What`s The Best Pda To Buy

February 8, 2006

we are looking at buying a acer n35 lite pda we need to be able to down load memory maps and cache details would this pda be able to do this please can any one out there help us as we have no idea on pda`s

February 8, 2006

Paul,you know which one to buy,and xda!!!!

2.5k · February 8, 2006

we are looking at buying a acer n35 lite pda we need to be able to down load memory maps and cache details would this pda be able to do this please can any one out there help us as we have no idea on pda`s

Check out the MIO A201 it is SiRF III and and a good price tag, also comes with in car kit

Moote

February 8, 2006

Looks absolutely fab and not a bad price at all.

Check out the MIO A201 it is SiRF III and and a good price tag, also comes with in car kit

Moote

Edited February 8, 2006 by The Bolas Heathens

February 8, 2006

Paul,you know which one to buy,and xda!!!!

Have to agree, it has to be the XDA, but i would say go for the xda 2 as the camera on the xda2i is not as good. :mad:

February 8, 2006

Paul,you know which one to buy,and xda!!!!

Have to agree, it has to be the XDA, but i would say go for the xda 2 as the camera on the xda2i is not as good.

Then you have gprs and a phone when you are out caching and can look up a cache page which you forgot to download!

February 8, 2006

Dave we`re not all as rich as you

February 8, 2006

If you're lucky you may be able to grab a Mio 168 from Somerfield for £129.

2.5k · February 8, 2006

The problem with the XDA and MDA and the other models so badged, is that they try to be the best of both worlds in phone and PDA, but as I found out if it breaks where are the phone numbers to look up? Ahhhhhh the XDA has them and that is broke!!!!! So you can't call a mate from a public phone etc. Always said this it is like having a music centre looks good, but quality is compromised, go for a separate PDA.

Moote

February 8, 2006

Just remember if you buy a combined phone PDA package and use either the phone or PDA regularly the battery is going to die pretty soon....

Whereas withe a separate PDA nad mobile phone you are running off 2 separate batteries.

Add a BT GPS rather than built in or CF card type and thats 3 batteries.

Ipaq 4700 and a Globalsat BT 338. What a combo!

1k · February 8, 2006

we are looking at buying a acer n35 lite pda we need to be able to down load memory maps and cache details would this pda be able to do this please can any one out there help us as we have no idea on pda`s

Check out the MIO A201 it is SiRF III and and a good price tag, also comes with in car kit

Moote

I just bought one and I like it very much!

February 8, 2006

I have an acer N35 and I use Fugawi mapping which is fine but difficult to load accurate coordinates in the field. Following a reference found in the forum (for which many thanks) I've also downloaded Beeline which is a more straightforward navigation tool. I've recently as well become a premium member and added paperless caches to the PDA. It has the capacity (with a 512 SD card ) to hold an awful lot of files and utilities. Now all I have to do is figure out how everything works.

The battery life isnt briliant but if I have to have it running for 4 hours at a stretch I must be very lost indeed.

February 8, 2006

It's probably worth looking on ebay to see what models you can get extra capacity batteries for, I had my xda2 running tomtom for 4 hours on batteries (1300mAh)before it started to warn me about it,I've now got a 2400mAh battery en-route for less than £20 so should do better than my etrex.

And a car power adaptor of course.

February 9, 2006

I bought a Navman PiN some while ago and its fine. I have been talking to the company and they say that a brand new model is coming out in March. So I am waiting!!

I share the view that a phone should be seperate!

February 10, 2006

I just got issued a jasjar from iMate for work. It is a little chunky but has a 1gig memory card that means there is loads of room for maps, runs gps with a little gigy in the rucksack, can email in the field and has a decent phone and camera. Still won't find the cache for you but it aint far off!

Edited February 10, 2006 by Captain Gore-tex

3.3k · February 10, 2006

Dave we`re not all as rich as you

Just make sure you buy one without a cracked screen :laughing: ... and get a protective case for it.... and don't sit no it

February 10, 2006

Dave we`re not all as rich as you

Just make sure you buy one without a cracked screen ... and get a protective case for it.... and don't sit no it

Or drop it at the top of Scaffel Pike :laughing:

February 11, 2006

I originally bought a wee Palm IIIxe for paperless caching because it was a cheap and cheerful route into the subject. It was excellent.

I started to use the PDA functions of the little black box including a fantastic Palm folding keyboard (since I touch-type). Full word processing in your pocket - or rather in two!

Using the Palm completely won me over to using one of these things to pull all the info you need together - car MOTs, insurance, work & family stuff. In the end, if it did not get put in the box, it didn't get done!

We wanted to be able to use Memory-Map too, so we started to look at Pocket PC equivalents.

At the same time, life was getting cluttered. As we went to go out (caching or otherwise), we were loading up with phone, pda, gps, specs and other essentials. Sue was buying larger and larger handbags, I was basing my choice of coats/jacket on the number of pockets available.

The partial solution for us was to move to a PPC phones. It doesn't get round carting specs along but it does wrap up phone, pda and GPS (I love TomTom too)

1.8k · February 13, 2006

we are looking at buying a acer n35 lite pda we need to be able to down load memory maps and cache details would this pda be able to do this please can any one out there help us as we have no idea on pda`s

Check out the MIO A201 it is SiRF III and and a good price tag, also comes with in car kit

Moote

I just bought one and I like it very much!

Have you got it working OK? Apparently Bluetooth is broken in ROM (acknowleged by Mio but no fix yet) and TT5 will not install on it (apparently there is a way round this). Others complain that the device gets better reception if software is configured to use an old serial GPSr instead of the inbuilt one! I am very interested if your experieince is better than this as I am attracted to this device.

1k · February 13, 2006

we are looking at buying a acer n35 lite pda we need to be able to down load memory maps and cache details would this pda be able to do this please can any one out there help us as we have no idea on pda`s

Check out the MIO A201 it is SiRF III and and a good price tag, also comes with in car kit

Moote

I just bought one and I like it very much!

Have you got it working OK? Apparently Bluetooth is broken in ROM (acknowleged by Mio but no fix yet) and TT5 will not install on it (apparently there is a way round this). Others complain that the device gets better reception if software is configured to use an old serial GPSr instead of the inbuilt one! I am very interested if your experieince is better than this as I am attracted to this device.

My Bluetooth works OK with my phone not tereied it any other way yet..... :mellow:

I've yet to use MM in the field, but works OK in the car........

TT5 yes a prob, I have a "borrowed" version and I yet have to get it to work properly

1.8k · February 13, 2006

The main Bluetooth problem is it breaks following a soft reset needing a hard reset and reconfiguration from scratch to work with Activesync.

Borrowed TT5 will not work apparently, you need the original cab and ini files and install from the device not using the installer on the PC. You need to run the latest version of TT5 as TT5 was originall not WM5 compliant. I believe you then need some special code direct from TT as the device code generator does not work with the A201 (which is not listed by TT as supported anyway!)

In all, a bit of a mess if you want to sync by Bluetooth and run your collection of genuine paid for TT5 maps!

February 14, 2006

we are looking at buying a acer n35 lite pda we need to be able to down load memory maps and cache details would this pda be able to do this please can any one out there help us as we have no idea on pda`s

I picked up an Acer N30 fairly cheap from Amazon.

I use it with a BT sirfIII gps, memorymap (& gsak) and tomtom5.

Never looked back!

February 16, 2006

So in conclusion if I buy an MIA A201 will I be able to:

- Use tom tom or similar voise navigation tool

- be able to connect to wireless web and download streetmap extracts for OS maps

- download cache data via gsak

- in long term use memory map

- add spoiler photos

I used to be an IT expert but the years have attacked my knowledge base.

I am nervous about splashing out this much money!!

Peter

1.8k · February 16, 2006

So in conclusion if I buy an MIA A201 will I be able to:

- Use tom tom or similar voise navigation tool

- be able to connect to wireless web and download streetmap extracts for OS maps

- download cache data via gsak

- in long term use memory map

- add spoiler photos

I used to be an IT expert but the years have attacked my knowledge base.

I am nervous about splashing out this much money!!

Peter

Maybe!

The problem is the device has two major features that cause problems -

1) it has the latest version of the PPC operating system that means it is incompatable with some software

2) it is made by a relatively minor player so many software developers do not ensure their software is compatable and will blame any fault on the quirky nature of this unsupported device.

TT definitly does not work properly at present because of 2) (the other problem was fixed by the 5.21 update)

GSAK/MM/Cachemate and other GPX file viewers should work OK.

February 17, 2006

Thanks for the quick reply. I believe that the machine comes with a tom tom like program but I need to check.

Life used to be so simple!

Peter

2.5k · February 18, 2006

2) it is made by a relatively minor player so many software developers do not ensure their software is compatable and will blame any fault on the quirky nature of this unsupported device.

Fact

Mitac (The company who produce the MIO brand) are now the 4th largest supplier of PDA's after Dell, HP, and Siemens, they also produce PDA's for several companies including Medion and NAVMan

1.8k · February 18, 2006

I know that, and you know that - but that does not wash with companies that only want to support the big names that do deals with them like HP is repared to do.

February 22, 2006

Several of us at work are dedicated cachers and all have the Mitac Mio 168 running TT5, Memory Map 2004 and GPS Tuner. We all download the cache overlays on Memory map that work a treat.

The only problem we have is that the 168 doesn't let you run more than 1 GPS program at once, otherwise its great for caching and many other tasks.

We also have friends with Mitac Mio A201, we have TT5 and Memory map working on them, TT5 did take some doing though, but got there in the end.

The newer Mio does allow multiple GPS programs running at once and is quicker, has a few other nice touches too like bluetooth.

The main problem is the Microsoft Mobile 5 Operating System that they have designed to not work with many applications and is not backwards compatable, quite bizarre really! :laughing:

February 23, 2006

Not sure if would work with the built in gps but if it uses a com port gpsgate would do the trick,I just tried it and it's excellent.

2.5k · February 23, 2006

Several of us at work are dedicated cachers and all have the Mitac Mio 168 running TT5, Memory Map 2004 and GPS Tuner. We all download the cache overlays on Memory map that work a treat.

The only problem we have is that the 168 doesn't let you run more than 1 GPS program at once, otherwise its great for caching and many other tasks.

We also have friends with Mitac Mio A201, we have TT5 and Memory map working on them, TT5 did take some doing though, but got there in the end.

The newer Mio does allow multiple GPS programs running at once and is quicker, has a few other nice touches too like bluetooth.

The main problem is the Microsoft Mobile 5 Operating System that they have designed to not work with many applications and is not backwards compatable, quite bizarre really!

Fact

GPSGate will work on the MIO168, but because the 168 only has 64MB of base memory in total it will find it difficult to run all 3 apps simultaneously. You can help the PDA along a little by installing to the SD card rather than direct onto the PDA, therefor leaving more base memory free to run applications

March 8, 2006

Well I have done it - bought the Mio A201 , complete with tomtom.

Next tasks are to work out how to:

=transfer streetmap OS maps. At the moment I only see the first square of the map on the PDA.

=download eocache data onto tomtom

=download cache descriptions

Peter

1.8k · March 8, 2006

1) You are better off getting Memory Map - expensive, but worth every penny.

2) If you have premium membership of this site you can download all UK caches in TT format in a single file at Geocacheuk.com

3) Premium membership, Pocket Queries, Cachemate.

March 9, 2006

To send streetmap os maps you could use 'print screen' and crop with any image editor and save as image file.

With Irfanview and Autohotkey you could probably write a script to do it all for you in one button.(both freeware and recommended)

March 9, 2006

Thanks for the idea - uess it crossed in the ether. Works fine and u can zoom into get the detail.

Has anyone ported tomtom from the memory card it came on - to a bigger card. There is no room left to add any other applications or data.

Peter

March 9, 2006

You can delete most of the voices to save about 45Mb with navigator 5,just keep data04.chk data04.vif data05.chk data05.vif and any corresponding .bmp files and ditch the rest (unless you don't speak english of course)

Edit: Of course you can also port to another card.

Edited March 9, 2006 by Nellies Knackers

2.5k · March 9, 2006

Thanks for the idea - uess it crossed in the ether. Works fine and u can zoom into get the detail.

Has anyone ported tomtom from the memory card it came on - to a bigger card. There is no room left to add any other applications or data.

Peter

Information

Pop the card into an SD Card reader and copy all the folders across onto your PC, then pop the larger card into the same SD Card Reader and transfer all the data back onto that. It should work, but if it does not you still have the original to get you back working.

1.8k · March 9, 2006

Pop the card into an SD Card reader and copy all the folders across onto your PC, then pop the larger card into the same SD Card Reader and transfer all the data back onto that. It should work, but if it does not you still have the original to get you back working.

Worked for me when I got TT - it was the very first thing I did - even before turning on the device!

Edited March 9, 2006 by Learned Gerbil

March 11, 2006

Thank you everybody for all your help.

I have used the mobipocket application to downloa all the cache pages for offline viewing. Others have recommended cachemate - any views?

Have loaded tomtom onto bigger card and all seems fine. By the way i just noticed the OS GPS application for entering lat long coords into Tomtom.

Thanks everybody

Peter

March 11, 2006

Cachemate is excellent,especially at only £4.50ish.

What`s The Best Pda To Buy

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