Rule of Tim - GPS / PDA navigation

I have a brand new one of these

that I used to use on my laptop and the software is very good.

I now have a Street Pilot III Deluxe that cost approx 8 times more and functionally it's no better. I'd recommend the above to anyone who want's a good street level talking Sat Nav unit for less than £150... Assuming you have the laptop to start with of course.

The only drawback is when the Misses has to have the laptop on her lap for

300 miles and continually whinges about the heat. And that is the only reason I bought the smaller compact Garmin.

David,

I have purchased the NAVMAN 4400 (Bluetooth Device) links to my hp ipaq

2210. I have been extremely pleased with it. You are correct about the web site, I think it could be much much better. When I was choosing my gps, I phoned NAVMAN, however, it depends where you located. I was fortunate in the sense that I was less than a mile from their support centre, so I went down for a demo.

I can honestly say that when I have needed to go to a particular place, I have just entered the address and followed the voice instructions. It led me there perfectly.

As regards Europe, I had a colleague over from Germany and he could not believe it when I entered his address in Germany and it showed his street and those around it.

It is ashame it has not got postcodes, also I am yet to see a map update for it.

I also got in contact with a person that wrote an article comparing all the different gps pda offerings. If I can find it, I will post it over the weekend. I also got an email from the editor which was also very useful.

Remember, the 4400 is perfect in terms of power consumption. This is important, although mine came with a car charger, but I can honestly say the batteries last a very long time.

As regards gps fixes, it appears to get a 3d+ fix very quickly and it updates without any hiccup.

I could write an awful lot more, but with running the risk of boring you, maybe you want me to respond to more specific questions which I am more than happy to do.

Regards

Ant.

Suggest you try

they are very helpful,and have comparisons on web site, I use Tomtom2, just upgraded from Tomtom1(was'nt worth changing very little improvement) Tomtom, I believe is thebest, but European maps are extra, whereas I think Navman for similar pricecomes with UK & Europe. Overall a superb system and works very well. Tony

Ant, thanks for replying. Very useful.

What's confusing me is this:

To buy TomTom's wired solution costs £260 for the software for UK maps only, then £115 for the European maps. However, the Navman 3450, which includes the GPS sleeve, software etc, and maps of most of Europe, costs £200. Therefore it's not much more than half the price.

So I'm looking for reassurance that I'm not missing something!

One other thing - do you know how big Navman's France map is?

Thanks, David.

David,

I use Navman 3400 sleeve + iPAQ 3970, its never let me down getting to an address. The ONLY thing I hate about the SmartST software is the lack of detail in the maps ie rivers, railways etc. Tom Tom has this info for the UK (dunno know about Europe).

But its as you say you get Europe for a very small price, this could be why - no detail.

I use it every day and have had no problems with it at all.

TIPS -

1. Get a Reradiating antenna as the sleeve antenna isnt very good when mounted in the vehicle. ~£45
2. formatting link
   make bloody excellent mounts, that makes a PDA legal in the UK (Under the handsfree laws for fones)
3. Get use to the slightly annoying terms. Such as bear left may mean 'the road goes to the left follow it' or 'you need to turn left'. It doesnt seem to know what the priority is of the road layout.
4. My biggest niggle is it sometimes tells me to get off at the motorway junction and get back on again, because it sees it as the shortest route !!!

Apart from that I can recommend the NavMan Smart ST system as getting you there everytime !!

Dave

Check out PocketGPS World at

Excellent site that will tell you everything you need to know. Has its own free speed camera database as well. I've got a Dell Axim X5 with TT2 and it works very well. TomTom3 is due out shortly. TT2 came with enough mounts to fit my car and both Land Rovers

Sean

73FL74 101GS 1984 110 2.5d Medway Militay Vehicle Group

Ooh, TT3 - do you know anything about it?

I use TT2 a LOT but there are some stupid & niggling bugs in the mapping - eg, it doesn't know where Kingston upon Thames is, or Dartmouth, or Kingsbridge, or a few others. They're there but wrongly labelled. Are they going to fix this?

David.

Check out the PocketGPS site for TT3 info, they have a link to a dutch site that has seen it. The changes seem to be minor except for the ability to waypoint which is being added. The major annoyance is that TT2 mapping which comes from Teleatlas is about 2 years out of date and TT2 users will probably have to pay for any updates. Also if you are visiting Ireland, forget it as as far as Teleatlas are concerned it is not worth mapping!

Sean

73FL74 101 gs 1984 110 2.5d Medway Military Vehicle Group

I've had a Garmin Streetpilot III for about 18 months. Prices for these has dropped a lot, now under £650 inc VAT (Dabs.com). If you don't already have a PDA/laptop it's worth giving these a look. The Mapsource data includes street level maps for most of Europe that are pretty well up to date. It comes with a self adhesive mount and a clever bean-bag mount so it's easy to move from vehicle to vehicle. The voice is clear, display good even in bright sunlight and mostly the routing is spot on, never been told to get off a motorway then back on! It got me from London to Amsterdam last month, accurate to a few feet all the way. Multiple waypoints, track logging & memorised routes just a few of the useful features. Only minor problem I had is the integral aerial had trouble reliably seeing the satelites through the RR heated screen but a £25 external magnetic aerial sorted that.

Gary S.

1989 RR classic 1998 P38

I have a Street Pilot III deluxe and I have to agree with all you say. Garmin provided me with excellent service. I bought mine from John Lewis and the Map software was version 4. I emailed Garmin and they sent me the latest version 6 complete with unlock codes within days.

Excellent piece of kit.

On the subject of external aerials, I have a USB aerial that I used to use with a Laptop. Would it be possible to remove the USB plug and replace it with a BNC so that I could use it as an extension aerial for the garmin?

I know it'd be an expensive way to get an external twig but I can't see myself using it anymore.

One more question everybody. With my Emtac based Bluetooth GPS on an iPaq

3870, if I turn the iPaq or GPS off (such as when you go into motorway services, etc), when I turn it all back on the software tends to lose connectivity with the GPS and slow down to a crawl so I can't exit it. The only way out of this is to reset the iPaq. Is this normal with Bluetooth based systems, or is it just because my 3870 has a fairly early implementation of Bluetooth?

Thanks, David.

I use an Emtac Bluetooth with an IPAQ 3950 + bluetooth jacket, don't normally have a problem, but normally I will leave on when I leave the car.

Tony