Sat Nav For Laptop

Fever · March 4, 2005

Work have recently let me keep my old laptop as part of our IT site upgrade...its only about 2 years old so is still pretty useful...good bit of luck there eh!! I have bought a power cable for it which runs off the ciggy lighter so I can power it in the car.

What I'm thinking of doing is mounting the port replicator/docking station in the boot so I can move the laptop in and out of the car and running a USB hub upto the glove box. Then hook up a 7" touch screen, load all my MP3's on it and setup a sat nav unit. I have been searching around on the net and found a few SatNav packages for laptops, but would like to know if anyone here has experience with or a brand they use/recommend??

Of course I would like it to be quick, accurate and of course upto scratch with the likes of the TomTom packages that everyone here seems to rate highly!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Neil

Anees · March 4, 2005

Work have recently let me keep my old laptop as part of our IT site upgrade...its only about 2 years old so is still pretty useful...good bit of luck there eh!! I have bought a power cable for it which runs off the ciggy lighter so I can power it in the car.
What I'm thinking of doing is mounting the port replicator/docking station in the boot so I can move the laptop in and out of the car and running a USB hub upto the glove box. Then hook up a 7" touch screen, load all my MP3's on it and setup a sat nav unit. I have been searching around on the net and found a few SatNav packages for laptops, but would like to know if anyone here has experience with or a brand they use/recommend??

Of course I would like it to be quick, accurate and of course upto scratch with the likes of the TomTom packages that everyone here seems to rate highly!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Neil

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Basically what you are after is a Carputer (Car PC!)

www.mp3car.com has LOADS of info.

Check out this install too:

http://www.fargosys.com/html/carputer_project.html

Regarding Sat Nav - well its nowhere near as good as the PDA market.

You can get an unoffical version of Destinator 3 from www.mapmonkey.net . It looks great but I'm not convinced about the routes it produces.

You can also get (probably your cheapest solution) Infomap Navigator 4 (www.directions.ltd.uk). it looks good and routes are good - but can look cluttered and no 3D View.

The best solution seems to be to wait for the UK version of Co-Pilot Live laptop 8 (http://www.alk.com/products/consumer/copilot_laptop8/index.asp) . Looks great - but may be expensive.

Hope this helps! I am in the process of doing the same thing! :D :P

Fever · March 4, 2005

Thank you for the excellent post Anees...I was looking at co-pilot live 7 the other day as it seemed to be the best for reviews so 8 may be even better....as for the carputer side of things Paul (fargo) is helping me with that anyway so all sorted....well at least now he is knows he is!!

>>> Paul, damn good job I got the heated seat bottons back off you the other day bud....damn cold this morning you know!!

Anees · March 4, 2005

Thank you for the excellent post Anees...I was looking at co-pilot live 7 the other day as it seemed to be the best for reviews so 8 may be even better....as for the carputer side of things Paul (fargo) is helping me with that anyway so all sorted....well at least now he is knows he is!!
>>> Paul, damn good job I got the heated seat bottons back off you the other day bud....damn cold this morning you know!!

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Your lucky to have this great technical knowledge available to you! All I have is little ol' me struggling along!

Anees · March 4, 2005

Another thing I've noticed with Laptop Navigation software is that decent reviews can be difficult to get. Pocket GPS haven't reviewed a laptop/PC based navigation package since 2003 (Co-Pilot 7 and the Infomap 1!)

They seem to be concentrating exclusively on the handheld market now!

I'd make sure you check the returns policy out before buying or trying to get it from "other" sources to try before you buy.

Fever · March 4, 2005

Anees Posted Today, 04:52 PM
Another thing I've noticed with Laptop Navigation software is that decent reviews can be difficult to get. Pocket GPS haven't reviewed a laptop/PC based navigation package since 2003 (Co-Pilot 7 and the Infomap 1!)

They seem to be concentrating exclusively on the handheld market now!

I'd make sure you check the returns policy out before buying or trying to get it from "other" sources to try before you buy.

Good call....i wasn't aware of that factor! Just out of interest does the TomTom Go need to run off a power supply or can you power it through a USB port??

Anees · March 4, 2005

All I know is that Tom Tom go comes with a cigarette adaptor. Maybe it can be adapted to be powered by a USB port? No Idea really.

el_gencer · March 5, 2005

The new version of autoroute is quite good. it does real time mapping from your position and displays mph, compass and something else. doesnt talk though. Also if you can get it (probably off ebay) navigon v4 for notebooks is quite good. its basically the laptop version of the pda version and it talks to you. the bundle comes with a gps unit. also if you cant type your destination in, you can view the map and put a flag on it and it will navigate you to the flag. dont get the latest version as its pda only at the moment.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...4533104795&rd=1

its in german so a translation maybe in order

Anees · March 5, 2005

Thanks for the find. :D

I did look at Navigon but thought that it was just a PDA version! Does it come with GOOD UK maps?

Problem is that I don't think we can return it if it ends up being crap since its off eBay. The PDA version did get good reviews on Pocket GPS. I'd be really interested in it if the TMC was also available for PC!