Need GPS (navigation) advice. Street Pilot vs. Palm

[Moses]

I was talking to my wife about the old Garmin Street Pilot thread and surprizingly she said she would like to have some sort of in-car navigation. It's rare to get the new gadget green light, so it's time to do my research.

Here's my question: With the Street Pilot III, how are specific addresses (destinations) entered into the unit? Do you have to load the address from your PC before you leave the house? I don't see a keyboard on the unit so how do you enter different destinations?

Second question. I'm thinking of getting a Palm T3. Are the add-on GPS units comparable in performance to the Street Pilot?

[Jack Olsen]

I don't know anything about the Palm, but you enter addresses into the StreetPilot by using the thumbwheel to rotate through the alphabet. It's not ideal, but the unit eliminates letters that aren't used, so there are fewer and fewer ones to roll through as you move further into the street name, for example.

Does that make sense? You choose the first letter, then the second, and the machine keeps offering you only the choices that are actually used in the street names in its data bank, so you can't enter a made up word that has never been used to name a street, for example.

In practice, you get used to it pretty quickly, like sending text messages with a cell phone or thumbing a two-way pager.

[LeRoux Strydom]

Like I said in the other thread, I recommend the Garmin iQue 3600. It has the same maps, address lookup and voice navigation capability as the Streetpilot, as well as being a regular Palm, at a much lower price than the Streetpilot. The iQue has an on-screen keyboard or you can write longhand in the text-recognition area. Check out Garmin's website for more details.

LeRoux

[MY83SC]

>>>Love the Garmin products... saved mt ARSE in the ocean....Not to mention the street

[Jupiter]

I am using the streetpilot for over two years, and I really love it, but if I had to buy one now I would go for the Garmin iQue 3660 for the reasons LeRoux mentioned above

[Bothari]

I would allways take a palm or pocket pc -based solution. The iQue is supposed to be pretty good, the latest T3 is suposed tobe freakin' amazing *and* it has blue tooth so just about any BT enabled gps unit should work with it (Allways investigate specifics!). It also has sd/io so those cute lil' sd GPS cards should also work with it though this is usually more vendor-dependent.

If for some reason you want a pocket pc (usually more options but way more buggy and hard to work with) , the greatest thing coming is probably toshiba's e800 with BT(or wi/fi), CF and SD/io, as well as a 480x640 resolution screen.

[ruf-porsche]

Brought a Palm and GPS accessory for my brother a couple of christmas ago. He rarely uses it since you must down load the location that you want to go into the palm and the info that is downloaded into the Palm is not that great so if you wonder outside the boundary, you need to download additional info, or if you're lost and didn't`have the other info downloaded you're out of luck.

[LeRoux Strydom]

Did I mention the fact that the iQue takes SD memory cards, so the amount of map data (down to street level with residential address detail) is only limited to how much you can spend on SD cards. I have two 256MB cards that take all the data I will ever need. What's more, if you don't really need streetlevel data for some areas, you can superimpose the basemap data (mostly highways and major roads) with only those streetlevel maps of the areas that you really need, in order to save memory. Therefore, if you stray from the areas shown in your detailed maps, you still have the basemap data to navigate with. Only thing missing in the basemap data is the address lookup feature.

LeRoux

[Joeaksa]

After using the Street Pilot for almost three years, it takes very little time to either enter the address or find almost any business location, which is already in the database.

Just bought a Jag recently that has GPS onboard. It takes twice the time to enter addresses and the database is half what Garmin has to offer. Garmin really did their homework when they put it together.

You save the information for individual areas or regions before leaving the house. It takes a USB cable where you plug the chip in and save what you need, so you can also do it on the road, or just map out your entire route for a trip beforehand. Addresses or routes are up to you in the car. I have a 128 meg chip (off of Ebay for $50 or so) in my SP3 now and it has in it the entire area and information for: LA basin area, Santa Barbara area, SFO/Oakland area, San Diego area, Phoenix/Flagstaff/Tucson areas, Atlanta area, Cleveland area, Buffalo/Niagara Falls/St. Catherines/Toronto areas, Orlando areas, Ft.Lauderdale/Boca/Miami areas.

Everyone of these areas you save on the chip contains every friggin home address there is, every gas station, resturant, hotel, meeting place, police station and so on. You need to go to a hotel, bring up "hotels option" and either ask for the nearest or enter part of the name and it brings it up, the address and phone number. You can then call ahead for availablity before moving one foot. Same with the resturants and you have their phone number to call for reservations and so on.

JoeA

[RickM]

I'm going with the Compaq/HP IPAQ with Tom/Tom Navigation system (there are several brands to choose from).

Not only can I use it for directions (Street, Trail, Air, Water) but to watch movies, play MP3s and other nice-to-have stuff. Palm may offer the same capabilities but I prefer the Windows OS.

[Moses]

Great info guys. Thanks. I'm glad to hear how the data entry on the Street Pilot works. Sounds like the Palm might require loading of addresses prior to departure which is something I want to avoid.

Now that Street Pilot is on sale at Costco, it just might find it's way under my tree for Christmas!

[RickM]

For anyone interested here's a demo of the Tom Tom option....considered one of the better packages for pocket PC or Smart phones.

http://www.tomtom.com/products/products.php?ID=208&Language=4

[MarkY]

This Street Pilot look like a nice little gadget. But damn, it sure is pricey. $550 is about the cheapest I could find one, and that was on Ebay.

[Joeaksa]

Mark,

Am flying the next two weeks and need my unit while out on the road. After I get back in town should be off for a few weeks and if you want to borrow my Street Pilot 3 for a few days to try it out, pls let me know. Would loan it to Moses to try out but he lives a bit futher away than you do and it would take a while to get there and back!

Its well worth the money. After you use it for a while you wonder how you ever lived without one!

JoeA

[Jack Olsen]

A caution to Moses: I don't believe the StreetPilot is completely compatible with Macintosh computers. When I got mine, I also got MacGPSPro from James Associates, but -- and my memory is lousy -- the functionality of that software was not enough to load my StreetPilot with the maps I wanted. Why? I don't remember, frankly. But I'd suggest sending them an email to confirm that you'll be able to unlock the Garmin maps and load them into the StreetPilot through your Mac's USB port.

I ended up buying a PC, which -- to me -- was like inviting the devil into the house.

[LeRoux Strydom]

Originally posted by Moses
Sounds like the Palm might require loading of addresses prior to departure which is something I want to avoid.

Moses

I think there is some confusion here. The iQue (built by Garmin on a Palm platform) uses exactly the same detailed maps and basemaps, voice navigation and address lookup system as the SP3. The way maps (woth all the address info) are downloaded to the unit is also the same, via USB or IR link. There is no need to enter addresses again after the detail maps have been downloaded, the street addresses and zillions of other point-of-interest info is already in there. All you have to do is to find the address on the unit (this is where using the on-screen keyboard comes in) and tell the unit to route you there. You have to do exactly the same on the SP3 using the more awkward thumbwheel system. Do yourself a favour and go demo an iQue before taking the plunge.

As I also said in the other thread, the only downsides to the unit are battery life (mainly because of the very bright, backlit TFT display, but not an issue if you use their auto navigation kit or cig lighter charger) and robustness. It is only a Palm after all, and not as robust or rugged as the SP3. The SP3 also offers a marginally bigger screen (1.8x3.4" vs 2.1x3.2"). Neither the SP3 nor iQue is Mac compatible, but I believe that using a Windows emulator takes care of that problem.

LeRoux

[Bob's Flat-Six]

Hey, Moses
If you get GPS will you still be wandering
I have this picture of you meandering around up there and I kinda like it. Now your going to know were your going?

[Paul Franssen]

Just for your info, as I've been checking, the Garmin iQue3600 costs...$1200...over here. I'll first get some new rear rotors and maybe 4 Billsteins and otherwise just follow my nose...

[ohecht]

I just put in a Harman Kardon TrafficPro, which I love. It is a 35 watt RMS radio and CD player that fits in the normal DIN slot and has full GPS navigation with voice prompts. It uses gyroscopes and input from the speedometer to combine inertial navigation with GPS updating to give a quicker response and also to allow it to function in cities and other places signals can get blocked. Looks perfect in the 911 dash, too.

http://hktrafficpro.com/

[Moses]

Originally posted by Bob's Flat-Six
Hey, Moses
If you get GPS will you still be wandering

Absolutely. Remember; All that wander are not lost.