I have been flying for 1+ years with electronic plates running on a Toshiba Pen tablet in the cockpit.  I also have the same programs running on my office computer for flight planning and printer access.  (I also have WxWorx on the same laptop.)  I print out all the plates I may need in advance of the trip.  I don’t need the 6 Jepp books now!!

1.  Pocket plates by Control Vision. 

I used for 1 year.

All plates are stored on the laptop.  I do not load them to a PDA.

Can view the entire plate on the pen tablet screen at once.

Intuitive  and easy to use.

Very slow updates every 28 days.  It takes several hours on high speed internet.

The images are scanned and difficult to read due to fuzziness.  (both the printed and the ones on the laptop.)

The printouts take a long time doing them one at a time  and with long downloads due to the large file size.

STARs are not tied to the airport, but are for the whole region.  Not sure which one to printout without opening each one and see if it applies.

AOPA has free download of procedures as you need them. 

Fast downloads and very readable.

Must print plates one at a time.

You must be online to load additional plates so this does not work in the cockpit.

Seattle Plates by Seattle Avioinics

I just purchased this one a few weeks ago at OSH.

All procedures are loaded on the pen tablet.

$99 one time purchase of Seattle Plates and free updates.

Can download and print an entire chart pack with a couple of clicks. 

Very clear and readable on the screen and printouts.

STARs are organized by airport.

28 day updates are much more rapid—as in about 10 minutes with a high speed connection.  

Negative:  Can’t view the entire plate at once in landscape mode, must scroll up and down.  It does display the entire chart in portrait mode-terrific if you have a pen tablet.

I find it harder to use than Pocket Plates.  This will improve with time.

It steps one through the disclaimer each time and asks if you want to use the wizard which has more steps than you want to use when flying.  You can access the procedures without the wizard.

Note:  I also purchased Seattle Avionics Voyager Flight planning software.  I have not used it enough to comment on it.  The 2 are linked so that if one uses the flight planning software you are pointed to the correct plates.  It includes IFR and VFR maps, terrain clearance, profiles for your airplane, TFRs if you are online, and more. 

Carl Cadwell, N25CL, IVP