Questions questions questions!

GIV · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 10, 2004 Posts: 15

Hi,

First post here so please be gentle with me!

I have spent the whole morning reading the forums here in an attempt to sort things out for myself, but I`m afraid that has resulted in more questions than I had before I found the site! Confused

I am planning to buy one of the Aldi / Medion units on Thursday. What I would like to use it for 1) is speed camera alerts in the UK 2) finding places within the UK 3) route planning whilst in Europe 4) route planning whilst in the USA.

I can see that there are various POI imports that can add UK speed camera alerts - will these work with the preloaded software on this unit, or do I need to buy a Tomtom subscription and change over the software to that for the POI download addons to work?

I know that as the Aldi deal hasnt shipped yet nobody really knows what the supplied software will cover or not. However as an educated guess, do you think I would be better off to look elsewhere for Euro mapping?

What would be the best US mapping solution? In an ideal world I would like something which I can run on my laptop (for route planning when not in the car - say in the motel each evening). Do any of the available packages provide an MS Autoroute sort of PC enviroment?

Whilst on the subject of Autoroute, I have the Euro 2004 edition. Will I be able to export routes to the Medion?

Again I this will be hard to answer - I would imagine - but could the GPS mouse included in the Aldi deal be hooked up to my laptop in some way??

I would also be interested to know what forum members think about buying MMC over SD cards (I am thinking of ordering a couple in advance of Thursday)

Lastly, nothing to do with GPS,,, but does anybody know if the previous Medion units were any good as .mp3 players?

Sorry for being such a newbie and sorry for so many questions - I have plenty more, but these are the main ones!

Paul

Steveg · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 3:38 pm Post subject:

Hi Paul (says steve very gently indeed!) :D

Welcome

I cannot possibly answer all your questions I'm afraid, but I can give you some general advice if I may? (I am sure someone will be along in a minute who will know and answer what you need to know!

1) The Aldi Medion system goes on sale on Thursday - BE EARLY - I know a number of people who have tried to buy computers from them when they go on sale, most have been disappointed - I went along to my local Aldi last thursday to buy a mountain bike as that was the weekly offer, fortunately I was first in the queue as they sold 10 bikes in the first 5 minutes, and, whilst they are good, the price is not that outstanding (ASDA for instance sell similar bikes for only £10 more) - This Medion deal looks very good indeed so I would expect many people to be there to get one.

2) Finding places and route planning in the UK is what it is being sold as so yes it will fit that bill - but I cannot tell you whether you can use poi files with it nor can you buy maps for Europe or the USA - So saying you will still have a sat nav system for nearly the price of what I paid for the PDA alone. What I am trying to say is try it out first there is no reason why you can't at a later stage buy other software to replace the navigation software supplied - the PDA/memory card and GPS unit will still work with the other software (ask for it as a Christmas present if necessary) For instance TomTom software can add maps for both the areas you mention.

Personally I would not buy any memory cards in advance of your purchase - you may not get one yet - it is not unknown, I was told by regulars in the queue last Thursday, for there to be only one item per store, and if a particularly spectacular item then a member of staff may have bought it!!

I cannnot tell you of the quality of this item particularly, but if it compares to the Medion PC's which have been on sale then it should be very good - The PC's have acheived very high ratings in computer magazines. Again I can only tell you rumour but I hear that the support people can be a bit of a challenge to get hold of, but when you do the problem is usually sorted out.

I Think thats it for me here

Hope it all goes well for you

Steve

GIV · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 10, 2004 Posts: 15

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the input.

I have the perfect weapon in the fight to get hold of the unit from Aldi - I`ve given the job to my dad!!

I will be on my way to Berlin (where to be honest I could do with the satnav as I have a lot of driving arround the city to do) so I cant get to Aldi at all.... therefore I`ve subbed out the job!

Knowing my dad, he will be first in the que - pushing other people out of the way Laughing

Cheers
Paul

Darren · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 5:46 pm Post subject:

Just taken a look at the Aldi site, £269.99!! Flippin 'ell!! In the absence of any information as to what software they are bundling then I cannot say what if any POI facilities it will have, the same goes for the GPS as there is scant information on whether it is a Mouse, CF or whetever.

The good news is it appears to come with a 256Mb MMC card which is plenty to be going on with. SD are faster but in normal use apart from copying files to them you will not notice any speed difference.

For the previous offering the software covered UK down to street level and the rest of Europe had major roads coverage, you would not be able to download routes from Autoroute but then why would you want to as the device will be more than capable of calculating these itself. You can happily plan routes on it in the comfort of your home or hotel room.

As for US software, it should be NMEA compliant so will run any compatible package, few have a PC client although CoPilot does, a cheap alternative for infrequent use is Mapopolis.

The origianal Medion offering functioned fine as an MP3 player and even if no software comes with this unit (unlikely) there are many excellent MP3 players available and one of the best PocketMusic is free.

Good luck in getting one Thumbs Up

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Darren Griffin

GIV · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 10, 2004 Posts: 15

Hi,

I think I`m right in saying that the route planning software will probably be Navigon? (Going by what is said in the forum for that here - it seems all the previous Aldi units have used this).

Also there seems to be mention there of POI Warner working with that software.

I can not stress enough that for UK driving it is the speed camera alerts that I`m interested in most (sounds big headed, but I dont really need too many directions when driving in the UK, in Europe and the States its a different deal!)

I have another question (which is probably laughably basic, but there you are!) If I get one of these (fingers crossed) can they just be turned on when you jump in the car and allowed to plot your position as you drive along. Or do you HAVE to input a route first and then follow that???

I understand that if you have no route in, it doesnt know where you want to go so there will be no directions/instructions.

It is just that the idea of having my position mapped on the screen would probably be very useful to me.

Paul

Darren · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 6:34 pm Post subject:

Certainly all the Medion units previously released have come with Navigon but I wouldn't assume that is definitely the case here, if it is Navigon then yes POI Warner will do a good job of alerting you to the Speed Camera POI's. If it not Navigon then you may have problems.

Most applications will function as a moving map with no need to have an 'active' route plotted and still provide POI alerts as you drive.

I personally don't like the Navigon software but others find it suits there needs perfectly. Navigon use Navteq maps and the last Aldi bundle had maps that were bang up to date.
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Darren Griffin

GIV · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 10, 2004 Posts: 15

Hi Darren,

From what I`ve seen in the Navigon forum also here it seems that most people think this is the self same unit as Halfords are selling for GB 399.00

That is to say the MDPPC 250, which has Navigon onboard (with the maps on the MMC card)

The link to the item on Halfords website is

http://www.halfords.com/opd_product_details.asp?id=18886

The Aldi one is here -

http://www.aldi-stores.co.uk/specials_01_11/offers_nav.htm

They sure look the same!

Rgds
Paul

Darren · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 6:57 pm Post subject:

Definitely the same unit, I hadn't realised Halfords had got a new bundle out. Given that information I'd agree it is more than likely that it will come with Navigon.
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Darren Griffin

Tree · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 10:32 am Post subject:

I went into Halfords last week and they were awaiting their £399.99 GPS on Thursday morning same as Aldi was! But, theirs is a bit dearer (and in stock) ...!

Darren · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 1:48 pm Post subject:

AN extra £100 is more than a bit dearer!
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Darren Griffin

Tree · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 3:43 pm Post subject:

Yes indeed so and they came by the same delivery van and they are about a mile apart!

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