Planet-Ed

A friend of mine wants to buy my Pharos and some accessories ...

I was thinking of going with a Bluetooth GPS reciever. I have the offer from TomTom to get their Bluetooth GPS ... Anyone have any experience with this reciever?

I really like the Fortuna GPSmart BT and the Emtac Socket BT but these are more expensive and doesn't come with anything else ...

With the TomTom I'd get the BT Reciever, Software, Power Cable and PDA mount for $225.00 ... Kinda hard to beat it for that price if the reciever works well ...

AximTT

Here is a BT GPS shoot out by gpspassion.com

http://www.gpspassion.com/fr/articles.asp?id=55&page=1

You can read the detail in the above thread. Overall, TomTom unit is a nice unit but seems underperform compared to other BT GPS in terms of BT range and sensitivity in addtion to lack of advance control (NMEA / SIRF settings). However, with the low price, it is still a good choice.

On the other hand, CoPilot may be a good choice since people have confirmed that it is a rebadged Emtac / Socket BT GPS with price tag of $199. It scores the best BT range and GPS sensitivity in the BT GPS shootout.

Planet-Ed

Thanks for the info and links .. It give me a bit to consider ...

I found the CoPilot and took a look at it and its looks like a pretty good deal for $199 ... Esp if it has the same specs as the Socket BT ...

I'm still a little divided between it and the TomTom ... The major disadvantage of the CoPilot is I will need to purchase some sort of navagation software ... So that add another 70-100 or so I'd need to spend ...

I'm not too worried about the range ... I really doubt I'd ever need to be more than 7 meters from the reciever ... Esp when walking or driving (that would mean I either dropped it walking or I fell out of the car while driving )

One thing I need to ponder is how much will I really need WAAS ... I don't do any specialized work and will only be using this driving and for a very occasional hike ... Is there any real advantage that I don't know about in having this that would really be useful ???

Besides playing around what are the advantages of being able to play around with the Sirf settings that I would not be able to do with the TomTom unit. I've seen tool thats allow this on certain units but I don't know what its doing or how it can help ... Is this a useful feature I need?

The plus side on the TomTom is I get the BT reciever, TomTom software, Docking station for my dash hardwired for power, car power adapter for my PDA and a cradle for my Axim that can attach to the windshield or vent ...

Ahhhhh ... the decisions ...

I guess I'll get the TomTom unless someone can tell me why I really need WAAS or the ability to play with the Sirf settings ...