PDA Phone/sat-nav

[thebullettrain]

I have one of those Orange PDA’s – a SPV M500.

I would like to get a sat-nav function on it and I have a couple of questions:

• Can I buy/download some software?

• As it needs GPRS will Orange charge me each time I use my PDA as a sat-nav device?

I am new to this and your advice is appreciated.

[Plotloss]

Google for Tom Tom Mobile 5

Buy it.

Then go to eBay and buy a SIRF III (latest chipset) Bluetooth GPS Reciever.

Nothing more to pay, no data from the network etc...

[Podie]

The man has not lost the Plot - he speaks sound advice. Oh

[thebullettrain]

Isn’t Tom Tom Mobile 5 a pda device cum sat nav system?

I think I would rather have some kind of a sat nav function on my existing PDA hence less devices to handle.

I presume I would have to pay GPRS charges if my used my SPV?

[Plotloss]

No Tom Tom Mobile is the version of Tom Tom for Mobiles.

There are NO data charges, the only information that moves is between the GPS reciever and the handset.

[thebullettrain]

Ah, okay, that figures. Now another dumb question – what’s the purpose of the SIRF III GPs receiver?

[agent006]

You're getting confused between GPRS (mobile data transfer) and GPS (satnav).

[Plotloss]

thebullettrain said:

Ah, okay, that figures. Now another dumb question – what’s the purpose of the SIRF III GPs receiver?

To recieve the signal from the satellite so you know where you are on the globe, this is sent to the phone which has the map and jobs a goodun.

[thebullettrain]

Thanks chaps.

Indeed I was confused with GRS and GPRS!

[roadsweeper]

Plotloss said:

Google for Tom Tom Mobile 5 Buy it. Then go to eBay and buy a SIRF III (latest chipset) Bluetooth GPS Reciever. Nothing more to pay, no data from the network etc...

As usual Plotloss is on the money. I thought it might be of use for me to expand further on this subject however as there is some value in giving you additional information I feel.

The SiRFstarIII is the latest and greatest chipset - don't accept anything less:

"With its rapid time-to-first-fix and high sensitivity, the SiRFstarIII architecture is designed to meet the rigorous demands of wireless and handheld LBS applications, and provides superior location performance, both indoors and out, for 2G, 2.5G, 3G asynchronous networks.

The SiRFstarIII architecture packs a performance punch, achieving time-to-first-fix of one second for aided starts in outdoor GSM environments and acquiring signals down to -159 dBm. This makes real-time navigation practical, including in many indoor environments, through urban canyons, and under dense foliage. Unlike the lengthy sequential search process of traditional GPS architectures, the SiRFstarIII architecture, with the equivalent of more than 200,000 correlators, enables fast and deep GPS signal search capabilities, resulting in significant improvement over today’s architectures that contain a few hundred to a few thousand correlators."

Basically, the main advantages are low power consumption, better sensitivity and faster start-up times. All good.

More generally, a Bluetooth receiver is the obvious choice, but bear in mind that you do have alternatives:

In-car cradles with the GPS unit built-in
This has the advantage of generally getting a better signal, not requiring you to remember two things when you need the GPS and charging the unit as you use it. Obviously it's not as portable as a Bluetooth receiver but in most circumstances you will need a car cradle anyway to get the best view of the screen during navigation, so it's worth considering.

CompactFlash/SDIO Plug-in GPS units
Personally I'm not a fan of these, but they do have their uses. The linked example is one of the latest on the market and includes the SiRFstarIII chipset and 512MB of memory for maps, etc.

I hope you found the above information useful.

Regards.

roadie.

[thebullettrain]

THanks.