ipaq 3360...newbie could do with some advice :oops:

[thebrasso]

hi there, i just got hold of an ipaq 3360...as standard it only has 32mb of memory. i want to use it for in car navigation, and hopefully get a speed camera database in there.

can you get dual compact flash sleeves, that is a sleeve with two compact flash slots, then get a cf gps receiver and some cf memory? or am i best getting an all in one sleeve and some memory, that is a sleeve with gps receiver built in and cf expansion and some cf memory?

any advice on software?

[lbendlin]

You probably mean a 3630.

I would advice against a dual CF slot jacket, and against a CF receiver. The 3630 should be used in car, and there a serial receiver is more appropriate. This also means you only need a single CF or PCMCIA (with adapter) slot jacket.

Any software currently on the market will work, with the sad exception of Navman - SmartST refuses to run on 32 MB machines for no obvious reasons. (Note to Tim: No Navman bashing!)
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[DavidW]

There are such things as dual CompactFlash expansion packs, but they're not the most common thing to find these days. All iPAQs from the 3800 series onwards had a built in SD slot. Meanwhile, the last iPAQ that takes expansion packs has recently been discontinued.

One possibility without ploughing much money into an expansion pack that you probably won't want if you upgrade the iPAQ is a CompactFlash GPS with built in memory. I'm not sure whether the drivers will work on Pocket PC 2000, though - your 3630 (I'm sure you mean 3630, not 3360 - there was no 3300 series) will have Pocket PC 2000 unless it was upgraded to 2002.

If your 3630 is still on Pocket PC 2000, you'll have to buy carefully to ensure you get suitable navigation software. Increasingly support for Pocket PC 2000 is being dropped now. TomTom Navigator 3 will, so far as I remember, work on Pocket PC 2000, but I doubt the next version (expected in the next few months) will.


Whilst it seems attractive to reuse an old Pocket PC as a navigation system, my feeling now is that building a new system around an old HP Jornada or pre-3800 series iPAQ simply isn't worthwhile these days. You're throwing a lot of money at something that has very limited life left in it.

3700 series and older iPAQs use different car chargers to later iPAQs, which means different 'professional' mounts if you go for something like a Brodit mount with the charger built in to those needed for newer hardware. As I said, no current iPAQ uses the expansion packs - again meaning expenditure for hardware that you can't reuse on a more modern machine.

There's a risk with such an old machine that the main battery will fail, meaning spending several tens of pounds on replacing it (if you don't, and the main battery fails, you'll find that your navigation software gets wiped every time you're away from a source of external power and has to be reinstalled).

Finally, these older machines have significantly poorer screens than modern machines, they tend to be heavier, slower and have less memory.


You'll likely need to spend around £225 on a CompactFlash memory GPS and software alone (assuming you want TomTom Navigator 3). If you go for the wired GPS option, as Lutz suggests, that means all the hassle of tracking down an iPAQ 3100/3600/3700 cable, which isn't easy to find these days, a wired GPS, 256MB (minimum) CompactFlash memory card and TomTom Navigator 3 software will still come to around £200 - again, you need a CompactFlash expansion pack and some kind of in car mount.

In both cases, you need to add a CompactFlash Expansion Pack and in car mount - the CompactFlash GPS option also needs some way of supplying power to the iPAQ (the wired GPS will power the iPAQ for you).


You can get a new Mitac Mio 168 including car kit, 256MB SD card and TomTom Navigator 3 GB software for £325 (click the price for a link). It's going to cost less than £100 more than trying to kit out your old 3630 for a brand new system - and I have to recommend this course of action.



David

[thebrasso]

thanks for the advice, it is indeed a 3630.

i can see your point DavidW. i got hold of the ipaq very cheap though (through a well known auction site) and its running pocket pc 2000.

if i get a wired gps receiver (£75), a compact flash expansion sleeve (£50), 512mb of compact flash memory (£25 at most) i've still spent £220 on all the hardware (inc gps) and i can get tom tom 3 fairly cheap.

does this sound a viable solution? those prices include the in car cables etc...

[DavidW]

I can't think of any legitimate way to get TomTom Navigator 3 software for much less than £95, which is the typical reseller price for TomTom Navigator 3 Great Britain "software and maps". If you find any copies significantly cheaper than that, I'd suspect that they're either second hand or an illegal copy.

Buying Navigator 3 second hand has two problems - you may find the copy has already been activated on two machines and you can't activate it on yours for as many as 180 days, also, if the original owner has kept a copy of the Product Code, they could use that to upgrade to a future new version of Navigator if they beat you to registering for the upgrade.


If you can find a legitimate source of the software fairly cheaply, globalpositioningsystems.co.uk will sell you a Mio 168 (including car kit) for £218 and either a 256MB SD card for £18 or 512MB for £28.50. That means that the cost of a Mio 168, car kit and 512MB memory comes to £246.50. Just over £25 to go with all new hardware - I would, especially as you're not gambling on dwindling support for Pocket PC 2000 in future software upgrades, or the main battery in the 3630 holding out. You can put the 3630 back on eBay (presuming that's where you got it) or play with it!

If I hadn't made it clear, the Mio 168 is a Pocket PC 2003 machine with a GPS receiver built in.


Note that if you buy the Mio 168, 256MB SD card and TomTom Navigator 3 bundle, you still pay £89 on top of the combined price of the Mio 168 and SD card for the software - as I said, you really can't get the software new from a TomTom authorised source for less than about £90.



David

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!