blue tooth or sleeve gps?

[francispjones]

i posses a 3970 -am planing a trip to the us -
1/ do i purchase there and buy the street maps in australia
2/ do i buy the sleeve version or the blue tooth gps

[Sven Johannsen]

1) keep in mind there isn't a decent PPC mapping program around that doesn't require you to load the appropriate maps into the PPC from some PC. That's just to remind you that if you purchase something in the states, you'll need some way of getting the maps onto your PPC. Theoretically if you opted for Mapopolis you could download individual counties straight to the PPC.

If the US maps are available in Australia, you will have the opportunity to select the ones you will be needing and copy them to storage media you can copy from when needed.

2) BT. I gather the 3970 has BT? Don't recall at the moment. HP has killed sleeves. If you go that route, when your 3970 dies, or you move on, you will have a nice GPS sleeve paperweight. Straight BT GPS will be much more flexible.

[hollis_f]

2). Go for the Bluetooth. As well as Sven's reason there are two others -

a) My Navman sleeve took ages to find the satellites. And I gather similar problems are still present with other sleeves. RF leakage from the PPC interferes with the GPS signal reception.

b) Often (especially in many newer cars with heated windscreens) the GPS signal at the dashboard is poor. With a BT GPS you can have the GPS receiver anywhere in the car and the PPC where you can best see the screen. With a sleeve you either have the GPS where there's no signals or the PPC where you can't see it.

[francispjones]

thanks for the info -will purchase the blue tooth- the maps will be for back in aus- not sure of the software price of maps alone but i guess they're avalible;our co pilot couplled with street maps is around 1200 bucks bit rich i think

[Janak Parekh]

2) BT. I gather the 3970 has BT? Don't recall at the moment.
Yes, the 3x70 units have BT. :) I'd agree too -- the only downside of BT GPS is that you have a separate battery to be charged. But the mobility of the BT GPS between devices and between locations in your vehicle/bag/whatever certainly is worthwhile.

--janak

[Sven Johannsen]

the only downside of BT GPS is that you have a separate battery to be charged.
--janak
Some of the BT setups even come with a charger splitter so you can use one charger, home or auto, and charge both the PPC and GPS when needed. The Socket does, I know.

[Jereboam]

So does the Fortuna Clipon, and the advantage over the Emtac and Socket units is that it has a replaceable battery, just normal Nokia phones batteries available everywhere...not just for extended use but some people have had issues with their Socket/Emtac internal batteries dying prematurely. Better be safe than sorry, plus the Fortuna offers XT mode which is useful for navigating under foliage or around tall buildings in an urban situation.

The Fortuna comes with a universal USB plug type charger, with the required adapters so you can charge in the car or at home, or indeed from a USB port although I haven't actually tried that yet.

It means that for both your iPaq and the Fortuna you only have to carry one charger with you when you are on the road, useful.

J'bm