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gps for pocket pc

J

jebo_4jc

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2011
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I am considering buying a gps for my HP hx4700. I have shopped around a bit, but didn't see any viable gps solutions for PDA's.....anybody have one or at least have a recommendation for one? Also, if you have one, what map software are you using?

Thanks.
 
Follow up question: are most gps devices essentially the same? In other words, it seems much cheaper to me to buy ms streets for $25 and buy a bluetooth receiver with no software. It seems that the difference between the retail versions of gps (with software) and the hardware-only versions is about $100.
 
I'll chime in here... I have an Axim X50v that I use with a Socket BT GPS unit and it works great... I have MS Streets & Trips installed and gotta say it really sucks. It doesn't support VGA devices so you're stuck viewing the map at 320x240 resolution unless you use a VGA Hack utility to force it to 640x480. Also MS Streets & Trips doesn't support routing, it'll only put an arrow on the map where you currently are and it's up to you to figure out how to get somewhere.

The program that I use is TomTom Navigator (www.tomtom.com). I have version 4, but version 5 is about to come out... it supports VGA displays for beautiful maps and has a very strong routing feature that continuosly re-computes your route if you go off the recommended path. There are probably 3 or 4 other GPS mapping utilities for PPC so do a search... Mapopolis is another good one that comes to mind. Now the good ones aren't cheap (you get what you pay for) but they are worth it.

To answer your other question, yes you can buy the Software and BT GPS seperately and from different manufacturers... all the BT GPS's transmit an industry standard NMEA stream that pretty much all of the different sofwares can understand.
 
Very nice, thanks for the advice. I'm surprised MS S&T sucks so bad....I would assume that MS would be all in on supporting vga res and routing and such. I'll do some more research.

Are there non-pda gps devices that perform similar functions for the same price? The only stand alone gps units I find look like they are for hikers and fishers.
 
Garmin has some GPS devices (the street-pilot series I believe) that are intended for car usage that support routing and such, but they are in the $1000 range if I remember right. Tom Tom has a stand-alone unit that looks pretty snazzy and supports routing and such but I have no idea what the price is... I think the best bang for the buck would be just using the PPC and getting some nice mapping SW that supports routing... like I said, I'm a big fan of TomTom...
 
Eskimo Pie said:
Garmin has some GPS devices (the street-pilot series I believe) that are intended for car usage that support routing and such, but they are in the $1000 range if I remember right. Tom Tom has a stand-alone unit that looks pretty snazzy and supports routing and such but I have no idea what the price is... I think the best bang for the buck would be just using the PPC and getting some nice mapping SW that supports routing... like I said, I'm a big fan of TomTom...
Click to expand...

$1000 dollar range? Where do you shop? Head over to www.gpscity.com and check out their GPS units, software, and RAM mounts. They have some of the cheapest prices on the net ($500 less then bestbuy for the streetpilot 2620).

The stretpilot c series (c330 and c320) are great units for people not too experianced with GPS, more user friendly and are cheaper then the sp2610, 2620. they also both have autorouting and voice.
 
Himmler said:
$1000 dollar range? Where do you shop? Head over to www.gpscity.com and check out their GPS units, software, and RAM mounts. They have some of the cheapest prices on the net ($500 less then bestbuy for the streetpilot 2620).

The stretpilot c series (c330 and c320) are great units for people not too experianced with GPS, more user friendly and are cheaper then the sp2610, 2620. they also both have autorouting and voice.
Click to expand...
I see that Garmin model for $250. B&W screen and 19MB memory.

Seems to me if I find bluetooth receiver + software for < $250 I'm much better off, with basically unlimited memory, color screen, etc.
 
The BT Garmin unit mentioned comes with mapping and routing software. Que software allows you to program any number of destinations(called "via points") and then will route you through them. The via points can be manually ordered or the PDA can determine the best order. There are a few options involved in how the information is displayed. I basically use it as a mobile map, the closer you get to an action the more detailed the map becomes, with only an abbrieviated description(eg, turn left on 1st street.) appearing at the very top of the screen. The amount of information stored is incredible though, like miles driven, top speed, average speed, time sitting. There are options to generate routes also, like use freeways or don't, avoid toll roads or dirt roads, go shortest route or fastest route excluding traffic delays. It also uses voice commands if you can bear the sound of a female voice giving instructions.

The display isn't anything special, just a completely top down view. No isometric or behind the shoulder view but it is definily adequate for the job.

I use the Garmin iQue 3600 which is a Palm with integrated GPS reciever.


http://www.gpscity.com/item-garmin-gps-10-bluetooth-deluxe-gps-system/10dlx.htm
 
Thats funny, ive been looking into this too :)

Im leaning towards OnCourse Nav 4 with bluetooth. Comes with all you need for $249 @ buygpsnow.com and theres a free upgrade to version 5 thats coming in June. If you goto the oncourse website they have a demo of the system thats pretty cool.

http://www.oncoursenavigator.com/
 
I've got an hx4700, too. I have a few GPS receivers, but my favorite one for now is the one that came with Microsoft's Streets & Trips 2005. If they still sell the setup, you can get a pretty darn versatile receiver (equivilant to a Pharos 360) for a pretty reasonable price.

I bought the set for about $100, and it comes with a detachable USB cable. That works fine with my laptop and my older PPC which stays in the car all of the time. I also picked up a CF adaptor, which also came with a PCMCIA adaptor, for about $35. Later on, after I bought the hx4700, I picked up the Bluetooth dock for $100. So, for about $235 plus tax I have a USB, CF, PCMCIA, and a Bluetooth compatable unit. I am sure that if I had any reason to, I could hack together a serial solution pretty easily.

Streets & Trips isn't too bad on the laptop. The PPC version isn't a bad replacement for a paper map, but it is nearly worthless for use with a GPS. Mapopolis is pretty good, but for navigation I prefer TomTom. Unfortunatly, I don't really use the hx4700 with the GPS; I use my old Toshiba e755. I've heard that there are issues with nearly all of the software packages with the VGA Pocket PC's.
 
tanbam said:
I've heard that there are issues with nearly all of the software packages with the VGA Pocket PC's.
Click to expand...
Yeah that's a good point.....anybody have a rec for vga software?
 
I think iGuidance works well with VGA, since it has two seperate executables that autodetect what kind of screen you have. A nice bonus with that program is that it runs on a laptop as well. I haven't used it on my hx4700, but it is pretty nice on my Toshoba e755. I am sure that it is beautiful in VGA.

There MAY be problems with that program depending on what kind of GPS you use. It works fine with my GPS if I use the CF slot, but if I use the USB connection it has a bug that makes it consume about 30k of memery every five seconds or so until it has used it all up and locks up. I haven't tried it with my BT cradle yet; supposedly they fixed the memory problem with BT with the latest version.
 
iGuidance looks nice, thanks for the rec!
I found a couple packages (software + BT receiver) for ~$200, I think I'm going to get one of those, once I figure out which receiver to get!
 
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