Nice bundle and integration with Palm
Written: Feb 18 '06 (Updated Feb 22 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Pocket size GPS; can to navigate to Palm contact addresses; 3D map view
Cons: GPS sometimes slow to acquire position; Install procedure on Mac is unnecessarily convoluted
The Bottom Line: Good value and quality bundle. Makes good use of Palm interface and features. Good way to avoid being late.
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| collin_ong's Full Review: Palm 3207NA Car GPS Receiver |
This bundle includes the Tom Tom Navigator 5 software for Palm OS, a bluetooth GPS unit, charging cables, and a windshield mount.
The package is very complete and quite well thought out. For example the charging cable has a cigarette lighter plug on one end, and two outputs on the other end: a PDA charging plug compatible with the Treo 650 and a USB male mini plug for plugging into the GPS unit. You won't find this item in any accessory slot and it saves you from having the clumsy clutter of a splitter tap hanging off your cigarette lighter socket. There is an additional USB full size USB type A to USB male mini plug that you can use to charge the GPS from the USB ports on your computer. I like this because you don't have to carry around another AC adapter for this thing and can just charge if from my laptop. The unit takes a few hours to charge via USB. I haven't timed it when charging in the car because I just leave it there overnight.
The windshield mount has a suction cup on one end of the flexible stalk and a grip cradle on the other end to hold your PDA. I wish they included a vent mount instead or in addition, since I don't prefer the windshield mount style. The suction cup has difficulty gripping onto curved parts of the windshield, so I couldn't stick it in the corner between the left door window and the steering wheel, but it did stick well in the middle of the windshield. It's quite stiff, but it is still prone to shaking when you go over a bigger bump.
I use a Treo 650 and after some install difficulties, got the Tom Tom Navigator 5 software running on my PDA phone. The software on your PDA includes two applications the main "Navigator" app and another "Contacts" app that lists all the names in your Palm contact database and then lets you select a name from that list and send their address to the Navigator app to display a map of the surrounding area or navigate from your current position to that address. This is a nice level of integration, because it's likely that you have many of the addresses you want to go to already in your address book. However, it would be nice if the Navigator application could work directly with the address book data instead of it being in a separate app.
The Navigator application is really cool in its map display because instead of showing a normal 2d overhead map, it can show the view in 3D, sort of like the view from a bird flying up above your current position, You can use the Treo's 5-way controller to adjust the view height from lower to high enough to see the entire region. The current route is shown in red with the turns marked in green. Your current position is shown with a big arrow and the whole view scrolls as you drive. You can also switch the view to a normal 2D overheap map view.
The bottom left of the screen shows the next navigation direction and distance to it (Turn left in 500 yards, etc). The bottom right shows the distance to the destination, time remaining to destination, and, the most useful to me, estimated time of arrival (ETA). When I first got this, I thought that it would only be used rarely, when I got lost or was heading to someplace unfamiliar. However, the ETA function has totally changed the way that I drive for the better. Before, I would always be worried about being late and drive faster than I had to in order to make sure I got there on time. Now, with the ETA function, I can drive just as fast as necessary. If you see the ETA being a bit too late, speed up a little until you get the time you need.
You can also have a voice reading off the upcoming directions using the speakerphone on the back of the Treo and is surprisingly loud even when the volume is only halfway up. A number of different voices, male and female in numerous languages are supplied on the CD and you can also purchase more, including novelty celebrity voices on the Tom Tom site.
The user interface of the Tom Tom Navigator is also quite good, with large on screen buttons to make it easy to see/press while driving and it makes good user of the 5-way directional controller as well. It lets you program in your home address so its easy to find your way home and the process for selecting a destination address is very nice, like some installed GPS units I've seen in luxury cars. You type in the city name (the field narrows as you type) and then the street name and then the address number. You can options to select how the route is calculated: fastest, shortest, etc. You can also set the unit for car, bicycle or walking mode, which alters how the route is calculated, since, for example, you can cross certain areas on foot that you can't in a car.
Some other features of the software let you plan a multipoint itinerary, switch to night colors, add your own favorite places, see the GPS channels, satellites the GPS is tracking and your Latitude/Longitude and your current speed.
Maps for numerous areas around the world are also included on the CD, although I have only used the Western US area so far. Although I have found the maps around my area in Sacramento, CA to be quite accurate, others have reported numerous inaccuracies especially in new areas and even some older ones. I found that newly built neighborhoods about 1 year old were not included in the maps. I hear that Tom Tom is about to release a map update so I hope recent purchasers can get the update for free.
Calculation of routes to places within the city take place very fast, about 5 seconds on my Treo 650. Routes to another city, for example, from Sacramento to the bay area take longer to calculate, about 1 minute, due to the numerous options it has for roads, highways, and bridges to reach the destination.
When driving around, the program gives you plenty of warning to prepare for the next waypoint, first when it is 1 mile away, then 0.5, then continuously starting at 500 yards away. If you miss the checkpoint, the software will automatically recalculate a new route in a few seconds and give you the new directions.
I did not try installing the software using Windows, only using Mac OS X. The first part of the process works ok to load Navigator onto your Palm, but for some reason the installer did not show the option to load maps like the instructions said it should. I finally solved it by downloading an updated installer file from the Tom Tom website.
I recommend using a USB 2.0 card reader to install the maps, because it will take hours if you do it via hotsync. The maps must be installed onto a SD card because of their large size.
Tom Tom also offers some additional features that work with your PDA's internet connection. These are things like downloading local weather and traffic reports. However, I have not found the traffic reports in my area to be useful yet. Once I was sitting in a traffic jam and did an update on the traffic data and it showed no delays for my position. Another time, it showed a potential delay about 20 miles away on my route. I get the feeling that they are using the highway patrol's accident data for this, but I'm not sure if it will ever show stuff like a normal traffic jam that isn't because of an accident. Your experience may vary depending on your area. Normally Tom Tom wants you to pay to subscribe to traffic services but currently offer it for free through the end of 2006. If it continues to be as inaccurate as I've found, it wouldn't be worth paying for, though. I wish they used all the Tom Tom units out there to report back traffic speeds via the internet, now that would be useful.
The GPS unit itself is a small, fitting in the palm of your hand. It has an on/off switch, a charging/USB port, and an external antenna port. Both ports are covered with durable rubber covers that are well-attached to the body of the unit so you won't lose them. It's a bit slow to acquire position (about 1-2 minutes) being a SIRF II unit, not the latest SIRF III units, but once it starts tracking it works well. Since it uses a Bluetooth connection, you can upgrade to the latest hardware anytime by buying a new bluetooth GPS unit and it should work with the rest of this setup. I haven't tried the GPS antenna port yet.
As I mentioned, it can be charged either from the cigarette lighter port in your car and also from a USB port on a computer. The GPS unit connects to the Treo using a Bluetooth wireless connection and this works out great because you can place the GPS anywhere to get a good signal without worrying about wires running all over the place. I found that I could partially open my sunroof sliding cover, put the unit up there and hold it in place by closing the cover. This way the unit gets an unobstructed view of the sky and doesn't slide around on the dash.
I haven't tried this yet, but I think this could be useful during hiking as well. Put the GPS in your backpack and view on your handheld phone or PDA in your hand or pocket.
Overall, the Palm GPS Navigator bundle is well thought out and functions very well. It includes everything you need to get started and the total price is less than if you tried to assemble all the pieces yourself.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
collin_ong
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Member: Collin Ong
Location: Sacramento, California
Reviews written: 98
Trusted by: 47 members
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