Dixons deal - a good buy?

Yalan · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 06, 2003 Posts: 8

Guys hi I'm new on here!

I did tell myself I'd read up on everything and make a purchase in the new year - but I just couldn't help myself!

Today & tomorrow Dixons are doing a further 10% off their TomTom package (which was already in the sale). Now down to £450 for a Ipaq h1940 and a TomTom2 Bluetooth GPS kit.

Sound like a good deal? I thought so but haven't really researched web prices yet! I've had an Alpine Nav befor but wanted something more discreet and portable & this seems to fulfill the need.

Questions I have are:
1) is the 266 processor going to be enough & future compatable with new software?
2) what probs will I have without an extra mem card (56K available now)
3) to fix it in the car I have no cradle of any type. I've seen special magnets to hold mobile phones in the car (special ones to not interfere with the electronics / screens) - could I use one of these to mount the PDA?

Thanks Guys

Al

Dave · Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2003 8:51 pm Post subject:

1) 266mhz processor is okay, many running older PPC's run 150Mhz or 206Mhz, you will see a different running a 400Mhz processor, but running a 266Mhz really won't impact you much.

2) You need a storage card, UK maps alone come in at around 95mb, so you need to load these to storage card.

3) You could, but personally I prefer vent mounts, check out a cheap alternative... http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/theclipventmount.php

There have been a lot of concern recently with the TomTom Bluetooth GPS Receivers giving up the ghost after long charges, but there have been a lot sold, and it only seems a small percentage are having this problem (although we have had two now go like this).

Yalan · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 06, 2003 Posts: 8

Cheers dave -

The extra card thing, it does say you can save maps in 16, 32 64M chunks. Can I just save the South-east on the machine now & upgrade to a sizeable memory at a later date? or will I need 95M of space to get it working now?

I've just seen the 'Safety' camera downloads on the site.....this just gets better & better!

Any Idea if you can hardwire a power supply into the GPS reciever? Sounds a bit annoying to have to take it in every night to charge.....

cheers! great site btw!

Yalan · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 06, 2003 Posts: 8

Note to self - read the web site before asking dumb newbie questions!

OK so you can hardwire the reciever into the car. Would this get around the 'over charging' issue?

Dave · Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2003 11:33 pm Post subject:

There really isn't enough storage space in the Pocket PC to properly support maps, so it's best to purchase an SD card. They're not expensive, you can pick up a 128mb for around £30-40.

I don't think hardwiring will get over the overcharging. The main problem that is seen is that if the GPS is off/on and charging for extended periods of time, at some point it just stops working. We're not too sure what it is causing it as most of the time it's fine, then suddenly, bang. So we think it's probably more down to a spike, which you will still get from a permanently charging connection in-car.

A lot of people are happy with the TomTom BT GPS, but there do seem to be some issues here.

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