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HandyGPS Pro


Tue Oct 30, 2001 - 9:53 AM EST - By Scott Hanselman

Product Info
Details

»	Name HandyGPS Pro
»	Company Nexian
»	Accuracy About 11m
»	Protocol NMEA V2.2 Navicom proprietary protocol
»	Power Rechargeable Li-ion battery
»	Hard Cover Compatible No
»	Size 2.15" W X 3.07" H X 1.7" D
»	Acquisition time Hot start 8 seconds, Warm start 39 seconds, Cold start 66 seconds
»	Fact Sheet & User Opinions

Availability

»	Unknown

Pricing

»	$229.99 (with Street Finder)
»	$199 (with UbiGo)

Software

The UbiGo software, while continually improved, can only be thought of as "GPS Software Lite." The street-level maps are small (in comparison to StreetFinder) and available for download free with purchase directly from Nexian. If you have a Visor Prism you can enjoy UbiGo 1.5c in color, which, for me at least, is an almost must for GPS fans. Viewing street level maps in Grayscale is not fun, believe me.

In James' review of the original HandyGPS, he said, " If Nexian could improve the user interface and ditch UbiGo, this could be the GPS module to get." Well, they didn't ditch UbiGo, but you can.

StreetFinder

Now this is a snazy app. If you're going to spend $200 for a GPS, spend $230 for the GPS with StreetFinder. It's an excellent Windows application on it's own, including full street level maps for the entire nation. Some of the features of StreetFinder include

Address-to-address directions plotted in map and text form
Search and find by address, hotel, restaurants, Palm Address Book name
Zoom in and out for more detail
Place custom markers
CD contains U.S streets and over 1 million business listings
Mobile Travel Guide ratings

I have to say that I VERY MUCH prefer the interface to StreetFinder over UbiGo. There are 3 CDs included with the Windows version of StreetFinder, and a separate CD dedicated solely to PalmOS-specific maps.

It bears being said that it is SO cool to be driving down the street and refer to your GPS. (Even cooler when the GPS and map are correct. To be in an unknown neighborhood and to already know the name of the next street is a very powerful feeling. To find a undiscovered Taco Bell in an unknown neighborhood is even more powerful.

The Restaurant and Point of Interest features of Street Finder are very impressive as well. Maps are created downloaded to your Palm from within the Windows Street Finder application. During the map creation process you are given the option to include various categories of Points of Interest. Adding each category will increase the size of the resulting map. My map of Portland, OR with all Points of Interest was about 2.5 megs. It was a challenge to make it fit, but it was worth it. Now I can drive anywhere in Portland and find the nearest restaurant.

One weird thing - when in Navigation mode a small yellow star appears on the map each time a reading is taken from the GPS. Sometimes this yellow star will not sit exactly on the road, but instead appears parallel to it. What's interesting is that it's usually consistently parallel, just offset by a few meters (or pixels.) In my opinion, this seems to be a problem with the accuracy of the tiny maps than the accuracy of the GPS.

Conclusion >>