Pda with sat nav

kitten_caboodle said:
Or the T-mobile MDA. :)

That's a PDA and a phone. Yes it's big, but i don't care - it's fantastic and has Tom Tom, which works a treat. It's also got Wi-fi and bluetooth on it, so you're sorted :)
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I'm using an XDA 11s - perfect if you want all in one phone, pda and sat nav..


..Might even be persuaded to part with it one day as currently looking at an addon for my kenwood DDX6027 ;)
 
For a good solid (but a bit simple) Satnav PDA the Mitac Mio 168 is very good.

You can get it for around £180 now (I paid £200 a while back.) The screen, though not VGA is very good and the built in sat nav is very good too. Usually it doesnt come with software so i bought TomTom Navigator 5 which added another £100 or so.

I still paid under £300 in total, use the PDA daily as its very small and use the GPS all the time in my car (its built in speaker is also very good and the 300Mhz XScale CPU does the trick nicely)

Only thing its really missing is WiFi or bluetooth, you can get seperate SD IO cards but it only has one SD slot as its pretty small, so you couldnt have extra memory at the same time.
 
TBH, looking at the specs/prices these integrated products are very compromised

I would heavily suggest you consider a 'proper' PDA, and then look at the GPS Options

For instance the DELL X51V is a proper PDA
1. VGA Screen - 4 times the resolution of all these integrated devices, much better for web surfing and video playback
2. 624Mhz Intel processor
3. Compact Flash (CF) and SD memory slots, you can have 2 memory cards at once, for example, one for SAT NAV Maps, one for Music/Video/Data.
4. Bluetooth and WiFi
5. Accelerated Graphics Chip - more video players/games are starting to support these.
6. Very nice form factor - not compromised with the Bulky GPS aerial etc.
7. being popular, cases/accesories/support are all easily available

This PDA Is available for around £240 when on offer.

Then looking at the GPS Options
CF - this closely follows your 'integrated' ethos, these just pop in the CF slot on the top of the device, and depending on the CF card you get, you can have flip out aerials, stub aerials, etc the choice is yours, this still leaves the SD card slot free for a memory card, this gives you an all in one top notch PDA with the BT/WiFi/SD Card slot, etc.. CF GPS cards with SIRFIII can be had for £40+ on ebay. being technically seperate, you can then upgrade when/as you like without being forced to upgrade the whole PDA.

BlueTooth - A Small device, self powered, can be put anywhere within 10M of the PDA, which occasionally is handy. Being seperate, can be upgraded without having to buy a new PDA. can be used with Smartphones/PC's etc, or anything that has bluetooth and Navigation software

It seems that for the same price you can have one of these 'compromised' all in one Asus PDA's, or a top of the range PDA with CF GPS
 
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Thanks for the info Demon,I will certainly take a look.The only reason i didn't look to that way was because i didn't know what to look for.
 
Done a bit of looking around and if i went and bought..

DELL X51V = £240
CF GPS cards with SIRFIII = £40+
Navigation software = £100

That would be a total of £380+. The Asus MyPal 636 is only £325 but not as good spec PDA.Still undecided and so confusing what and where to look my the items seperate. :confused:
 
You needn't get the X51v.... whilst the high res display etc is stunning, you could get away with a plain x50.

It'd be cheaper (probably bringing to cost about into line with the combined pda you're looking at), but have a higher spec in that it has dual card slots (CF + SD), bluetooth and wifi <i think...> and a lot more third party accessories most likely.
 
VGA display is good when using the PDA as a PDA.
However with TomTom5 (I uses a Qtek 9000 with VGA display), the text is rather small and can be hard to read with a quick glance.

The Fujitsu Loox N560 has a similar spec to the x51v, including VGA, but has GPS (SirfStar 3) built in and no CF slot, only SDIO. ~£380
 
Tomsk said:
VGA display is good when using the PDA as a PDA.
However with TomTom5 (I uses a Qtek 9000 with VGA display), the text is rather small and can be hard to read with a quick glance.

The Fujitsu Loox N560 has a similar spec to the x51v, including VGA, but has GPS (SirfStar 3) built in and no CF slot, only SDIO. ~£380
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That N560 looks OK..

Having owned a lot of PDA's, I personally have ended up with a BT GPS and the X51V after many PDA's with CF GPS/Wired GPS.. The BT GPS can be used with my phone etc as well as my Laptop, which just add's that little bit of flexibility. Although it means having a tiny external box I don't mind, as I can place it remotely from the PDA for best reception. I've even left it close to the window on the train, and just let it track our journey, sad, but it passed the time, also did the same on the overnight boat to Sweden..

This of course leaves me with the CF and SD slots free, I have all europe maps on the SD card, and I have 4Gb of music on the CF..


Mind you, I've almost considered getting an XDA Mini-s PDA/Phone, this is a fully fledged PDA with Wifi/BT/SD socket, and it's a phone as well, with a slide out QWERTY keyboard to boot, with a BT GPS, that would do absolutely everything..
 
Mio 168 is one of the best PDA GPS sstems bar none, certainly the most cost-effecvtive one out there. Great reception due to the Sirfstar II chip and good PDA functions too.

Just type whatever model you want to read about eg: Mio 168 gps review into Google, you'll get lots of hits. Do this for any PDA that you want to know about and ou'll get a lot of info.

Chronos-X said:
I use a Mitac Mio PDA which has a builtin GPS. £129 from somerfield :)
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Wow, which model, the 168?
 
Richdog said:
Mio 168 is one of the best PDA GPS sstems bar none, certainly the most cost-effecvtive one out there. Great reception due to the Sirfstar II chip and good PDA functions too.

Just type whatever model you want to read about eg: Mio 168 gps review into Google, you'll get lots of hits. Do this for any PDA that you want to know about and ou'll get a lot of info.



Wow, which model, the 168?
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Although it's a great product, it is not the best PDA GPS system bar none..
The PDA is only 'average' at best, 300Mhz processor and not WM5 compatible, and the sirfstarII has now been superceeded by the SirfstarIII which offers significant performance gains.. and TOMTOM5 although not perfect is leagues ahead of the nav software supplied with the Mio's..

I'd still be looking at an DELL X51 (X51V if you want the VGA Screen) + either CF SirfIII GPS or BT SirfIII GPS, top notch 624Mhz WM5 PDA with the best GPS Chipset, or that Fujitsu Loox mentioned previously..

If you really do want to use a PDA, then you really want to buy a 'full' spec'd PDA..
 
Demon said:
Although it's a great product, it is not the best PDA GPS system bar none..

Not the words "one of the best" and "cost-effective, think it was clear what I meant mate. :)
.
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The PDA is only 'average' at best, 300Mhz processor and not WM5 compatible, and the sirfstarII has now been superceeded by the SirfstarIII which offers significant performance gains.. and TOMTOM5 although not perfect is leagues ahead of the nav software supplied with the Mio's..[/quote]

Agreed the PDA is average, but its ok for the job and great value for mone. The Sirfstar II is also a very well respected GPS receiver still, and outperforms many other different and newer brands.

I'd still be looking at an DELL X51 (X51V if you want the VGA Screen) + either CF SirfIII GPS or BT SirfIII GPS, top notch 624Mhz WM5 PDA with the best GPS Chipset, or that Fujitsu Loox mentioned previously..

If you really do want to use a PDA, then you really want to buy a 'full' spec'd PDA..
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Those are very expensive too. My aim wasn't to reccommend the best and most expensive PDA out there, but keep a sensible budget in mind. And you can get TomTom bundles with the Mio 168 and A201 (which does use the Sirfstar III for a bit more mone) too.
 
Yeah its a 168 I use, no problems getting and keeping a good signal lock :)

Makes me laugh at the people that buy £500 tomtoms to get the same product at the end of the day :p And yes, I run TTN5 instead of the Mitac software.
 
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