RAM Mounts for Tablet PC & GPS

5-13-08


     Shortly before I bought my Jeep, I purchased a small tablet PC made by Fujitsu, model P1620. I was wanting an ultra portable laptop, but I also thought that the tablet touch screen features would be handy also, especially if mounted in the Jeep for GPS. I finally got around to ordering some RAM mounts for it and my Garmin 60csX GPS unit. RAM sells mounts for just about everything, and they have a ton of separate components so that you can combine them to make just about any kind of mount you need. Mine are the typical 1" ball bolt on bases. The most time consuming part of this install was checking the positioning of where I had to mount them, and make sure that the tablet PC would be able to pivot and move into the position I wanted it to. I had a hard time deciding if I wanted it mounted on top the dash, or above the rear view mirror. Then I realized that since the bases were the same, I could swap the bracket arms and unit mounts as needed.
     The tablet seems like it will be the easiest to use and view when mounted on top of the dash. But it does block a good bit of my view, which could be especially bad on offroading trips.

     It blocks much less of my view when I mounted it above the rear view mirror. I had to bend the mirror down just a bit lower than I had it originally, and the bottom of the tablet still blocks it just a bit. But overal its not all that bad, and definitely less obstructive. Though it may be a bit harder to use, reaching up that high.

     The mounts seem very well made, I trust they will hold the units securely. The GPS unit doesnt weigh enough to bounce around at all. The tablet PC seems it may shake just a bit on rough terrain, but should still not be enough to hurt it. Time till tell, as I have not had this setup offroad yet. I mainly wanted it for road trips anyway, but it would be nice to view the Topo maps while offroading.
     My plan was to use Gamins nRoute for turn my turn navigation on the tablet, but I seem to be having some troubles getting the tablet to see the 60csX for a real time connection. If I cant get this resolved, I will have to buy a bluetooth GPS antenna for this setup, which might be a better way to go anyway, seeing how that would be one less cable to worry about.

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