Pocket Pc With Gps - Navman Pin

[+trippy1976]

Was just looking to get a new PDA, primarily for business purposes not caching. Saw this with built in GPS and am intrigued. Anyone have experience with this? What's your opinion?

[+RumJungle]

I have several PDAs and the Navman PiN (Mitac Mio 168) works well. The unit is actually made by Mitac and Navman somehow buys it. The Navman software does not have a state-of-the-art user interface. Therefore, you will most likely look for different vehicle navigation software like tomtom or Mapopolis.

 

I found the Navman PiN for $350USD (on sale) at a local electronics store here in California. I could not pass up the price.

 

Geocaching Navigation specific software:

 

BeeLineGPS - Very specific to geocaching -- lots of navigation features - GPX

GPSTuner - Supports some geocaching - GPX - bitmap maps

 

Other Geocaching software:

( Link )

Edited May 14, 2005 by RumJungle

[+trippy1976]

Does it have an expansion slot? I didn't see mention of it where I saw it.

 

$350 would be excellent if it had an expansion slot. Would like it to do bluetooth too.

 

I would probably put Mapopolis on it for routing.

[+RumJungle]

No expansion slot - only a SD card slot. You could use a SD Bluetooth at the expense of SD memory.

 

For BT and wireless I would suggest one of the HP models. However, you don't get a GPS with it.

 

You could get the Garmin iQue M5 which has a bluetooth. However..... $$$$

[PDave]

I read this thread a while back, and I currently own the PiN. Overall, my feelings on it are mixed.

 

The included software is useless for Geocaching. A lot of the maps are out of date. I have found several roads which it lists and are not there any more, or have been re-routed several years ago. I have found these errors both in Indiana (my home state) and Kentucky (Louisville area, where I currently work). Its verbal directions leave much to be desired too. It doesn't tell you the name of the street where it instructs you to turn; in an urban area this is maddening and, frankly, downright dangerous. I haven't been able to try out TomTom ($$$$!) or other mapping software just yet.

 

I currently use VitoTech Navigator II (http://www.vitotechnology.com, about $20). Navigator doesn't do averaging, or if it does it doesn't do it very well. It handles waypoints pretty well, though, and imports LOC files. It has lots of other features and supports several plugins, but it doesn't seem to quite "pop" for geocaching.

 

The hardware is okay, I would definitely reccomend screen protectors since I find myself navigating with my fingernails for the majority of the time while geocaching. Its expansion, as noted, is SD only. However, SanDisk makes a combination 256 MB SD + WiFi SDIO card (Search Froogle) which should give you some flexibility. No bluetooth, but from my BT experience with my phone, PC, and headset, you probably aren't missing much.

 

As far as its GPS performace goes, I haven't gotten it to do very well yet. Currently, it does not do anywhere nearly as well as friends' Garmin receivers. The software I am currently using, as I noted, does not do averaging, so it may improve greatly with other software.

 

I haven't given it a real workout with other PocketPC applications, so I can't comment much on its usability on that front. It seems to do okay.

 

Overall, my experience with it would be about a 2 out of 5. It does what it claims to do, but its software leaves a lot to be desired, and its GPS capabilities are not so great.

 

I'm interested to hear other users' experiences with it... how do you like it, what software do you use, etc...