product. This is confusing the comparison.

Here in Europe the modules cost extra! It's true that the original MaxSea is even more expensive!

In fact the only thing missing in MacENC is a true logbook, and automatic route planning using tides, currents and weather infos which do cost separately.

Once you see the zooming and panning, there's just no comparison. And these are only a few of the capabilities that TZ has above MacENC. I'd expect this though since MacENC is a much less expensive product.

I don't think MaxSea TZ has so much more features as MacENC, except for the ones stated above. The 3D view is more gimmick and eye candy than it's really useful. As for the more detailed weather infos they're only GRIB data which you get from other services too, like Méteo France who delivers MaxSea too.

The biggest issue with MaxSea is the electronic hardware dongle, if you loose it you can't use MaxSea anymore!

Incorrect again. Points again to a comparison against a completely different software product. There is no hardware dongle at all. You activate the software using an internet connection. I think there's a manual way to do it too. That's it. I have no dongle or any type of special hardware.

That's what my friend told but than again it was the first version of TZ.

But what I do hear most times is that MaxSea TZ isn't as stable as MaxSea NavNet (the original MaxSea) and still does crash a lot.

I've been hitting it pretty hard and showing it to a bunch of people around the docks here in Charleston (we're currently at the Maritime Center continuing south in a couple of weeks). It hasn't crashed or had a problem yet...and I've really tried to make it crash.

It did crash 2 times during the demo. Our club donated a version of TZ to our ex-president. During his sailing trip in the Mediterranean he has bigger issues with the software not working correctly.

It's hard to know what you've been "hearing" or if it even involves the same software product. From all of your other comments, you're referring to something completely different and not MaxSea TimeZero.

In fact TZ and MaxSea were demoed. But I thought TZ would be another product but an evolution of MaxSea.

Edit: I just read that you do have the latest version of TZ (2 weeks or so). When I demoed MacENC and my friend TZ and MaxSea that was in March 2009. So a lot of change has since come to TZ.