From personal experience, the Nexus 7 is a non-starter. The screen is
simply not bright enough in sunlight to read effectively. Perhaps
shading it somehow would improve things, but on a recent flight from NM
to UT and back, I found it utterly useless and relegated it to the
bottom of the pile of stuff in the right seat.

The plan view of a thermal is one of the main reasons I run a Streak 5
even when flying solo. Mine is set up to account for wind drift so that
it's easy to simply fly the same displayed path to stay in the best
lift. My ClearNav screen, while much brighter and a terrific display of
the terrain (not withstanding the "canopy view"), does not account for
wind drift so all thermals look like stretched springs except under no
wind conditions and lift strength is indicated by the size of a
"bubble". After a few turns in a thermal, it's a jumble of blobs which
I find useless. If I need guidance back to the center of a thermal, I
simply glance at the Streak.

Yes, the Streak 5 is well obsolete, running Android 2.3.7, but it works
well and I expect mine, plus my two spares, will last the remainder of
my flying days.

On 6/24/2017 10:46 AM, wrote:
That's the solution: order a JS3!!

I didn't realize there was much OpenVario action anywhere outside of Europe, though I do know of 2 or 3 guys in the U.S. who are experimenting with it. It's an interesting concept for the display options, the cursor options, and as an integration platform. But it's an order of magnitude greater in cost than my Kobo and Dell Streak toys, although still well below the commercial price points.

Just to clarify, I'm looking for a LARGER color display than the Dell Streak 5 so the smartphone alternatives aren't attractive.

I haven't played with a Dell Streak 7 but everything I read in the soaring-specific postings says it's not as readable in sunlight as the 5. I'd heard the same about the Nexus 7 but haven't seen it myself, although polarized sunglasses are a stopper due to my Portable PowerFLARM screen.

My device is mounted on the right side of the canopy rail and neither the Dell nor the Kobo Glo (I'm still swapping them in and out using a Ram X-Grip) obscures any of my instrument panel.

I prefer color, one reason being Top Hat's version of autozoomed climb page that gives an overhead picture of the track through the thermal and surrounding, area, color coded for lift and sink. The gray scale version just isn't as definitive/intuitive for me.

My new ClearNav Vario's thermal assistant works very well but it's a one-circle view of the thermal with an arrow pointing in the direction of the core. I can manually switch into an overhead view similar to Top Hat's that shows my path through the entire thermal area with bubbles of lift. But then I lose the thermal assistant view. So I like to have the overhead view on Top Hat at the same time.

Until last year, the device on the canopy rail was an old Garmin GPS 76 permanently zoomed in to show my path through the thermal and surrounding area, although obviously not coded for lift and sink. More than once while in marginal lift, I've moved over a short distance only to realize I should have stayed, and then unerringly flown directly back along the breadcrumbs to my previous circle and continued climbing slowly. With my new advanced technology, it's not so simple to get the same information--at least not without a few button pushes.

So I want color for that overhead view. The Dell Streak 5 is OK. A bigger, even brighter color screen would be better.

Chip Bearden
"JB"

--
Dan, 5J