Nokia vs I-mate

[+Megaben]

I'm lucky/unlucky enough to be able to upgrade my mobile phone in the next couple of weeks. Due to the fact that I'm not fortunate enough like most other Geocachers to have mobile Laptops and live internet cover I am persuing the mobile phone alternatives.

Does anyone have prior experiences with mobile phones and which way would the recomendations go. Perhaps there's a diferent phone that would work better. Any comments??

[+GS&Dogs]

Hi Megaben. Take a look at the Garmap Forum. These guys work with the software on a daily basis and tend to be very helpful when you ask them questions.

Edited October 16, 2006 by GS&Dogs

[+ZAteam]

I'm lucky/unlucky enough to be able to upgrade my mobile phone in the next couple of weeks. Due to the fact that I'm not fortunate enough like most other Geocachers to have mobile Laptops and live internet cover I am persuing the mobile phone alternatives.

Does anyone have prior experiences with mobile phones and which way would the recomendations go. Perhaps there's a diferent phone that would work better. Any comments??

 

What is it that you would like to do with your phone(appart from phoning )?

Do you want to use it for geocaching(ie. with GPS)?

Or do you want to use it to browse the geocaching website?

 

I started out with a Mitac Mio with a flip out GPS and then switched to the HP6515 with built-in GPS. I used this for several months and in combination with OZI it is perfect! Well, almost... About the only thing that bothered me was that it was not really intended for outdoor use. After I had dropped it a couple of times and after it got wet and stopped functioning for a couple of days, I decided to get a Garmin 60. I still take the HP with, because it is still handy for those 'on the spot' calculations and as a backup GPS, uh, and I almost forgot, it is also still my phone

[+Megaben]

Hi Megaben. Take a look at the Garmap Forum. These guys work with the software on a daily basis and tend to be very helpful when you ask them questions.

 

Thanks GS&Dogs. Looks like I have a hellofa lot to learn. I'm as technically up to date as a pencil sharpener.

[+Megaben]

I'm lucky/unlucky enough to be able to upgrade my mobile phone in the next couple of weeks. Due to the fact that I'm not fortunate enough like most other Geocachers to have mobile Laptops and live internet cover I am persuing the mobile phone alternatives.

Does anyone have prior experiences with mobile phones and which way would the recomendations go. Perhaps there's a diferent phone that would work better. Any comments??

 

What is it that you would like to do with your phone(appart from phoning )?

Do you want to use it for geocaching(ie. with GPS)?

Or do you want to use it to browse the geocaching website?

 

I started out with a Mitac Mio with a flip out GPS and then switched to the HP6515 with built-in GPS. I used this for several months and in combination with OZI it is perfect! Well, almost... About the only thing that bothered me was that it was not really intended for outdoor use. After I had dropped it a couple of times and after it got wet and stopped functioning for a couple of days, I decided to get a Garmin 60. I still take the HP with, because it is still handy for those 'on the spot' calculations and as a backup GPS, uh, and I almost forgot, it is also still my phone

 

Hi ZAteam. thanks for the post.

 

All I want is to make my life less complicated while geocaching. Currently I print the pages at work on a Friday afternoon and hope by Sunday that nothing went wrong at the cache site. So yes I would like to use it to browse the geocaching website but did not know you could integrate as a GPS as well. wow

 

I now need extra classes to operate and integrate these things. Anyone Interested . "I've got Beer"

[+GS&Dogs]

We are entering a very exciting era in GPSr technology with the advent of our SA maps being available on Symbian phones. As garmap mentioned, this is still only available to nokia users as a bundled package but soon it will be available to most Symbian phones on the market.

 

Think about this - you drive into PE for short holiday, its late, and you very tired after you spend most of your day behind the now common RY/GO's. Where will you eat? Ah you take your cell and click find restaurants - it shows you all the restaurants close to you, Cattlebarron sounds good but u should make a booking, simply click on Call and the next thing you know you making a booking. But where is cattlebarron, click on goto and the unit starts navigating you to cattlebarron. Same applies to where will you sleep.

 

There are however little set backs regarding new technology i.e. battery life of the phone is drastically reduced so maybe taking it on a 2 day hike is going to be a problem. Unless you get yourself 3 extra batteries or one of those nifty solar cell battery chargers. Cell phones don't generally like to be dropped and banged around too much but I suppose they handle it better than the average PDA. Generally your cell has a much higher resolution screen and a better processor than your average handheld GPS.

 

If all you need is to be able to view your cache pages on the web then you cannot go wrong with the nokia or the i-mate. I make pdfs of all the cache pages and send them to my Nokia 6680. They are not live but they contain all the information necassary. In this way you can save a few more trees which in turn promotes more favourable areas for caching[].

[perdix]

I have an I-Mate Jam and save the web pages to it, rather than carrying around print-outs. All the info is on there, albeit not live.

 

If you get a Garmin GPS10 then it will work well with the I-mate (Windows Mobile), which will then be your GPS interface. They communicate via bluetooth so not too many wires to worry about.

 

I do not have this set-up though, but I did upload the free Garmap software for Windows Mobile onto my I-mate, not that it is very functional without the GPS attached