| Author | Message | ||
     Mikej |
Might as well start this off with this one. I'll let someone else paste in other relevant posts.  ============================================= ============================================= Reepicheep Tuesday, February 11, 2003 - 05:17 pm . ---------------------------------------- The key problem is that any device with a nice enough user interface to comfortably examine maps and plot trips (1024x768 display MINIMUM)... is way too big for mounting on a bike, or even for unobtrusive use in a car. Any device that is small and compact enough for bike / unobtrusive car use is LOUSY for trying to look at a map. This is not a new problem... and Palm Computing figured this out a long time ago. The PDA should be an extension of a desktop/laptop, not a replacement for it. Microsoft is just now figuring this out... they keep trying to make really little laptops, which makes them lousy laptops and lousy pda's. The PDA / GPS solution uses this same proven philosophy. Do the heavy lifting on a desktop, or even a laptop (easy to get one that will only occupy about the bottom inch in your tail bag for $400 or less... look for a thinkpad 570 PII-333 or PII366 on eBay). If you need to replot, find a nice place to sit down / have coffee / stretch out, whip out the laptop, plot a new route, download it to the PDA, and go back on your way. On the motorcycle, I run it with my HandEra 330 or my TRG Pro (both palm platforms) sitting atop the tank, and generally plot everything ahead of time so I don't need the laptop. For quick trips in the car, I also use the PDA. For serious road trips in the car, I use the laptop directly, as I am probably listening to mp3 books on tape anyway, and I like the voice prompts for upcoming turns and the detailed, updated in real time, list of directions (miles and time to each turn, updated every few seconds). The high resolution color animated map as I drive is fun as well. Its more for fun though, the PDA solution is plenty useful, as it shows your next turn and a decent (though smaller) animated map. First the software: Here is the XMap software. This package allows you to plot routes, find locations (basically I think can find anything in any phone book, you can even search by topic, i.e. find everything that mentions Harley Davidson within a 100 mile radius of map center). It has a Windows program to do the searching and plot the routes, and a PDA component that runs on the PDA. You do all the heavy lifting on the desktop/laptop, and just download the important parts to the PDA. http://www.delorme.com/xmaphandheld/default.asp XMap just allows you to plot routes to be downloaded to the PDA. If you want to be able to navigate in real time from the laptop (connect the laptop to the GPS and not use the PDA), you will need another package, which is also pretty nice: http://www.delorme.com/streetatlas2003/default.asp Again, both have their warts, and diverge from the normal windows user interface, but they don't take long to adapt to and are useful in their own way. That covers the software. Now you need hardware. XMap claims to work with newer Pocket PC devices, and some older wince devices. It also works with a lot of Palm devices, especially ones that sync through a serial port. I use mine with a TRG Pro and a HandEra 330. HandEra looks to be getting out of the PDA business, and is closing out some very nice units for $150. Note you have to cover one of the pins on the cable to get the old serial Delorme Earthmate to work with the HE330, email me and I will give you the details. It should also work with the new color high resolution sony devices as well, so long as you can get them to talk to your GPS. I don't have any firsthand experience, but I bet you could get them to work with the right cable. The XMap software claims to work with most GPS receivers. I use it with the old serial Delorme earthmate, as it is compatible with everything I own and dirt cheap. Note that it does NOT have a built in display, so if that matters to you get some other device. http://www.delorme.com/bargains/earthmate/moreinfo.asp Delorme is about to come out with another earthmate (niow USB) that sounds very nice, but I don't know how long it will take before it works well with PDA's and XMap. Probably not long, and the new earthmate has a lot of nice features. As it is USB, it is more likely to work with the Sony Palm based PDA's, and the USB Pocket PC's. It also claims to have bluetooth support, but between waiting for them to get it right, microsoft to get it right, and the Pocket PC hardware makers to get it right.. I would not hold my breath. http://www.delorme.com/earthmate/ Its a nice flexible little package, though it has a lot of complexity and cables can be annoying, and you have some packaging issues to work out (mounting the laptop or PDA in your car or the PDA on your bike). You also have some power management issues. Unless you have a $25 inverter feeding the AC on your laptop, it generally won't last long on a trip. The PDA's take a hard hit doing all that serial communication as well, my Palm will toast a pair of AAA NiMh batteries in three to five hours. The actual GPS receivers vary, my earthmate runs on 4 AAA NiMh batteries for about 7 hours. The earthmate can be easily wired to run off external power (5 volts on pin 9 of the cable), the PDA's can as well (but with a little more work). My HandEra 330 (takes 4 AAA's instead of 2) does much better then my TRG-Pro (like a palm IIIx but with a compact flash slot). Weatherproofing would be an issue with packaging as well, but you can buy things like the otter box that will address that. You could probably just get away with a few ziplock bags and putting it under the map cover on your tank bag. The whole system (PDA and GPS) could be completely contained in a single ziplock freezer bag with room to spare. The PDA memory is limited, so while the route is shown in good detail, complete with turns, the rest of the map is not shown. If you get off route, you just get an arrow pointing you back on track. You can download detailed maps, but they start taking up space fast. Devices like the Sony, the TRG Pro, and the HandEra 330 allow you to store data on external memory (memory stick or compact flash), so you could store maps there, but memory would be expensive. I put the extended area of Cincinati on mine, and I think it ended up about 8 megabytes. In theory you can route on the device (door to door directions), but the Palm CPU's are so slow they would take way to long to calculate it (like half an hour for even a simple route). The Pocket PC devices would probably be better, but a cheap and portable laptop is even better then that (and probably cheaper). The elaborate integrated units that have the GPS antennae, the maps, and the routing software all built in are nice, much more integrated, much easier to mount, but are a lot less flexible. I want my GPS reciever way out on the front or back dash for the best signal, but I want my display closer to my eyes on near a vent on the dash. An integrated unit would require an external antenna for this, which then negates the advantage it has of not stringing cables around. Also, the laptop and PDA are useful for many other things, and you may already have or want them anyway. Finally, the integrated units were (last time I checked) $1000, and I can put together a system like that for myself from scratch for half that. Also, with Delorme, you can get updates yearly for some flat price ($39 or something) that give you the latest greatest map data, and install is a breeze. Don't know how much of a hassle it is to update the embedded integrated devices, or if it can be done at all. So that's it in a nutshell. With decent 1024x768 laptops coming down in the $350 range, good palm based PDA's coming down to the $200 range, and good GPS units hitting the $150 range, a lot of stuff that used to be just wild dreaming is looking pretty cost effective, even if you get it for just dedicated GPS use. It's definately a project though, and not for people that don't enjoy diddling around with computers and electronics. It is FAR from being an appliance. The integrated units are closer, but I still doubt the average non technical consumer would be able to operate them very effectively. Bill |
