Thread: GPS PDA Smartphone

Where to begin, its all confusing

Poke around

http://www.mtekk.com.au/Forums/tabid...7/Default.aspx

and

http://www.mtekk.com.au/Forums/tabid...9/Default.aspx

Why does it all have to be on the one device? Wouldn't a decent pda & standalone satnav come in at about the same $$$, when you factor in the satnav software & the bluetooth gps?

I wouldn't worry about GPS reception in the Defender. The SirfIII receivers out there now are outstanding. No probs with mine.

Anyway, a PDA running WM5 will also run Co-Pilot for street nav. Charging the bluetooth GPS on a long trip will be a pain. Ok for around town.

FWIW I'm running an Imate Jasjam, & Oziexplorer CE with bluetooth GPS for the bush. Around town its a TomTom One. I hardwired the tomtom, bonus being the cable will charge the gps as well. but the 2g micro sd card isn't enough for the detailed topos - the NSW pack is 2 dvds worth.

Regards
Max P

A friend in the UK has the HP hw6915, which isn't available here that I can see, but pretty easy and small to get posted. He raves about it, but says use of the GPS kills the battery, which is already a problem with the PDA/phone devices with big screens. If it wasn't for the fact I'm stuck to devices supported by my IS department because of things like the email and VPN hook-up's, I'd try one - even though it isn't 3G/UMTS.

However, much as I would love the same combination as you, up until now I've always been underwhelmed with at least one area of the all-in-ones, so have typically resigned them back to the desk drawer and used seperate devices instead.

Right now, I have an XDA2 (Crap Bluetooth stack with headset, car kit and GPS receiver, as well as poor battery life) and a XDA miniS (Poor keyboard, no 3G) I no longer use as a phone due to poor voice performance, and am back with a SE v630i which gets me voice and 3g modem in a small package. In the car I have an old TomTom Go 500, which is near perfect, and good enough that I've resisted the upgrade to the 910. It is suffering a bit with the rate of road building around Perth though.

As I don't pay the bills personally, I have the XDA miniS in the laptop bag on a data-only tariff just for real-time access to my work email & calander system, but this is overkill - I could live with syncing it to my laptop daily if I had to, and if I did that, I'd buy a better PDA!!

Not much help, sorry!

there was a motorola one from memory something 1000 that had the built in gps antenna/pda style running on the 3 network but not sure if UMTS 850 for NextG or not.

Watching with interest as i've wanted exactly the same setup for a while now and need to change soon

Originally Posted by solmanic

... but I need to use this in a Defender and I have had trouble with other devices I have tested which can't lock on to satellites because the windscreen angle is too steep. If I am faced with needing an external GPS antenna, then I don't need a built-in one, just bluetooth....

I haven't had a problem with an older handheld GPS sitting on the dash of the Defender, but it's a pretty precarious spot. On the SIII I had a GPS on a windscreen suction cup mounted phone holder with no problems (except for really rough tracks). But an alternative location for the GPS on the Defender is at the alpine windows (roof windows), where it can sit quite unobtrusively. Just the lead to the PDA is awkward, but it's a good position if you have a back seat passenger doing the navigation.

I use a sirf III chipset bluetooth GPS unit - it came with a standard nokia phone battery and USB style charger cable. Sirf III is very low power and very good reception - for example it works in the centre of my house on the ground floor (concrete floor above, brick walls around)... even works under bridges etc while in the car and attached to my windscreen visor with a big rubberband. It's a Holux GPSlim GR-236, but anything with the Sirf III chpset is great. http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/gr236.php for a review. that's my GPS covered...

Phone wise I use a Dopod 818 pro - 18 months old and not available in Oz AFAIK, but newer models are a bit better. anything with WM5 or 6 operating system can do what you are after, but try to get one with a STEREO bluetooth output (A2DP compliant) so you can also wirelessly stream music from the PDA into your car hifi

I think most of the smartphones run the 400 mhz processor which is fine for most things except watching movies.

I would be looking out for memory expandability eg SD or Cf card slots, robust construction (sooner or later you are going to drop it) and screen size.

Windows mobile 5 or 2003se isnt IMHO a real consideration i still prefer 2003se

I am encouraged by the comments regarding the SirfIII GPS systems - this is what the PDAs I've been investigating all use. It was a couple of years ago when I first tested some Navman & Garmin systems and found the problem with satellite lock in the Defender.

It absolutely, positively must be all-in-one. I really need the GPS destination input automatically from Outlook contacts feature. I don't need to hard-wire the device in anywhere as it is mainly for one-off trips out and about in town to clients/consultants/site etc.

I generally leave my current PDA/phone on it's charging cradle whenever I am in the office and sync. sometime twice a day (depending on how many appointments get added to my schedule). Hence the need for Windows and seamless Outlook hot-sync.

Keep the good advice coming...

Originally Posted by grumpybastard

I would be looking out for memory expandability eg SD or Cf card slots, robust construction (sooner or later you are going to drop it) and screen size.

This is a continual disappointment for me with ALL PDA phones. If an iPod can have 80GB storage, why can't a regular PDA. I would then sync. ALL my Outlook mail to the device so I could browse stuff in meetings. So often someone says "blah blah - it was in that email I sent you...". I would also consider using the device as an external backup drive.

The upcoming iPhone is the only device that seems to be heading in this direction but it is still way short of iPod storage levels.