PDA Buyer's Guide reviews PalmOne GPS

This is a nice review for western Europeans and North Americans users who wish to purchase the PalmOne GPS Navigator for PalmOne Tungsten T3. The unit is a hardware in the form of wireless bluetooth.

The application is suppled by TomTom. TomTom is a great company and I really like their mapping interface. I have long been a user of their TomTom CityMaps Europe edition although But being mostly in Brighton and London it is not a big problem. CityMaps is also quite cheap. I got both CityMaps and RoutePlanner for 40 quid and both are European editions. Nice - it enables me to travel to most parts of Western Europe including France and Germany.

CityMaps is a little old now (2001) so unless you are on a really tight budget, you should try to get Navigator since it uses the latest 2003 TeleAtlas map data. Unfortunately the editoon of Navigator that you purchase will only work on either PalmOS or PocketPC. If you bought one for PalmOS - you would have to purchase another edition for PocketPC if you switched. At 100 quid for the European edition that would be very expensive! Luckily for me CityMaps and RoutePlanner contains the applications for PalmOS 4, PocketPC 2002/2003, Psion Series 3/5 and Nokia 9xxx.


Screenshot from PocketGPS

The only grip is the lack of proper maps for Malaysia. Every year I return to Malaysia to find that the roads have changed and it is so difficult to travel around Klang Valley. My father recently bought a new car and it comes with GPS hardware. Unfortunately the car manufacturer did not have any map data for Malaysia. Instead they gave him a CD with maps for Europe (including the Vatican - I did not know there are roads inside the Holy City)! As though he is going to drive across Asia to Europe. Crazy!

Other nice reviews of GPS units for T3s:

PocketGPS reviews the TomTom Navigator for T3
PocketGPS reviews the Kirrio Palm GPS
PocketGPS reviews the Navman SmartST Pro V2