Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Hanover/Hamburg confusion & GPS receivers

I had to go to DVS in Hanover last year here and due to a bit of travel confusion arrived at the wrong airport! Thankfully the GPS in the hire-car got us the few hundred kilometers without incident and at that point I realised how cool it was. The unit in the BMW was running Destinator and it was really usable. Over the weekend I noticed that MicroDirect had the Packard Bell GPS400 on special at £124!
It arrived yesterday and after the obligatory update to latest firmware I took it out for a spin. It works really well with a loud clear voice and accurate navigation. Version 5.5 brings proper postcode entry as well as faster lock (it never dropped below seven satellites locked - it needs four to maintain accurate positioning). The 3D map is a joy to use and I think with the decent accessory kit it represents brilliant value for money.
Another good thing is that (being just a Windows CE PDA - 266Mhz StrongARM processor) you can install alternative navigation packages. TomTom 5 works well (apparently) as does OziExplorer. It also has the obligatory MP3 player and Photo viewer but I'll not be wasting any time with those!

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