PDA Sat Nav

[leosayer]

My wife wants Sat Nav and a filofax.

I told to her to get out of the 80s and buy a PDA instead...but this got me thinking, surely the two can be combinted.

A did some searches and didn't come up with anything definitive, so can someone explain the basics to me?

I was all ready to buy TomTom One Europe....

[SGirl]

I've got an XDA Exec PPC which can apparently run TomTom software on it, but I haven't tried as yet. It was a bit of a PITA to set up the GPS receiver with it, but once I was able to edit O2's settings, it was easy enough to get it to recognise and use the receiver.

As a PDA though, it's brilliant! I use it for everything.

HTH?

[Tripps]

To be honest if a filofax works for her then let her stick with it, much like the book they are a great invention which will never be taken over completely by technology - the only (common) thing they won't do is e-mail, but adding appointments, random notes etc. right now will always be quicker the old-fashioned way.

I think she's likely be far happier with a dedicated SatNav that just does what it needs to rather than confusing matters.

[kevin63]

I have a HP PDA and sat nav is great on it, i do have to link it up to a GPS receiver via Bluetooth but all you do is turn the GPS on and then start Tomtom on the pda and that's it, all ready to go.

[drivenmad]

Should consider the Acer N35 has combined Satnav and GPS receiver..not overly complicated (not overly poweful etc) but good enough to do all the apppointments etc (can even upoad movies to it (dead simple) or use it as a MP3 player (again dead simple).
I bought one a couple of years ago purely as a first Sat nav, before moving to aphone based system...but I still use the acer for work and apointments and storing docs on (mines has a pdf reader)

...your missus can even store photos or vids of the kids etc on it to show friends etc ....

You can buy much more expensive PDAs etc that do more faster etc ..but its an excellent entry level system.

[waremark]

kevin63 said:

I have a HP PDA and sat nav is great on it, i do have to link it up to a GPS receiver via Bluetooth but all you do is turn the GPS on and then start Tomtom on the pda and that's it, all ready to go.

TomTom One Europe is a safe good value purchase which will do as good a satnav job for your wife as anything else. At the price, you are hardly being extravagant by buying a standalone unit.

For what it's worth, I recently got a Garmin Nuvi 660 which costs much more but which provides a bigger and stunningly bright screen (very worthwhile), handsfree phone, traffic info without subscription and other toys. I am really impressed by it. I ruled out the larger TomTom range because they are too big to put in your pocket.

I have used a couple of PDA based satnavs - one using a sleeve gps unit and one using Bluetooth. I would strongly advise against either of these solutions on account of the extra complexity - for example with a Bluetooth solution you have two units to charge up or provide power to, and to turn on and off and to take out of the car with you.

You can consider a PDA with integrated GPS, such as for example Garmin iQue M5. There are two provisos - will a PDA suit your wife's way of working, and even if she wants a PDA as well as a satnav is there any benefit in integrating the two? My recommendation is to stick to a standalone unit for the satnav, for maximum ease of use and suitability for purpose. If she wants a PDA at all - and I don't think you should go down that route without getting her to look carefully at and play with the features she would use often - you should instead consider a combined phone/PDA unit, providing email on the move as well as filofax replacement. Personally, in spite of having owned several PDA's from Psions to Ipaqs I still find it easier to use paper for my diary!