Advice Please On Combining Phone & Sat Nav

[cbjroms]

I have a TomTom Go700 which has proved to be excellent for my needs in terms of navigation. The problem is that it is rarely used and I am reluctant to leave it, in full view, attached to the windscreen. So it spends most of its life in the glovebox!

I really want something that does as good a job as the TomTom, but that I can carry around in my pocket and use as a phone. So it would be charged at home like my mobile and yet sit into a cradle in the car when I want to use it to navigate. I don't particularly need a pocket PC but access to emails would be useful.

I am confused by the apparent multitude of options and the potential differences between the phones and pocket PCs. I guess, to work like the TomTom I need something with a screen that is more like a PC than a phone?

Some straight-forward advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in anticipation.

Chris (Hampshire)

[mikealder]

I would have a look at either the T-Mobile MDA C-III PDA based phone or the O2 Orbit, these devices are based on the HTC Artemis with integral GPS.

The T-Mobile offering doesn't have WiFi but the O2 one does, they both can come supplied with Co-Pilot, or you can install TomTom version 6 and it runs quite happily on the device, I have been more than happy with the Artemis, great device, and works very well.

Being a PDA based product you can also put additional applications on it, I use Memory Map for Ordinance Survey maps when walking, as well as a wealth of other software, phone works very well, having the built in GPS is one less box to worry about.

There are some notes I made about the Artemis Here - I have since been given the T-Mobile version when I switched Phone provider, it was free - so it would have been rude to turn it down.
Go to your local phone store and try one out for size, they are larger than the average phone, but for a PDA based phone these are about as small and light as you can get at the moment, the big advantage being the integral GPS, and if you use and of the TomTom Plus services - Traffic, Buddies, weather etc the connection is via the built in phone, no messing around trying to establish a connection over Bluetooth - Mike

[Pete2]

Also look at the mitac mio A701, like the artemis it has a built in gps receiver as well as phone. I was very happy with mine but I've recently smashed the lcd screen so will wait till contract up and get another one on new contract - might go for the artemis/orbit, not sure yet.
I've had pda phones for about 10years now starting with the Jornada928? (can't remeber model number). The only disadvantage compared to nokias etc is that the batteries drain quicker - don't expect to leave it 10 days till it needs recharging especially if you use the phone regularly.

Mikealder - has your orbit got many bugs, does it need reseting often?

[mikealder]

I don't have the Orbit this is the badged unit that O2 offer. Both my T-Mobile MDA Compact-III and my HTC P3300 Artemis work very well, with far fewer resets than previous PDA based phones I have used.

At a guess in normal usage (for me) including GPS based sat nav/ Memory Map topo/ Phone/ Bluetooth on and off, paired to various devices and internet usage both WiFi and GPRS with the P3300, GPRS only on the MDA - I reset about twice per week.

So far I have hard Reset the P3300 device once, this was the easy way to remove a certain desktop "theme" that I added a while ago - a bit drastic but no big deal, the device was back up and running within 5 mins thanks to the Sprite software supplied with it, even better the pre-installed TomTom 6 application re-installed automatically following the hard reset, as its loaded in the ROM.

Having grown used to the bugs and frequent resets demanded by the previous PDA phones I have used the Artemis is a great bit of kit, small, lightweight, decent battery duration and a true all-in-one - my only reservation with the O2 Orbit would be down to the O2 Active interface software they insist on installing, I have had past problems in this area, on other devices thats all though. Had I stayed with O2 I would (without doubt) have an Orbit, but due to GPRS internet charges I moved phone supplier - Mike

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