Beginner - General help and possible LCD option???

[Whizzergo]

Hello everyone, i'm new to the board so i'll introduce myself...

Im fast approaching 17 and have just bought a golf mk4 for when I pass my test. I've been looking around for a while now for a decent site were I can learn about installing some kind of sat nav system, for when i start driving. I'm from Preston, Lancashire.

Now the main reason is for speed camera detection, beause although i don't drive like a fool, im dreading getting banned for speeding, and it would also come in handy for long routes.

Anyway, I've picked up a few things from browsing through here and I seem to know the basics now, but I would like to know what my best options are and exactly what i'll need and what it'll cost (I'm not very good at reading the abbreviations either).

Here are what I beleive my options to be:

1. PDA with GPS receiver and tomtom software
2. Very Small laptop with GPS receiver

3. I have a free cd-player sized slot in my dash board, and was wandering if there is anyway that I could mount some kind of LCD screen which could fold away into there when the car is parked. (this would be preffered option if financially viable)

I'm not 100% how the software licensing works, and will I have to pay a subscription charge to some kind of service provider for using a GPS receiver?

Will I need to pay monthly/annualy for using the GPS software?

Any help would be most appreciated, and im sorry if you've heard this kind of thing over and over again.

[Whizzergo]

Can anyone help guys?

[Darren]

Welcome, GPS is free, hard to believe I know but there is no charge for accessing the GPS system.

There are LCD displays that will fit a standard DIN slot but if you wanted one to interface to a latop you'd need one that has VGA input and these are rare and expensive. The other options is a dedicated Nav system that fits a DIN Slot with motorised screen such as the ones Alpine and Panasonic sell but again they're expensive (£1000+) and can't warn of safety cameras.

Your best option by far is either a GO type device or perhaps a PocketPC.

The only additional costs that may arise are if you subscribe to a service such as TomTom Traffic, this is subscription based and there will also be costs incurred with your phone provider as the data is accessed via GPRS using a suitable equipped cellphone.
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Darren Griffin

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