Anyone got this? I got the wired kit for my Pocket PC, and I've just tried it out. Well, I sat on the drive and plugged it in because I've had a couple of beers. It did seem to find my location OK, but came up with a Petrol station in Scotland when I messed with the 'find' feature. Does it work? Is it any good? Seems to be a good cheapo way of getting SatNav and I'll still be able to use the pocket PC out the car. The main thing is- does it actually stop you getting lost?

 

Does anyone ever need to use SatNav, or are you going to fast to look at the screen!

I used a (borrowed) BMW sytem on a (borrowed) motorbike and it was absolutely brilliant. think it retailed for about £1500 though.

I have enough of a job staying on a bloody bike (failed my DA again today!!) - don't think I could cope with looking at a SatNav screen too- does it have a screen, or just talk in your ear?

Vinz has one and he said it is a real good piece of kit.

When I'm not over the limit, I'll give it a proper test. I wouldn't be using it every day, but it was fairly good value as I already had the handheld. I'll be 'navigating' to the corner shop just to piss about with it.

I have enough of a job staying on a bloody bike (failed my DA again today!!) - don't think I could cope with looking at a SatNav screen too- does it have a screen, or just talk in your ear?

 

 

It had a screen. But it had all been set up by BMW technicians and it was mighty complex to set up. I don't think i'd have managed myself.

 

Sorry to hear about the DA... stick with it... I'm sure it'll be worth it!

I've got one on a palm. The voice directions are great but to really work well you need one of those FM transmitter gizmos to plug into it then it comes out loud and clear through your stereo. Those things are great for re transmitting mp3s from the palm as well. Sound quality is excellent. 20 quid on Ebay.

I use TomTom on a Pocket PC in the car, fantasic piece of kit...and from what I have read it out performs the OE Manufacture Fitment Satnav systems.

 

You have some great add-ons for it too.

 

POI Databases - Point of Interest databases. Download and update them from internet, allows you to find your nearest Petrol Station, Cashmachine, Adult Toys shop....etc

 

Speed Camera Database - Gives advanced warnng of approaching GATSO speed camera's. Updates downloaded from Internet.

 

Traffic announcements - new feature. Requires annual subscripton. Not tried this yet. Supposed to intregrate fully with TomTom and provide onscreen traffic problem announcements on route and offer alternative routes..etc

 

Other nice features I like are accurate vehicle speed tracked by sattelite, integreated compass, ability to see the road layout ahead when travelling down twisty country roads, time to destination, day and night mode and the 3D view is superb.

 

I love gadgets :p , I gets plugged in everytime I get in the car...I'll never get lost driving to the local corner shop ever again :rofl:

oh...and you can install celebrity voices to replace the rather posh english speaking lass. :smw: ...or make your own "Turn left idiot" "oi...your going the wrong bloody way, handbrake it now".... :hyper:

Agree with Legrath, i got it on a hp hand held and a bloody good bit of kit, only prob i've found is it tried to take me all the way through london rather than round the M25!! but just used an alternative route and prob solved, POI are a good idea, i used to work on the sheel petrol stations so was a real handy thing to have just used the POI and the shell petrol station feature and hay presto all shell petrolstations are now on my hand held, all 512 of them in the uk!! and the full uk map only needs 96 meg on my sd card which leave loads of space for other stuff.

I didn't know that you could add your own points of interest. That looks like a good feature- especially the GATSO warning databases. Can you get them free? Does anyone know the best/most comprehensive one? It seems like there's more than one. The one I looked at was at pocketGPSworld, but it doesn't actually say it is compatable with Tomtom version 3- will it work?

 

A new gadget that (almost) has a justifyable purpose!!

i bought the medion pda (halfords) with sat nav for the missus

does its job, before buying it she had never driven on a motorway

and gave her the confidence to sort that, all the maps/speech come ready loaded so activate on your pc and its ready to use:)

 

i then bought a the one from dixons (hp) which came with tom tom

and in my opinion was a pile of shite, kept locking up, so changed memory cards and still the same, so to check it wasnt the car, i installed the above medion and it worked perfectly, tried everything with the tom tom and ended up taking it back, might have just been my bad luck, but if you read the various forums theres numerous problems, again it maybe the bad are the ones being talked about

 

as for the tom tom out performing the factory fitted jobs, ive just fitted a becker sat nav, and it is not only gps, but speed pulse as well, so no problems about losing signal which gps do, and recalculating is instant,

the pda's are excellent pieces of kit for the money, but don't expect them to perform the same as a decent sat nav system THEY DON'T

Ive got Tom Tom on a Pocket Pc. Its Brill. Used it all over France apart from a couple of new roads missing it was excelent. Also got Speed camera overlay off net so it shows them as well.

as for the tom tom out performing the factory fitted jobs, ive just fitted a becker sat nav, and it is not only gps, but speed pulse as well, so no problems about losing signal which gps do, and recalculating is instant,

the pda's are excellent pieces of kit for the money, but don't expect them to perform the same as a decent sat nav system THEY DON'T

 

I've used the Standard BMW Satnav system from a E39 5 series, it worked fine, but lacked all the extra features that is available with TomTom and showed no performance advantages. Bigger screen was an advantage, and its position was better for screen glare compared to where I have mine positioned, but the software itself was behind what TomTom and 3rd party components offer.

 

I guess it depends on the performance of the PDA(400mhz and 64mb+ is ideal), but I find recalculation instant(1-2 seconds for most diverts) and the only time I've ever lost signal is when stopped in traffic beneath a bridge or in tunnels, and It finds the signal instantly after.

 

Personally I believe an Ideal solution would be a fully installed satnav system running TomTom, but at less than 1/3 of the cost of an OE Fitment system Im more than pleased with it.

I had a very brief test yesterday and it seemed to work great. It was a pig to mount in a good place as the windscreen is so far away, and the pda screen was invisible from glare and reflections. I eventually put the mounting kit in the glovebox. When it's open it's just at the right height, but it won't quite close without removing the suction cup mount, which might be a pain. I didn't want to stck the self adhesive pad on the dash really.

 

Is it possible to wire up another cigarette lighter plug behind the glovebox? Would that be an easy job? I thought I could plug it in, then keep all the wires in the glovebox rather than having the wire coming out to the centre console. What I'd really like is some kind of custom mount that would take the pda/and or an iPod or something, a bit like the install in that lovely blue zed that was finished a while ago. (EDIT - this one! It is excellent http://www.300zx.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=34840&highlight=rich+finished ) Then if a version of Conzult could be done for the Pocket PC, you could choose between running that or Tomtom with a decent professional-looking mount. That would be excellent.

 

Thanks for the replies. I would like a full pro satnav, but for a couple of hundred pounds for the receiver and software I thought Tomtom does a good job. Screen isn't too small. I'll just have to see how it works when I really need it and I'm somewhere I don't know.