Yes, another whats the best GPS device topic.. with a twist

[Bertieboy]

I work for umm.. well for the rozzers, pigs, feds, boydons.. however you want to put it.

I need a GPS device for work, often I'm called to 'follows' where we need to have accurate information on where were are... often these follows go outside of my force's area, which leaves us in unfamiliar territory.

Given the job is tight fisted, I'm unlikely to get this through work, so I'm willing to shell out for it.. up to a point.

So, I'm looking for a GPS device which

- A UK updatable map - I don't mind paying for a subscription
- Accurate and real time GPS refreshes. I.e. I want to see the road name or number where exactly I am at that time. No waiting every 10 seconds.
- All-in-one and easily moved from vehicle to vehicle.
- Robust design
- Full postcode look up
- Rechargable with upto 14 hours use or at least can take a spare battery
- Built in compass showing direction of travel
- I don't particularly want direction giving, but if it's there.. I'll take it.

Any ideas..? Anything I shouldn't touch?

[madtam]

You don't want much then do you!!

Actually most of the list you give is achievable by a decent system but one I am not sure about is the 14 hour battery life. The dedicated systems usually use an external power source because they are meant for use in cars where a DC power supply is easily available. The more leisure/walking types don't tend to give the road network details that you want but do have the longer battery life. Can't you use a lighter socket for powering when in the vehicle and accept a shorter battery life if you do use it mobile?

For specifics I would visit local retailers and look at the options that are available. Software such as TomTom and destinator will give you most of the features you require. The actual hardware you run it on can be selected seperately depending on what suits you best. Looking at the options in the flesh (so to speak) will give you the best idea of what suits you. In the end, when you have a reasonable idea of what you like then a scan round the online retailers might be able to shave a bit off the price.

Just for an idea I have the Mio A201 running the miomap software and most of what you want is available. Standalone battery life is probably no better than 3-4 hours although a seperate battery is available, only partial postcodes are available however. By the way, I wouldn't rely too much on postcodes as in some areas even the full 6-8 digits can cover a lot bigger area than an individual building and the post office is continuously updating and changing them as well.

Best of luck with finding what you want and don't forget to keep checking back here as it's a great resource with some very knowledgable and helpful people (even if some of us moan about the police and in particular the speed, sorry safety cameras).

[Skippy]

Mr

Have a look at the Garmin "Quest II". You can make it display a banner across the top of the screen which gives the road name or the name of the side road you are approaching. You can configure the data fields on the map display to give you a direction N, NE,W etc along with other information height, speed, OS Grid reference etc.

It's robust, waterproof and the battery life is claimed to be 18 hours. It will last less time if the backlight is on all the time, but you don't really need the backlight in bright conditions. You can't take a spare and swap batteries, but mostly I power mine from the cigarette lighter adaptor which also charges the battery.

It does full postcode lookup and speed camera alerts too. There is a cheaper "Quest I" which does all this except the full postcode lookup and speed cameras.


You might also consider CoPilot "Live" which can be run on a Smartphone or PDA with live tracking on the Internet using GPRS over a GSM phone. I think it only updates every 15 minutes or so by default, but if you could get your boss to pay the phone bill or get T-Mobile's "walk and web" which comes with 45 Meg of GPRS data then you could set it to send updates every minute and people could track you though a web page. They say it works but I have never tried it. I gave up on CoPilot because v5 was quite buggy, now v6 is out so maybe it works better.

Any CoPilot guys want to comment on this?

Good luck!
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Gone fishing!

[peterc10]

[alix776]

rom what I've seen a lot of forces have tt go's in there traffic and area cars I wouldn't touch cp6 for smartphone from experience the quest seams to have what you need with battery life also have look at a tt one if you can use a cars power lead a pda system will give you around an hour or so as with the go will need powering from a car but will give you other functions as well
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currently using aponia truck navigation on windows phone. Good bye IOS don't let the door hit you on the way out .

Oh the joys of being a courier.
device Lumia 950 xl

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