Need GPS system for European vacation

[quan]

Help Please;

I am looking for a pocketpc GPS solution to use for my upcoming European vacation. Can anyone gives me a recommendation of what to buy including the pocketpc itself (hp, toshiba,etc. / maps & softward and gps receiver, etc).

I am looking for a reasonable price system that is simple to operate but performs well. This is for European. Once vacation is completed, I will convert to US maps.

Hope some expert out there can give me a good complete system recommendation. Many thanks

[JvanEkris]

Well,

hardwarewise you should go where your heart goes....

Softwarewise you have two options: TomTom (www.tomtom.com) Alturion(www.alturion.com).Huge advantage of Alturion is that you buy the complete europe maps at once. On your laptop you can select the area's you want on your PocketPC. Geographical borders do not matter at all with this product. A friend of mine used it to travel from Amsterdam to Milano and made a corridor of 20 kilometers across for the way to milano (including hotels and restaurants) and a circle of 120 kilometers around Milano when traveling there. The GUI is less perfect, but it is a very good product.

For TomTom you have to buy at least one country. Included are the "Major Roads of europe": the highways. If you wan't detailed navigation you have to buy Maps of western europe, which is another $180. IMHO, A huge disadvantage of TomTom is that it simply impossible to navigate between two maps (=countries). A very good GUI, but a less perfect product in that respect.

A practical tip is to check for the use of checkpoint. Checkpoint is a tool that keeps track of speedcamera's:D

Jaap

[rhmorrison]

In Europe another popular package is the PowerLOC Destinator (http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/destinatorsw.php).

In any case, Pocket GPS World (http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/index.php) has a lot of info on this topic.