mark chandler
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:08 PM |
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Blue tooth GPS boxes, any good ?
Hi,
Looking for a bit of advise as per the title.
I,ve got a decent sony phone which supports XML, blue tooth etc and fancy a GPS device.
something like this
On Ebay you can get bluetooth enabled GPS boxes that are compatible with my phone for £35, are these things any good ?
Also what else do I need, as I,m sure there is a catch, tom tom software etc to draw the map maybe.... and how do I then get this on my phone ?
I,m guessing the GPS will just provide location info only.
Anyone any experience with this ?
Regards Mark
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jamesbond007ltk
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:13 PM |
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The boxes themselves are very good. I have one that came with my copilot software and has never let me down.
HOWEVER:
The GPS box just provides location information to the phone. However you will need some software to preocess this info.
You can get freeware software that will give you your current position only. This, IMHO, is useless, ecpect perhaos for walking, climibing etc.
You will need software such as CoPilot, TomTom etc. These suppport Symbian, Windows Mobile 5, and the Nokia software (cant remeber what its
called).
Am not aware of software for sony phones that arent running symbian.
What model is your phone?
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andyps
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:14 PM |
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Make sure you get one you can charge in the car - without that facility they are pretty useless, but I know someone who has that problem. Otherwise it
works well.
Andy
An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less
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mark chandler
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:16 PM |
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Hi,
The phone is a sony w810i with 434MB memory stick.
Cheers Mark
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Pants On Fire
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:16 PM |
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I bought the TomTom Bluetooth reciever, very small and you can wear it round your neck, more expensive at c£70 from Amazon or the like. Tracks up to
16 satellites and acquires them very quickly even from a cold start.
Here for £59
Edit to say as per above, you'll need Nav software like Tom Tom 5.1 for Windows mobile devices, I dont think the Sony OS is supported and
you'll only get location info on your W810i.
[Edited on 8/2/07 by Pants On Fire]
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caber
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:18 PM |
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I bought an ebay cheapie that has a poor antenna so often loses signal in town compared to my wired tomtom one. I use it with a Treo 650 and
tomtom6
Caber
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jamesbond007ltk
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:24 PM |
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I am pretty sure that no satnav company makes software compatible with your phones software. Could be wrong but have had a look around and cant find
any. ALK do do an SDK version of Copilot but i think its Windows Mobile 5 based.
I wait to be proved wrong though. WOuld be useful to find out
quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
Hi,
The phone is a sony w810i with 434MB memory stick.
Cheers Mark
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jamesbond007ltk
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 02:29 PM |
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Think the post at the bottom of this forum answers your question;
http://www.esato.com/board/viewtopic.php?topic=140677#post1891161
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mark chandler
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 03:13 PM |
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Ah well, looks like nice phone but wrong choice for Sat nav.....
Thanks for the many replies, have to plan something else.
Regards mark
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greggors84
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 03:31 PM |
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Looks like your phone might not support any GPS software. Do a search and maybe check sonys website.
As the bluetooth GPS boxes, I bought a Nokia one, was about £10 more than the others, but would prefer a named one and it takes the same charger as my
N73 (new nokia small size) so I only need one charger in my car.
It works great, will even pick up a single from inside the house about 5m from the window.
Chris
The Magnificent 7!
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Jasper
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 03:35 PM |
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Nokia N73 - TomTom works a treat on it 
And beware cheap GPS's....
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UncleFista
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 04:02 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Pants On Fire
I bought the TomTom Bluetooth reciever, very small and you can wear it round your neck, more expensive at c£70 from Amazon or the like. Tracks up to
16 satellites and acquires them very quickly even from a cold start.
Here for £59
I had a Tomtom GPS receiver for a year or two, mine never seemed to connect first time and the battery life was only 5-6 hours. Eventually it gave up
the ghost so I bought a cheap one from ebay like
THIS
ONE and it's much better, I've run it for 8 hours without the battery dying and the refresh rate is quicker than the Tomtom one.
I've no doubt the new Tomtom ones are better, or I had a duff one, but the cheapo ebay one seems good enough to me, but then, I'm a bit of
a tight-arse
[Edited to add] the Tomtom receiver you linked to looks different to the one I had, they've obviously had a redesign since I bought mine, so
ignore my experiences with the old one 
Mark, I run Tomtom on my PDA, IMHO it's much better than trying to squint at a phone screen while driving. A decent PDA will be much cheaper
than a decent new phone too
[Edited on 8/2/07 by UncleFista]
Tony Bond / UncleFista
Love is like a snowmobile, speeding across the frozen tundra.
Which suddenly flips, pinning you underneath.
At night the ice-weasels come...
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greggors84
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 04:29 PM |
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Jasper, Have you had any problems with TomTom on the N73? Wondered if there was any sarcasm in your comment. I've heard that alot of people have
had trouble with theirs hanging and the bluetooth disconnecting. Mine hangs sometimes for about 10 secs if it has to think about something like a
detour. Apart from that it seems fine. There are firmware updates for the N73, but for some reason the ones from 3 wont let you update them and im not
sure if there is any way to force the update. Its annoying as the update is meant to fix all the problems.
quote:
Originally posted by Jasper
Nokia N73 - TomTom works a treat on it
And beware cheap GPS's....
Chris
The Magnificent 7!
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Jubal
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 07:07 PM |
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I use one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/32-CHANNEL-MINI-SOLAR-RECEIVER-BLUETOOTH-GPS-RECIEVER_W0QQitemZ270085287320QQihZ017QQcategoryZ4668QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
It's rock solid and the battery lasts for ages due to the solar panel. Software is TT6 on a PDA. Recommended.
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tweek
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| posted on 8/2/07 at 07:33 PM |
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Got mine from discountsatnav.co.uk for about £35
http://www.discountsatnav.co.uk/shop/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=50
using it with an ipaq hx2490 and it works a treat, you can also charge it using a nokia car charger.
Their service was spot on aswell, very happy all in all.
hope that helps
"oh dear..." said god,
"I hadn't thought of that"
and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic
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