TomTom GPS for Palm OS Tungsten T3 PDAs

mohdock · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 13, 2004 Posts: 3

Some questions relating to TomTom GPS for Palm OS Tungsten T3 PDAs (I would welcome the chance to have a chat with someone who has this product):

1. Can it be set to calculate the shortest route rather than the quickest?
2. Is there any control over choice of roads when calculating a route?
2. Is it possible to save new points of interest or in any way save locations.

Thanks for any help
Cheers
Mark

andyblissett · Regular Visitor Joined: Jun 20, 2004 Posts: 65

I dont have it, but I would suspect that you could change the average estimated speed for each road. Therefore, if you were to set all the speeds the same, so motorway=40mph, a roads =40mph a roads=40 mph etc etc, then the quickest route would be the same as the shortest route, if you follow my thoughts.

andrewh · Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 9:22 am Post subject:

I have had my tomtom for T3 for less than a month but think I can answer your questions:

1. Not as far as I can see. When it calculates a route you can instruct it to find an alternative but that is not always shorter or quicker. One point to make is that route selection is pretty good. A couple of time I have found new routes between familiar places that I did not know existed (and they were quicker and/or quieter)

2. You cannot tell it to use a particular road but you can tell it to avoid part of a route (instruction by instruction), travel via a specific place (e.g. a road intersection) or avoid a roadblock ahead (not so useful)

3. You can save favourites and then use them in planning. Support for POI databases will come in late summer (still waiting) and let's hope that someone starts work on a checkpoint like application for Palm OS.

One other point. This is a wonderful tool and I love the big screen used in landscape mode. So much clearer than a piddly wee screen. You can call me by all means but I live in Belgium and have so far used TT in Belgium, France, Spain with zero mapping issues execpt some POIs placed a few metres wrong. Let me know if you want to talk.

Andrew

mohdock · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 13, 2004 Posts: 3

Andrew

Did you consider buying Navman SmartST? I am torn between it and TomTom. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Mark

andrewh · Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2004 10:36 am Post subject:

Yes I did consider it but I just liked th elook of Tomtom's UI (It really is super nice) and felt that it is a new platform on which the whole company depends. therefore, upgrades and improvements are likely to come at a decent rate.

The Navman has one advantage in that it uses AA batteries in the BT receiver. However, in a couple of years the technology will have moved on so much that we will probably all change system anyway and so a dead Tomtom battery will not be such a bad thing. Get a new one and leave the old one permanently wired in the car!

I will be fascinated to see the upgrade path for TT. Already we are promised POI databases within a couple of months followed by a Checkpoint type add-on. I am sure traffic will come very quickly and all these functions will be properly integrated in the Palm application. I really do not want to spend my life trying to make a PocketPC work Rolling Eyes

Hopefully next year we will see WAAS implemented for more accuracy now that the USA and EU have agreed to standardise on all GPS systems.

It really is a market that is going to change the world in a couple of years. Imagine advertising on mobile phones by directing people into a shop when they are standing outside it! You do not like spam SMS, imagine spam driving or walking instructions. Ooh the possibilities Twisted Evil

Also the T3 in landscape mode is just so cool Mr. Green

HTH
Andrew

mohdock · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 13, 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks for the insights and information.
Very helpful.

Cheers
Mark

MikeB · Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:33 pm Post subject:

Sorry Mark I missed this post.

The TomTom Common Navigation Engine does not allow the prioritising of roads or routes. The Palm version was the first release of the sofware, and it will be developed further, becoming the common TomTom product base over the next few releases.

In the (hopefully very) near future there will be a software upgrade which will allow User Costomisable POIs, which will include a POI detector. This will be backwards compatible with existing POI files ie our Speed Camera database.

In the mean time you can set locations as favorites, but this is very limited if you want to put quite a few in.
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