melmur

You & me both, but I can only take credit for one - when the jerry can next to my hopkins genny fell over and ignited almost 20 litres of best MTgas, taking probably 10 square km of prairie with it Only one fire so far whilst out caching which seemed pretty tame by comparison: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LU...af-d307e584ab85

Probably the same as what happens when you drop your Garmin Legend in the river, if it wasn't in an aquapac fastened to me with a lanyard. Even if it did break I'm pretty sure I could find my way home without it.

I think the 550 will be just the job for you if the 701 is a bit over budget. The 350 doesn't have bt but is a little cheaper, but I'm sure you have already looked at that. I have owned a number of Mio devices and they have all been good. The amount of stuff that comes in the box always amazes me. (Shameless plug, but if you can find an extra few quid I have an a701 on Ebay at the moment http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...m=170006674249) When I bought mine, I sold my phone & my Garmin etrex which more than made up the difference in price over the 350 or 550.

On the odd occasion that your needs clash, you go back to using whatever you are using now & let him/her use the PDA.

But like I said, it's different now. Would you not consider it being faced with the same decision today? I don't believe you wouldn't. Just to keep things in perspective here & to prove I'm not a complete tomtom hater, I'm actually considering buying my dad a tomtom one for Xmas. The One is the ONLY tomtom standalone that's worth the money in my opinion. My dad would not use the PPC for anything else, so it's better for him. Anyone who does caching, will sooner or later want a PPC, so a combined device is better for them I feel.

Yes, but that was then.........this is now. PPCs have moved on a lot. Tomtom hasn't really, they just add another unneeded feature each year and bump the price up a few quid. If you want to pay between £230 - £500+ (depending on model) for a low spec PPC with a locked OS in a different case then that's up to you. There is no doubt that Tomtom standalones are good and have brought satnav to the masses but they are not necessarily the best way to go and I like people to think about the alternatives before being blinkered by TV advertising. Surely you can see the benefits of an all in one device? The p350 I mentioned earlier has Sirf III GPS, twice as much RAM as a Tomtom One, a faster processor & the ability to install whatever software you want on it and is only £179! Add to that £50 or so for Tomtom or Miomap (if you choose to pay for them) and you have got yourself a bargain. I'm also curious as to how tomtom one is "easier to use" & "far less buggy" when it's essentially the same software?

That's purely down to the GPS chipset, not the fact that one is a tomtom unit & the other is a PDA. The latest PDAs with Sirf III chipsets will match the performance of a tomtom unit easily.

Agreed. Why anyone would spend £300 on a standalone tomtom unit is beyond me! Have a look at something like the p350 or a second hand 168 for much better value! http://www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk/...escription.html Then stick tomtom (or whatever road satnav you prefer) on it, GPX Sonar & Memory map or GPS Dash and you will never look back. No need for GPS Gate on the p350 as it's a WM5 device.

There is no need for GPS Gate with WM5 devices as it can handle multi apps via a virtual port. If you don't mind going with WM 2003, then the Mio 168 is a good budget alternative to the p550. You can even go a step upwards and go for an a701 if budget allows and get rid of your phone as well (Links in my sig) The only problem you are going to encounter with these is battery life. I just plug it in the car between caches and it's not an issue for me. One other thing, I would go for GPX Sonar rather than Cachemate for the PPC. In my opinion it's a much better GUI, it makes Cachemate look like a nasty converted Palm app.

Portable firefox & Office you are talking about are actually PC applications that can run from a USB stick so you can use them on any PC. http://portableapps.com/ For the PPC, Opera is probably the best browser available at the moment. minimo (mini mozilla) is a bad resource hog and it still under development.

GPS Dash - link in my sig

I looked at the 6515 but decided it would cost me to much to replace all my clothes with ones that have big enough pockets to carry the monster around.

Beer? You mean you yanks drink beer now? My god, you'll be playing real football next!

For fear of me sounding biased, you should also look at the Eten G500 which is very similar in spec, but slightly larger.

I've been using one since UK release on Mar 10th, check out the links in my sig for more info (especially the forums one). If you can afford one, you won't regret it. They are also available from Expansys on an O2 contract if you want to reduce the cost a bit that way.

There are US sellers on Ebay that sell them, but if you had a warranty issue, most say return to manufacturer: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Mio-A701-GPS-PDA-P...1QQcmdZViewItem The Mio's ONLY competitor currently available is the Eten G500, but I can't really comment on it because I've never seen one: http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-new-ETEN-G500-1-...1QQcmdZViewItem Both of these devices are not strictly speaking cell phones or smart phones, they are top spec Pocket PCs with integrated Sirf III GPS, camera & Phone function.

You might want to have a look at POI Edit too, if you are doing it on a PC. http://www.poiedit.com/

See the links in my sig, but it doesn't come cheap!

I've never got GPS Tuner to import waypoints properly, so I have stuck with GPS Dash. I also prefer the way Dash chops the map up so you can use much larger images. I still keep Tuner installed though as it does averaging which is missing from the current release of dash. For storing cache info, Cachemate takes some beating. They just need to either merge with a mapping app developer, or write a decent one themselves.

http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/barrydavies/osgps.htm Assuming of course, you are using a PPC and not a Tomtom GO or other such contraption.

Cancel that, it's BB code - Sorted

A bit off topic, but saves another thread - how do you add an HTML link to your signature? I've tried and it just doesn't seem to work? Is it for moderators only?

I suppose I could just add them to my watchlist, will give that a try.

Is it possible for me to show a list of my did not finds? Reason being, I would like to see if anyone has found them since, so I know whether it's worth going back or not. I know I can see them on the My account page, but it would be better to see them as on the search pages where it gives the last found date & my last found in green. Hope this makes sense to someone - I know what I mean even if nobody else does

Yes, it can read gpx files and you get it from here ($8). Trial limited to 10 records. http://www.smittyware.com/ppc/cachemate/