hand held pda's with gps , any one got one?

[Ext User(milo)]

G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
Acer N35 PDA and GPS

they seem pretty good, had a palm TE for many years but now want to up
grade, and now theres the gps , what are they like , and what are they like
around sydney ,etc, any one got one?
milo

[Ext User(atec)]

milo wrote:

>G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
>Acer N35 PDA and GPS
>
> they seem pretty good, had a palm TE for many years but now want to up
>grade, and now theres the gps , what are they like , and what are they like
>around sydney ,etc, any one got one?
>milo
>
>
>
>
is that the tomtom ?

[Ext User(The Red Krawler)]

> G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
> Acer N35 PDA and GPS

I have been (relatively) reliably informed that the PDA style GPS have
incredibly poor signal reception, and will pretty much only work in a wide
open field on a cloudless day.

Further, the PDA side of things is relatively half-arsed to keep the price
reasonable.

The salesman (urgh, shudder) gave the advice that if you make serious use of
either PDA or GPS to buy a dedicated PDA, and a dedicated GPS as the combo
units are, for want of a better term, arse.

FWIW, I have a TomTom 300 which works perfectly, but obviously has
absolutely no PDA ability :)

[Ext User(None Entered)]

Agreed big time. Get a PDA. Get a GPS.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jyetara German Shepherds - http://www.jyetara.com

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"The Red Krawler" <redkrawler@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:TA8qf.73100$V7.65261@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>> G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
>> Acer N35 PDA and GPS
>
> I have been (relatively) reliably informed that the PDA style GPS have
> incredibly poor signal reception, and will pretty much only work in a wide
> open field on a cloudless day.
>
> Further, the PDA side of things is relatively half-arsed to keep the price
> reasonable.
>
> The salesman (urgh, shudder) gave the advice that if you make serious use
> of either PDA or GPS to buy a dedicated PDA, and a dedicated GPS as the
> combo units are, for want of a better term, arse.
>
> FWIW, I have a TomTom 300 which works perfectly, but obviously has
> absolutely no PDA ability :)
>

[Ext User(Toby Ponsenby)]

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:43:31 GMT, The Red Krawler wrote:

>> G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
>> Acer N35 PDA and GPS
>
> I have been (relatively) reliably informed that the PDA style GPS have
> incredibly poor signal reception, and will pretty much only work in a wide
> open field on a cloudless day.
>
> Further, the PDA side of things is relatively half-arsed to keep the price
> reasonable.
>
> The salesman (urgh, shudder) gave the advice that if you make serious use of
> either PDA or GPS to buy a dedicated PDA, and a dedicated GPS as the combo
> units are, for want of a better term, arse.
>
> FWIW, I have a TomTom 300 which works perfectly, but obviously has
> absolutely no PDA ability :)

What's TomTom like on street NUMBERS ?

--
Toby.
quidquid latine dictum
sit, altum viditur

[Ext User(RossH)]

Have to disagree with some replies here. I've used a Dell Axim X5 with
Seidio cradle and currently GlobalSat SIRF Star III (BR 355)mouse receiver
(I've also had a Haicom 203E and a Haicom 204S) for around 2 years around
both Sydney as well as Australia generally and in the UK and the US with
Destinator 3 maps.
I have to say there are a few issues you have to learn to live with but they
are minor and the combination works very well. The reception is largely to
do with the GPS receiver technology....get a mouse, wired type and a SIRF
Star III based receiver ie latest technology. With this the signal is held
even in the city with limited sky visibility.
Advantages include reasonably cheap maps, if you import from the US (Buy
GPSNow for example) and easy upgradability of software.
Having said all that the latest GPS solutions have come down hugely in price
and look pretty good and I would consider if I was buying now. The real
thing to look for is map coverage of the software. I started with CoPilot
which had poor coverage outside cities whereas Destinator seems to cover
pretty much all roads everywhere, which is much more useful. I'm not sure
what the coverage of the GPS solutions is although it looks like the Mio is
Destinator based so should be good.
Hope this is some help
Cheers
RossH

"milo" <mrmilolman2006@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:BCUpf.65777$V7.60026@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
> Acer N35 PDA and GPS
>
> they seem pretty good, had a palm TE for many years but now want to up
> grade, and now theres the gps , what are they like , and what are they
> like around sydney ,etc, any one got one?
> milo
>

[Ext User(The Red Krawler)]

>> FWIW, I have a TomTom 300 which works perfectly, but obviously has
>> absolutely no PDA ability :)

> What's TomTom like on street NUMBERS ?

As good/bad as any other I guess, on any suburban block its accurate enough
that you probably wouldnt notice it was guestimating... The only time I've
ever noticed it was on Sandgate Rd (Brisbane), in which it reported a number
as being 40m away from true. Not bad when you consider how long Sandgate Rd
is, and how many numbers it contains (alot are factories spanning multiple
numbers too).

Having said that, the majority of locations I goto are on the corners of
roads (service stations), so 9 times out of 10 I dont use numbers anyway.

[Ext User(jrobbo)]

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:43:31 GMT, "The Red Krawler"
<redkrawler@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
>> Acer N35 PDA and GPS
>
>I have been (relatively) reliably informed that the PDA style GPS have
>incredibly poor signal reception, and will pretty much only work in a wide
>open field on a cloudless day.
>
>Further, the PDA side of things is relatively half-arsed to keep the price
>reasonable.
>
>The salesman (urgh, shudder) gave the advice that if you make serious use of
>either PDA or GPS to buy a dedicated PDA, and a dedicated GPS as the combo
>units are, for want of a better term, arse.
>
>FWIW, I have a TomTom 300 which works perfectly, but obviously has
>absolutely no PDA ability :)
>

I use a O2 Mini PDA/Phone, and I run the TomTom software on it, and
use a small bluetooth GPS receiver. The GPS receiver is about the size
of a matchbox, and sits in my centre console, and works fine from
there. I only use it occassionaly, but when I do, it works really well

Regards

John



--------------
To reply via email, remove the spam block from my email address

[Ext User(Alan K.)]

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:43:31 GMT, "The Red Krawler"
<redkrawler@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> G'day, Im looking at getting one of these units,
>> Acer N35 PDA and GPS
>
>I have been (relatively) reliably informed that the PDA style GPS have
>incredibly poor signal reception, and will pretty much only work in a wide
>open field on a cloudless day.

I'm afraid that "relatively" is a relative term. 8^>

I have a Navman PiN. Although I have some previously stated gripes
with the software itself (Google for the recent thread titled "GPS
Systems" for details), the hardware side's not too bad at all. I can
usually get a lock in no more than a couple of minutes; less if I'm
starting out from the last place that the GPS unit had a lock. (It
takes more time to acquire a lock if you haven't used it to travel to
your current location.)

It maintains the lock pretty well in the concrete canyons of the city
too.

The only time it seems to get funky is if I switch it off without
letting it complete it's current route. For example, I usually park in
a parking station in the city. The entrance is a little closer than
the Navman thinks it is, so it hasn't reached its "destination" when I
turn into the carpark. Naturally it then loses its lock since it has
no contact with the sky at all. When it came time to drive home, I'd
fire it up, cancel the current route (which it still thought was
incomplete), and set a new course for home.

Strangely, I'd be several k's down Parramatta Road (or whichever road
I was taking) before it would reacquire a lock.

However I've since taken to cancelling the route BEFORE I turn into
the carpark and it loses its lock... and on the way home it now
reacquires its position before I'm out of the CBD.

Go figure.

Of course, I can't give any guarantees that the Acer will perform
similarly.

>Further, the PDA side of things is relatively half-arsed to keep the price
>reasonable.

Again, not really the case with the PiN. It's a full-on copy of
Windows Pocket PC with the Pocket versions of Word, Outlook, IE,
Excel, etcetera.

>The salesman (urgh, shudder) gave the advice that if you make serious use of
>either PDA or GPS to buy a dedicated PDA, and a dedicated GPS as the combo
>units are, for want of a better term, arse.
>
>FWIW, I have a TomTom 300 which works perfectly, but obviously has
>absolutely no PDA ability :)

The one downside of the combination is that the antenna makes it a
touch bulkier than a normal PDA, and less comfortable in a pocket.
However it's only about 45 * 35 * 5mm, so it's not a major drama. It
does also have the advantage of serving as an out of car navigator as
well, within the limitations of the software. (Including the
previously discussed half-arsedness of the street numbering thanks to
the Senseless/Sensis maps.)