BT308 arrived

[fysmd]

OK, so my new toy arrived and I have to say that I'm impressed.



I haven't yet measured TTFFs but it "feels" a lot faster than my Leadtek mouse. It regularly gets much stonger signals, and finds more sats too. Mind you, I should say that my mouse sits in the engine compartment, beneath the (plastic) bonet.



As there isn't specific support in TTN's GPS driver, I've tried generic serial (COM8) and generic BT drivers, both work but I find that I'm prompted to select the BT device each time I start any GPS software. Is there a way around having to do this - try to find the device BEFORE propmpting me?

[Dave]

Yes you will get that on a 5450. HP took a backward step in the Bluetooth driver, you didn't have to do this under the 3870 or 3970, but do on each connection I believe on the 5450 from what Mike's been saying.

[MikeB]

Yep HP have really screwed up with the 5450 version of the BT manager. I would have thought that they might have allowed you to pair devices and specify a different serial port for each one that way the BT devices dont need to be selected each time you connect.



I have been using the GlobalSat BT device for about a month now and my first impression was that it was really great, large battery extra life etc, but I have found that it is not as sensitive as the Emtac (for some reason) and also thare are occasional issues with the BT connection which require a power cycle of the BT308 and a soft boot of the iPaq to clear. I suspect that the BT communications are getting into a loop state somewhere along the line.



Other than that it is a great receiver I will be releasing the review in a week or so time.
_________________
Mike Barrett

[Dave]

I wonder what the new 22xx range will be like. Hopefully not still a backward step.

[DavidW]

My understanding is that the Bluetooth software is built into Pocket PC 2003. That's one of the big changes (similarly I believe Wi-Fi configuration is standardised on Pocket PC 2003). This is, I believe, part of the additional core functionality acquired by switching from CE 3.0 to CE 4.2 for Pocket PC 2003.



That will mean that the 22xx series Bluetooth features probably have very different 'look and feel' to what we are used to on earlier Bluetooth iPAQs. Hopefully Microsoft got the design right!







David

[Dave]

THe BT software is built in and it's always on, but it still makes you wonder how much stack is assigned to the running of Bluetooth, it definately needs more than it currently has.



The currently "lack" of resources under the 38/39/54xx iPAQ's after a few days use is a real PITA.

[MikeB]

Forgot to mention I use the Emtac Wireless settings for the BT308 and they work fine.
_________________
Mike Barrett

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