Cheapest Turn By Turn Voice Guided System

[+Bibba]

Hello All,

I'm a hospice Nurse in the Boston, MA area. I'm trying to sell my agency on the benefits of providing the visiting Nurses, Social Workers, and Chaplains with portable GPS systems for their cars. Cost is a huge factor. The nurses will soon be issued new Fujitsu Tablet PCs.

Is there any way to use a tablet PC with a GPS antenna and a program similar to Microsoft Streets and Trips? Most of the reluctance I've gotten re: this idea is that there are no voice prompts which they feel will create a safety hazard.

Is there any program out there that can be used with a tablet pc that has voice prompts?

I originally had been trying unsuccessfully to get them to buy streetpilot IIIs but the cost ($500) was too prohibitive. Any ideas?

 

By the way, there's extra points for coming up with a system that includes a regular GPS (Garmin Etrex/Magellen yellow) as part of the system so I can try to get some more Nurses into geocaching

[+Goodguys]

We've just completed a trip using a notebook computer and Garmin's GPS 18 with City Navigator 6 and n-route software. We bought the package for $149 Can. It was very impressive in giving clear voice prompts and in automatically re-creating the best route after we would deliberately miss a turn. Highly recommended(though I guess we forfeit the points for a unit that works for geocaching!).

[+Wiley&Sunset]

I travel a lot useing my laptop and GPS receiver and software called

Co-Pilot 2003 (by ALK Technology.com). This is usb supported and

has talking/listening feature that lets you ask itn several

questions and it answers you! It is around 300.00$ US but after that

upgrades are $99. It has all the features you are looking for and more.

In Oct. they are comming out w/Co-pilot Laptop 8 which will accept

3rd party GPS receivers (Garmin, Magillian etc.). I never leave home w/o mine.

Hope this helps

[+George501949]

Also DeLorme Street Atlas has voice. I have not used it, so can not comment on it.

Edited September 12, 2004 by George501949

[+Cache Viking]

We've just completed a trip using a notebook computer and Garmin's GPS 18 with City Navigator 6 and n-route software. We bought the package for $149 Can. It was very impressive in giving clear voice prompts and in automatically re-creating the best route after we would deliberately miss a turn. Highly recommended(though I guess we forfeit the points for a unit that works for geocaching!).

I have been looking at this unit and plan to get one just as soon as I get a laptop. I have a Garmin V and love the autorouting. The laptop would make it so the kids in the backseat could see it also. Voice prompting would be a real plus.

[+IV_Warrior]

Delorme's Street Atlas has voice, and it seems to work fairly well. Assuming the tablets have USB ports, you could pick up Delorme Earthmate GPS units, WITH Street Atlas 2005 for $129.95 from Delorme's website.

[peter]

We've just completed a trip using a notebook computer and Garmin's GPS 18 with City Navigator 6 and n-route software.

I have been looking at this unit and plan to get one just as soon as I get a laptop. I have a Garmin V ...

Since you already have a GPS V, you could just hook it up to the laptop and run nRoute. The nRoute software is available as a free download from Garmin's site

as long as you already have an appropriate MapSource product loaded (which includes the City Select that came with your V).