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PDA w/ GPS ?


BirdBrainy

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I'm looking into buying both a PDA and a GPS. Was delighted to see I could get both together instead of 2 seperate units. I saw on the Palm.com website today that they have a deal for a Magellan GPS Companion to work with a Palm m500 Series PDA and a rebate offer of $100 off the GPS. Palm GPS rebate deal So you can get the GPS attachment for $49.99. Is this a good combo for Geocaching? Is it a good price? What do you lke about it (other than saving paper) What don't you like about it? What other tool/software/etc.. would be good to have too? Thanks for the advice icon_rolleyes.gif

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Just got the Palm newsletter and read about the $100 rebate for a net price of $49.99.

If I had an M500 series palm (mine is M125)I would be out at the store buying one right now. You can't go wrong for that price.

 

Olar

 

"You are only young once but you can stay immature forever"

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This has come up before and I think the cons were,

1. Not very rugged

2. Not even water resistant.

 

People fall down and go boom, whatever you're holding in your hand will too. If I broke my handspring and the data was unrecoverable.....

 

The arguments against number two amounted to; I don't cache in the rain anyway." Sorry, we don't have control over the weather, as seen in my log for this cache.

 

For easy caching, 1/1's where you park not far from the cache, the PDA is probably OK. The best use I can see would be as a second GPS for days when you're hunting a whole flock of caches and you're tired of pulling your GPSr out of the RAM mount over and over.

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I use my Handspring Visor Pro with GPS Companion for all geocahing adventures. The plus side for me is:

1. I carry my PDA with when hiking or backpacking. Adding the GPS Companion adds very little weight as compared to a stand alone gps.

2. There's several different gps software packages that will run under Palm OS using the Companion. I have three. Depending on the situation I will use anyone of them.

3. There are several choices in mapping software.

 

I agree with the two negative points pointed out by Criminal. However at my age, I'm a little more careful about falling down. That doesn't mean I don't go after some of the harder to get to caches, I just take a little longer getting to it, and I'm always very aware that the pda/gps combination is quite fragile.

 

In the rain. A zip lock back works great to water proof the combination. I try to remember to carry a couple with me just for that purpose.

 

That said, if money was not a consideration, I'd probably have both a stand alone and the PDA/GPS combination. The stand alone for non-backpacking adventures, and combination for backpacking.

 

Byron

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My Palm m130 with the NAVMAN GPS clip on was my first GPSr. I found my first 3 or 4 caches with it. But I was afraid of damaging it, so I bought a Meridian for caching. I still use the Palm in the car for navigating. With the color screen, a 12 volt adapter/charger cable and a windshield mount, I've got a nice set up for driving. The Palm snaps off the NAVMAN and goes into a padded pocket while the Meridian leads me to the cache, only coming out if I need to check the Pocket Queries.

 

homer.gif

"Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand."

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