After a year of trying to figure out which GPS system to get, I finally made my decision. On the advice of a friend, I purchased an iPAQ 2415 and the HP bluetooth GPS. I'm amazed at how well this this works as a navigational system. Not bad for a PDA that also runs 802.11b and syncs my email with our Exchange server directly.

The whole story is here: http://silvertank.batcave.net/GPS.htm

 

very phat!

i'd get one but i hardly ever leave my town, so it'd just be for looks.
how was the installation? it looks very nice

nice shift boot btw

 

it's the 21st century

 

I think that's what he meant as the joke. He is so behind the times that he is finally up to the standards of the last century, in the next century.

 

Yup, and I finally got indoor plumbing last week. No more trips to the outhouse.

Brent,
Install was super easy. The Arkon unit expands inside the lighter socket when you tighten the nut, so it's very easy to make it secure. The whole thing is very flexible, which makes for easy positioning.
The PDA and GPS have long life lithium-ion batteries, so I don't have to worry about power unless it's a real long trip.

 

I can't get over how pristine your interior looks. Do you actually drive that thing? My truck is less than half as old as yours and looks like the underside of the sewer drain at a 20 y/o prison in comparison! You must have installed armor-all jets in the head-liner..

Sweet setup, that's pretty trick. How do you interact w/ it when underway? Can you tap the screen to change settings/zoom, etc? If so, how usable is it? My GF has a touchscreen nav system built into her car ('03 Toyota Prius). It is pretty usable. It also has spoken 'assistance' through the audio system. I have to say, I'm a bit jealous of the setup..

 

Thanks Colin, I appreciate the compliment. I spray every new vehicle with at least two cans of ScotchGard the minute I get them home. My truck has a small interior, so you can imagine just how much ScotchGard is in the seats and carpets

I also don't have to deal with snow and ice, which means less dirt gets tracking in. My Catch-alls are starting to look like crap, and will be replaced soon. I'll never get grey floor mats again. No matter what color interior you have, always get black.

The PDA has a touch screen that responds pretty good to finger touch. HP made the buttons bigger on the navigational software, so you can hit them with your finger tips. Once the thing is running, there's really no need to adjust it. The unit will self adjust the map to make it easier to read. At 1,000 feet before each turn, a "count-down" bar appears on the left; so you get a visual signal of how close you are to the turn. It's a very well designed system. I put it a few notches ahead of the Hertz NeverLost.

 

Yeah yeah, no snow and ice. But surely you've got dirt & mud!

I've never used Hertz's system, but speaking from experience w/ GF's set, you do run into times when you want to scroll or zoom somewhere the computer doesn't think you do. Often we'll be on our way somewhere and I'll want to check how far something is from our path, just to see if maybe we can swing by on our way. Or sometimes we're heading somewhere new in the area, but don't set the destination, we just fly by the map. W/ a driver and a navigator it actually works pretty well. My least favorite feature of the Toyota system is it locks some features out when you're moving. This drives me nuts as often one of us will be driving and the other working the nav system. It would be nice to have the extra features available.

One of the coolest features is the POI (Points Of Interest) button. Tap that and resturants, shopping centers, etc are shown on the map. You can then sort through a list or graphically pick one from the map. It worked out fabulously when we drove cross country a few years back. We'd roll into no-where's-ville Dakota at 8 at night and instantly be able to find some chow and a place to crash. NICE!

 

The Toyota system must be the same as Hertz, since it will also lock the controls if you play with it while moving. Mine just has an initial screen that asks you not to play with the unit while moving, after that it leaves you alone.

The HP nav system will allow you to pan the screen around by just holding the stylus (or finger) on the map and then dragging in the direction to move. It works pretty well. It also has thousands of POI's that you can click on when you see their icons. I usually turn them off, since they clutter the screen when driving in the city. The unit will also show you all hotels, restaurants, or other POI's in a given city. The only downfall is you have to load that's city's map in the PDA. I have all of Florida loaded, and that's about 30 meg. No problemo for my 1 gig SD card, but it could be an issue if you want to just use the 70 meg of internal memory.

 

If that's the 20th century I must have just gotten into the 19th. I got a Garmin eTrex Legend for Christmas/bday and I love it...screw you and your new-fangled fancy...look at how quickly I can find things self....oh yeah, congrats on a kickass gadget :)

 

Sweet setup George! It looks like a really functional system. My GPS is very old, it barely has more features than a compass!

 

I doubt the Toy's system is the same as the Hertz's, although I'm sure it's similar. Although it too has a HIGHLY annoying splash/warning screen that comes up every time you start the vehicle. Seems to me you should be able to disable it or something. After a given driver views it the first time, having it splashed again and again and again everytime you power up the vehicle seems pretty dumb to me. But then were they to do that they'd be open for a lawsuit, no?!

Bryan, enjoy that Legend. I have had one for ~8 mo now and love it. I use mine more for hiking than I do for navigation in the vehicle. Unlike my GF and some others, I still know how to read an honest to gawd paper map! But the etrex is fun outdoors. I have the National Geographic topo map set for the north-east and have a good time overlaying my hiking trip way/track points over the maps. It even gives you cuttaway elevation profiles to show assent/decent. Good times. Someday I'll get really into it and start dropping waypoints when I take photographs. Then I could put together little maps that show photos from given points on the hike!

 

Very nice...

yeah, my GPS is a Map

 

I finally won an eBay auction and have been the proud owner of a Garmin 2620 for about a month.
Works great, very user friendly has maps of the whole USA + Canada and Mexico.
I often try to trick it by going off route and it just warns me, tries to redirect me back onto it's set course, then gives up and reroutes me from the point I am at.
Touch screen and a remote control.

Just like my boats chartplotter it gives you all kinds of warnings about how they are not liable and you should not program it while operating the vessel or automobile.
With both of them on start up you have to agree to this, but if you let it sit it gives up on that too (after displaying the warning the whole time) and then goes to work.
Garmin also has a PDA they sell that is a very good unit. (so I have been told by owners)

I can't wait to use my GPS at Wharton in 10 days - let's see how that thing navigates the Pineys.....

 

looks awesome!! :D

 

My gazeteer works pretty good.

My interior still looks like that Colin, when I clean it, do you ever clean yours? :p

 

Sure I clean it.. But then I get back into the truck!

Everything in the truck has a little bit of wear on it now. Vents have dust/dirt in those really hard to reach places (which I'm not willing to put the effort into to get to), there are scuff marks on frequently used controls and surfaces, and the pedals/floor is permanantly discollored w/ dirt and grime that just won't come off. I chalk it up to normal use. It is a daily driver afterall. My interior might look like that for the first 10 min after I clean it, but not on an average day..

 

Mine is still pretty pristine when I clean it, which isn't very often. Everything in our trucks is black, well in mine anyway. I guess you have the bezel that is silver or gray or whatever. Anyway, it's pretty hard to stain black carpet, but little flecks of stuff show up real nice.

 

The black carpet isn't quite black anymore. One New England winter's worth of salt and dirt and it'll take a professional carpet cleaner to get it somewhat black again, which is more effort than I think it is worth. Afterall, it is a truck..

Mostly I was speaking to his interior treatment though. My interior doesn't shine that well 98% of the time. That's probably my fault though..

 

The shine comes from my religious use of this product

 

That's what I use. I call it "Soul Glow" Let your soul glow!!!

Sexual chocolate!

 

Ahh. Ahhh. If lovin' the lord is wrong, I don't want to be right! Ahhh. I love the lord. Do you love the lord? He loves the lord..