Newbie GPS Questions

[DavidA]

I just bought a PEG-NR70V from EBay (£100) and I'm interested in GPS solutions.

I've seen a number of options, ranging from a £50 adaptor on EBay to a $300 cradle from Sony.

What's the deal here? Do I have to mount the GPS receiver somewhere on the outside of the car or can I simply place it on the passenger seat? How effective are they? Is it shoehorning GPS functionality into a PDA or is it a good, usable solution? Am I likely to suffer problems if I buy a cheap GPS adaptor?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Unregistered]

David,

I've been using the Sony Clie Car Cradle about 2 months now and I have to say I'm impressed. The cradle offers more than just GPS functionality:

It has text to voice for reading your schedule and e-mails (Just be sure the person in the car next to you has security clearance to hear your e-mails ;)

It can play any MP3 songs over your car stereo either by a direct link to a sony car stereo or through it's own built-in FM transmitter.

It can display a slideshow of your photos you have loaded on the clie.

The installation was a peice of cake (took about 2 hours and I did a custom installation rather than hooking to the car air vent). The antenna is about 1.5" square and about 3/4" tall. I have it mounted in the corner of my dash and it gets great reception at all times. It does not need to be outside the vehicle.

A memory stick for storing maps is a must in my opinion because I like to keep a map of an entire county (about 6MB).

When you consider that a good GPS for your auto will cost you about $1000 US this is a pretty good deal. And, you can take the maps (less GPS positioning) with you in the clie.

Now.... with all that said, I have one complaint worth mentioning and that is the software supplied with the cradle. It is made by Rand McNally and I'm quite dissappointed for the following reasons:

1) While the interface is fairly intuitive it lacks certain user-freindly features such as a pan tool and poor labeling (especially bodies of water)

2) While the streets themselves are accurate, the address numbers are not. I have only had about 10% accuracy with the street number actually being where the software said it was.

3) The maps seem to be about 3-4 years old. There are some major roadways in my area completed in the last 3-4 years that are not indicated on the map.

4) Generating route directions requires an internet connection.

5) Lastly, there is no internet update function (I'm comparing to Microsoft Streets and Trips where you could get updated detour info etc. from the internet)

So - to sum up - Hardware is 2 thumbs up but the software is 1 thumb down. I wouldn't let the software stop me from purchasing but it seems like Sony threw it in as an afterthought. I don't know if there is other software available that will be compatible with the clie and the cradle but if there is I would love to hear about it.

At any rate hope this helps you decide,

Regards,
Derrick
langdj@cox.net

[Drexel]

Derrick,

That's a fantastic summation! Thanks! I've been asking myself the same question about my Clie & GPS, and have been considering purchasing the attachments for the past couple of weeks.

Could you provide us with a link to the product that you're referring to? If no, perhaps some model information so that we can research it on our own?

Thanks!

[Reggie]

Drexel,

You can read my review of the Car Cradle at:

http://www.cliesource.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24582

Regards.

[DavidA]

A great set of replies. Thanks to all. I'm sure it will come up in people's searches for some time to come.

My budget for GPS is lower than the Sony cradle allows, but you've answered the fundamental questions for me: that it's useful and that it works.

I've seen £80 solutions on EBay so I think I'll plump for one of those.

[Unregistered]

From what I understand, the Clie car cradle does NOT support the NR70. It would've been wonderful if it did! I haven't found a GPS solution for the NR70 so far.

Cathy

[Drexel]

Well, searching eBay yeilds several GPS solutions for the NR70... the question is, has anyone here had any experiences with them?

[duc748_bip]

So the car cradel made by Sony can work not only with NX but BR also?

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by duc748_bip
So the car cradel made by Sony can work not only with NX but BR also?

Not according to Sony.