Google Maps on your PDA!

Google Maps on your Windows Mobile. Well for me its Google maps on my Ipaq HX2750. I just noticed on the Google for mobile startup page had a link "Download Google Maps" Since it was on the Mobile site, i decided to try it out. Downloading it via Digi EDGE was quick, and installation was just as quick. Starting up Google maps for mobile brought me to a drawn map in America.. Promptly searched for Kuala Lumpur and it was just empty. I realized that i could switch between map and satellite image. Well here's the picture of Malaysia via satellite map on my PDA. Later i found the Bangsar LRT station. Its nice to see Singapore having a very detailed Map done by google. Even Thailand and Indonesia have road maps. I'm just guessing that the Malaysian Government has dissallowed showing our Roadmaps to the world! How to improve if there is so much red tape in Malaysia? So sad. Anyway, having Google maps on the PDA is something nice and new. You can eventually search for various Points of intrest like the enarest post office, etc.. The zoom factors are pretty good. I can actually see the road inront of my house, as well as the Yellow Traffic box drawn on the road near my house. I bluff you not. To get Google maps for your PDA, just log in to www.google.com with internet explorer on your PDA. Try it its good fun to see the world from above on your PDA. I think God also may be using a PDA with a variant of Google map to se what you're doing too.. LOL

Garmin GPS 10x, Mobile XT and Que Reviewed.

Newer is Better? The Garmin GPS 10x is Garmin's upgrade for the GPS 10. Now with Sirf Star III technology. It has a Single Multifunction button, and an unconventional 2 LED configuration.The LED near the power sign (which is also the power on button) is green, indicating charging, and the blue LED which you see lit in the picture on the left indicates that the unit is powered on, satellite lock and also if its connected to your bluetooth device or not. I've had this unit for 3 months now, and although its written in the manual what the rhythm the blue flashes mean, its been to difficult for me to decipher them as of yet.. Maybe with time.... There's also no external antenna capability. Charging is by Mini USB. There is no provision for an external antenna as there is no mmcx plug. Maybe a reradiating antenna would work. My Asian Package came with the GPS receiver, a belt clip and the car charger. There was no CD bundled together. But not to worry, Garmin Mobile XT and Garmin Que are available from Garmin's website for use with your Pocket PC or Palm OS PDA and Mobile XT even works on Symbian 60 phones. I will be reviewing the Pocket PC versions.

On the left is the Holux GPSlim236 bluetooth GPS receiver coupled with the iPAQ hx2750 running Garmin Que. Its using GPS proxy as a 3rd party mediator to enable non Garmin GPS to use Que. On the Right is the Garmin GPS 10x bluetooth GPS receiver coupled with the iPAQ rx3715 running Garmin Mobile XT directly. There is no 3rd party software available at this time to enable non Garmin GPSr to use Mobile XT.

Garmin Que Startup screen

The Garmin Mobile XT startup screen.

Garmin Que showing basemap

Garmin Mobile XT showing basemap

After i installed Garmin Mobile XT, I realized it came with a Basemap of the world. It was quite cool as you could zoom out anywhere in the world and there would be Map! Previously I never had it on Que. Well anyway, the basemap should be available here for those of you who don't have it.

The Malaysian Map Gmasupp.img downloaded from Malsingmap is integrated into the basemap so as you zoom into Malaysia, the detailed map takes over.

This is really a nice plus point as you feel nice having the whole world in your hand.
GPS software screenshots at work

As you can see, Garmin Que has a utilitarian display. No fancy graphics or 3D display. I feel that using 3 day display is very difficult as 2D displays are more objective. This is the fancy 3d display with Garmin Mobile XT. Really looks pretty nice but however i don't think altitude has been actually incorparated in our maps, hence ramps will not bee seen as any elevation at all. Its still rendered 3D, not actual 3D maps. so the information is actually 2D information. The 3D mode can be switched back to 2D mode.. (Thankfully for me)

As you can also see, on XT there is no option to display various information at the top bars. Thats not good! Que gives you the option to display a variety of information simultaneously on the screen.

The Detail on the XT is also lacking. For some reason even with XT on full detail map, some street names just won't be displayed.! Similarly look at the world map.

More About the acutal usage of Garmin que compared with Mobile XT later.. subscribe to the blog for early notification. Subscribe to this blog from the right sidebar.

Garmin Mobile XT and Garmin Que. The differences...

There are a lot of differences between Moblie XT and Que. For starters, Many would applaud the revamped Grahical User Interface on MXT. It really is beautiful, with even 3D road maps, more refined graphics and a seemingly a more user friendly GUI. But all this comes at the expense of loss of tweakability. Thats one quality i really hate to lose. Over the next post, I'm gonna squirm about what i lost from Garmin Que and What I gained from Mobile XT.

Garmin Que GPS 10 Properties Page. When Que is connected to a Garmin GPS, the battery level and power settings as well as WAAS are displayed. As you see in Que, the exact percentage is displayed while on Mobile XT just has a Power Bar.

Garmin Que GPS 10 Properties Page. When Que is connected to a Garmin GPS, the battery level and power settings as well as WAAS are displayed. As you see in Que, the exact percentage is displayed while on Mobile XT just has a Power Bar.

In Garmin Que's Map setup, there's a lot to setup on one page. Tabs at the lower screen enable you to have a good general overview of available options. You can also toggle individual segments of the Maps which you want to include during POI search. This will make searching quicker in Que. As you can see, a few of my maps are not ticked as i don't want to search for POIs in thoses areas. This feature is not available on Garmin Mobile XT.

Where as in Garmin MXT, they have made the GUI much larger, it seems as to accomodate for finger use rather than stylus use. Sometimes, because of the lack of the general overview as in Que, it tends to get kinda difficult to actually see the property you want to tweak. Thus all the areas which need to be touched are magnified about 5 times! LOL.. A great thing on the MXT is the Location Format though. U can get to choose location format and this will come in handy.

Actually Using Gamin Que and Garmin MXT

The Old and Proven Versus new Young Blood.

I've been using Garmin Que for the past 2 years. Its been extremely useful for me. I've got this terrible sense of direction which GPS has now become a major treatment. Garmin Que is just utilitarian, sufficently user friendly, and plain simple to use. It has excellent integration to the Pocket PC, and it tends to potray that it is a software that was built for the Pocket PC, utilizing the Pocket PC's interface and character input very well. Garmin Mobile XT on the other hand for designed for the fingers. (Pun intended! LOL) Mobile XT was probably designed for Garmin new range of Hip Looking GPS road navigator systems, to compete with the the likes of tom tom, iGO and others. SO, it doesn't actually utilize Pocket PCs accurate touchscreen. Everything looks really big on Mobile XT.

With Garmin Que, you tap the "find" button at the bottom of your page and the find "whatever" screen pops up with thumbnails as a GUI showing upto 15 thumbnails i a page. When you spell out what you're looking for by name, it takes only a short while to conjure up for example "1 utama" then you click on details and you see the place you're looking for.

With Garmin Mobile XT. As I previously wrote.. Things get magnified to be finger friendly. So you get less interactibility per page and more scrolling is needed. Finding Addresses with Mobile XT is still a pain because due to a Garmin software incompatibility with our Malsingmaps, you will have to use "spell name". Untill Malsingmaps is able to fix that, with malsingmaps, you will have to use a workaround to find addressess on mobile XT> (But thats an entirely different story.) Mobile XT takes almost forever to find "1 utama" And notice that there is no option for stylus input. And again, its taking forever about at least 60 seconds more to search around the "Kilometres" radius. TERRIBLE!! Whats the point of having a letter recognition we don't have the option of using it? and why so slow?

If you want to read in a 1024 x 768 view, click here Hardware Incorporation. Shortcut Buttons.

Garmin Que incorporates the use of Shortcut buttons of your Pocket PC to Speak the current status, to centre your vehicle on the Map, as well as many other programable functions. This is especially handy as just with the press of a button, your Pocket PC will speak the next turn information. Tapping the box at the lower left hand corner will also bring up the scale at which to zoom your map to. Which is quick and accurate.

Garmin Mobile XT does not incorporate your hardware buttons as well. You can use the directional keypads to swtich the zoom level and switch among onscreen choices, but pressing other harware buttons will not work for the program.It will follow the Pocket PC's preprogrammed shorcuts. This isn't good. There is also no scale at which you can zoom to instantly. You will either have to tap the "+" and "-" virtual onscreen buttons or use the direction pad to change zoom levels.Drawing rate is either a little faster than Que or about the same..

A Summary of Garmin Que and Garmin Mobile XT in terms of my usage.

Although this is not an in depth trial, I still think that the Garmin Que is excellent for use in the Pocket PC as it was designed much more for the Pocket PC. Garmin Mobile XT seems to have inherited much from its current breed of popular mobile raod navigators, where finger tapping has become a more important part of the GUI. I don't think Mobile XT has evolved to be more versatile, just more "idiot proof". I suppose for the new line of Portable GPS, Finger tapping is the way to go.. like the new HTC touch, less stress on stylus, more stress on your finger. I've been driving and navigating with GPS for the past 2 years.No doubt, it may seem to be a short time for many.During the span of 2 years, I've tested many different GPS navigating softwares for the Pocket PC OS. I've even had GPS Java Software for my Sony W810i mobile phone. Even Cnet Asia has linked to my Pocket PC GPS Software. Its at the bottom of the Cnet page."