Magellan GPS with your Palm Pilot V
Written: Dec 21 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sensitive, reasonably accurate, easy to use good readout, portable, inexpensive
Cons: Eats AAA batteries. Poor documentation. Flawed setup
The Bottom Line: I recommend it and within its limitations, it could be of good use to anyone who hikes in the woods or plans long distance trips by automobile.
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| OldIcon's Full Review: Magellan GPS Companion for Palm V / Vx |
The accessory GPS made by Magellan as the GPS Companion for the Palm Pilot V series of Personal Digital Assistants, probably will give you the biggest bang for your buck in the world of global positioning. This relatively inexpensive gadget attaches to your Palm V and creates a device that will always show you where you are anywhere in the United States on a unique map. Not only will it locate you, but if you are moving, either in a vehicle or on foot, it will tell you how fast you are going, show you the direction of your travel, give you your speed, altitude and heading and will record your progress. You can simply place it on your dashboard in your car and it will show your exact speed in miles per hour or in kilometers. It will give you the correct time to the exact second and record every stop or deviation you made from your route. You can refine the area you wish to view and it will show you a trail of dots from your movements. Accuracy is approximately down to 12 feet depending on your location and access to the orbiting satellites to which it is automatically tuned. There are several modes of operation such as planning trips and setting up waypoints and if you wish, it will remember your exact course in detail.
There is one very critical setup instruction which must be performed before this device can go into use. The documentation for this is lacking and it is serious enough that could make you think the device is so insensitive as to be useless. This is the instruction where you must tell it what time zone it is in and what the approximate altitude is when you first set it up. The method used to do this is left to you to pick out your location on a very small world map. It is difficult to set this to your time zone. Also, once you have chosen that spot, it wants to know your approximate altitude, This will enable the device to "see" a group of satellites that are orbiting in range of the receiver. If this is not done with some care, the device will not be able to access enough strong satellite signals to enable it to function. The readout showing the sky's satellites at any given time can be read from the device along with approximate signal levels so that you can tell how well it is functioning. Be aware that it takes up to three minutes when first turned on, for it to "see" the signals it needs to function.
My location is above 1000 feet above sea level and until I told my GPS Companion this fact, it simply would not find the signal levels it needed. This only need doing ONCE. It will remember all the setup info you have given it and will be ready next timer you turn it on. All in all, it is a very interesting device. You can continue to use your Palm V for all its other uses even while the GPS is attached.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
OldIcon
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Location: Trumansburg, NY
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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