PDA is starting to worry me

[ed^chigliak]

My current PDA Clie-SL10 is mono and takes two AAA batteries and I don't really want to change it but I may have to because it's loosing the plot. This week I have had to restore from the memory stick a dozen times.

I almost tempted to go back to PalmIIIx @ £30 on ebuyer even though it is really old technology and looks like a big grey turd. I had one before and it was really robust and even survived a 30mph impact onto a tarmac road when I left it on the car roof. Lucky I saw it bouncing down the road in my mirror so I retrieved it and a hotsync later it was just fine. It lasted so well I sold it on and and to this day it still works. Since then I have had 2 devices and neither have been as robust as the original.

The only new device I like the sound of is the Clie PEG-TH55 because of the long...ish battery life. What else if anything has a good battery life and is a step up in both performance and features from my existing device. I wan't to hook up to my Garmin GPS and use the device on cross country hang gliding flights. Long battery life is essential because I'm not going to want to be changing the batteries mid flight. Suggestions please... perhaps a pocket PC would be better but would need a battery pack presumably. Hmmm!

Ed^

[Butuz]

Nothin can really beat a Pocket PC 2003 device really such as the ipaq with bluetooth and wireless.

Butuz

[Howard]

Nothin can really beat a Pocket PC 2003 device really such as the ipaq with bluetooth and wireless.

Butuz

I second that. My brother's one is superb.

[Flibb]

the price of pocket PC's has dopped in the past six months. Best buy at the moment is the Ipaq H2210, they cost around £220 new. That was 2 mutch for me so i went 2nd hand and got a Toshiba E750 bluetooth for £140. This works hapilly with my bluetooth gps and I am pretty sure you can get a cable to fit the Garmin (was looking at this myself). Battery wise you can get an extended battery pack for the Toshiba, but it aint cheap. the other option is one of the 3rd party battery extender packs. these plug into the power socket and can keep the pda running for ages, they take rechargable AAA or AA batts. The software I use would be great for hangliding, its called memory map navigator. Basically it displays your poition onto 1:50,000 OS maps. I use it when walking or in the 4x4. The standard PC version is able to load maps and the PDA software directly to a PDA, its great. Just get the biggest storage card you can afford. I run this in conjunction with TomTom car navigation software, 1 for on road, 1 for off.

[Stoo]

The wi-fi card for my pda just turned up this morning

All in all, xscale 400 (I think), 64mb, pocket pc 2003, with a 256 mem card, GPS+software, car kit and wifi for £330 all in.. Aldi for the pda bundle, and ebay for the wifi card, bargain

The only downsides are the slightly meagre 3hour battery life (but that is with screen in bright-ish and wifi on), but that doesn't really matter when it's in the car, and the car kit is a bit naff (one of those suction cup doofers), other than that it's pretty darned good

Anyone got any ideas for decent in car pda mounts?

[Flibb]

I use an arkon mount, its still a suction jobby but also comes with an airvent mount. Best thing about it is the amplified speaker, its loud enough to be heard over the racket from a 300tdi landrover engine so should be great for most cars. It also has usb power sockets on it so anything that plugs into usb to charge can be charged in car including most PDA's and mobiles. Do a search on ebay for arkon mout. They are £10 cheaper on ebay than most shops. There are better systems but they tend to cost a fortune, have a look
http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/
for info.

[ed^chigliak]

I leave my car on the ground when flying. The only suctionable surface would be my helmet or my forehead.

Joking aside how long is lasting 'ages' with a pocket PC and battery pack combination. Could be a real a messy arrangement of battery pack, pocket PC, GPS all lashed together on my base bar or uprights with a tangle of wires. Don't they make a pocket PC with like 8hrs+ runtime to atleast match the sort of runtimes I get with the GPS. My location on an OS 1:50000 map would be amazingly useful. Can you mark the maps with additional information like airspace restrictions and big easy landing fields along the route.

Ed^

[Flibb]

Hays whats the matter with mounting it on your head?? Would be kind of a HUD well maybe not.

You can download a free demo of memorymap navigator with sample maps, think the gps is disabled. The software also includes height profiles and is able to render any area in 3d and you can do fly throughs to get an idea of what the topography is like (on a PC). Just spotted this on the memory map site.
CAA VFR Charts covering the UK. 1:500,000 scale, 1:250,000 scale and licensed aerodrome layouts

http://www.memory-map.co.uk/

You can add marks and tracks etc to a map. I currently have 1:50000 OS and 1:25000 aerial photos on my PC and can download them to my PDA. The photos take up loads of room but you can get 1gig CF for around £100 now. Right battery extenders are cheap, and give around 8-10 hours of use and are very small. Article about a home made one for use in aircraft
http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/aeroplane.php
The only problem I know of is that on some the pda can try and charge the batterys, better versions have circuit protection to stop this. This mount designed for bikes might work on the hanglider.
http://www.pocketgps.co.uk/rambikemount.php


Might be worth checking out hanglider forums/sites and see if anybody uses this stuff.

[Stoo]

I leave my car on the ground when flying. The only suctionable surface would be my helmet or my forehead.

Joking aside how long is lasting 'ages' with a pocket PC and battery pack combination. Could be a real a messy arrangement of battery pack, pocket PC, GPS all lashed together on my base bar or uprights with a tangle of wires. Don't they make a pocket PC with like 8hrs+ runtime to atleast match the sort of runtimes I get with the GPS. My location on an OS 1:50000 map would be amazingly useful. Can you mark the maps with additional information like airspace restrictions and big easy landing fields along the route.

Ed^

Mitac do a pocket pc with a built in gps reciever actually, if you're interested I can dig up a link

[ed^chigliak]

Flibb m8... what do I need to do to say switch maps from OS to aviation and back again. I need to operate this setup wearing gloves so stabbing a button is about as good as I can manage. The gloves can be lightweight gloves if I fit bar mits on the base bar. Please tell me I dont need to operate the device with a stylus in the air because that would be a tad too interesting although not all together impossible. If it's anything like the palm then one wrong button and I am going to be looking at my do list or appointments which would be alot less useful than the map. I can purchase hang gliding specific GPS enabled instrumentation but a pocketPC would serve multiple uses and be a much more flexible bit of kit. Hopefully because I already have GPS, altimeter and variometer it would work out significantly cheaper. All my existing information is on PalmOS so I would need to transfer this to pocketPC with the least amount of hassle. Keep posting... information so far and links are excellent.

Cheers

Ed^

[Flibb]

Could you mout a stlus on your helmet or something
Think you can assign keys to do stuff will check. Just realised I really need another storage card Will have to rob the one out my dig camera.

[ed^chigliak]

Keep your eye on the moding forum I can picture a helmet mod with two 120mm fans keeping my brain cool so I can think faster. I'll try working out PI and let you know if I run stable at a higher speed. My favourite stability check is an imaginary game of the risk board game (I call this mind risk) which becomes exponetially more difficult with each turn. Basically what I am saying is NO to helmet mounted stylus.

[Flibb]

RIght last post of the night, thought i made another but must have deleted it doooh.

This is PC map browser (not pda), the view shows the 3d landscap render, exageration to landscape can be varied to pick out features.


PDA with gps, as a note the best waterproof cover is a non lubricated condom, thought of trying a glow in the dark one to save batterys


CAA VFR chart sample (small bit) from mmn site


Bad pic of a road map


Another bad pic, this is the OS 1:50K map



You can assign a keys to zoom in and out by tapping them, holding the same keys in changes the map from OS 1:50K to road maps to the VFR chart.

Download the free demo stuff to you pc and have a fiddle. PDA wise you could get a cheap 2nd hand jobby and a connection cable for you etrex(?). Have a look on the pocket gps website thers a mab on there that does etrex cables to just about every pda. Also if you around west kent could show you my system.

Will try and do some better pics in daylight when sober, will update on my webspace so will magically appear here

[StarkMjolk]

Must say I am quite satisfied with my PDAs batterylife... I got a HP iPAQ h5555. Know HP also sells a battery with the double capacity for it. Never used it for GPS thingies but I'm sure it would do the job just as well as any other PPC2003 400MHz PDA. Prolly ain't the right PDA for your purpose if you have a limited budget though.

I must say HPs newer models look pretty strong aswell, I would recommend them for anyone who want to buy a PocketPC PDA.

[ed^chigliak]

Flibb your a star m8 and it is great news that I can operate the basic zoom and map change function on buttons. Just a couple more questions if you don't mind. 1) Can I switch the map orientation mode between North/South aligned and map rotated to the direction of travel? 2) Does the software feature any power saving modes? I am wondering if there is a function to can turn the display or backlight on/off automatically say 30 seconds in every 3-5 minutes. That would keep me sufficient informed of my position with minimal power drain. Alternatively press of a button to wake up the display for 30s and then switches back to power saving.

So far my research would suggest I cannot connect both a GPS and 3rd party battery extender at the same tim on say the H22xx device however as Stark has pointed out I can get HighCapacity batteries that dock in the standard battery compartment. Found this battery in the US so does anyone know were I could get one in the UK.

http://www.devbuzz.com/mp/318448.asp

Cost wise for new I have:-
pocketPC - £220
1gig CF card £100+
Software & maps £?
GPS cable £?
HighCapacity battery $149
Regular use protective case £15
Waterproof case £?

This could easy run to £600 pound mark. What's the future roadmap for PDA devices looking like. Looks to me like there isn't any great need to have faster processors so new devices could be more focused on extending the battery life. Any new low power screen technology just around the corner that might be worth the wait. How far off a practical working fuel cell in these things.

I am googling for answers too... but you know what it's like with information scattered all over the place in various forum threads.

[Flibb]

The memory map software has North fixed up, it keeps your position fixed in the middle of the screen and moves the map around it. But it does have a velocity and direction arrow showing you what direction you are heading and a graphical indication of speed. Power saving is handled by the PDA, you can set it to turn screenlight off after x minutes, on some you can turn the CPU speed down to save power, but you can turn the pda off to save power, when turned on you wouldnt need push any buttons to run the software as its would be active as soon as you turned the pda on again. If you have the money I would get a bluetooth GPS, battery life is 8+ hours on most and they are very small, could mount it anywhere. It would also make powering the pda a lot easier as no wires. I am going to get a battery extender at some point, will report back. Will also retake those photos using a tripod.