RCU Forums - DJI Phantom 2 Vision Quadcopter some numptie questions

[h=1]Little bit about me first, I am an old geezer living on a sailboat in the Eastern Caribbean. I have flown RC including helicopters for 50 years. I am thinking about buying aDJI Phantom 2 Vision Quadcopter with the camera. Now I know almost nothing about quads and FPV and airborne cameras. So I have a bunch of numptie questions.[/h]
It says it needs some kind of smartphone. Can I use a wifi enabled laptop instead?

Some of the time I will want to use it from a dinghy, a stable 9ft RIB, is it feasible for one person to launch it and recover it.

Would I be better to put floats on it and take off and land from the water. It was common to put large floats on early RC helicopters when learning.

I feel like I don't know enough to be asking the right questions, what am I missing?

Is there any other quad plus camera I should be considering. 640 x 480 res is all I really need. Max spend around $1500 and less would be good.

Sorry about the font sizes I pasted in the name and it went bonkers.