On Wed, 2010-05-19 at 22:16 +, James wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Time for a new GPS. Any cool models out there
> that work well with a Gentoo laptop?
That's like saying "Time for a new car. Any cool models out there that
work well with petrol?"
There are a plethora of GPSs! Do you want the typical in car voice
navigation to take you to the restaurant; or off road waypoint and path
tracking, route logging, or something else?
> Being unaware of the latest with GPS (features)
> I'd be most keen to hear what works well and
> what is cool for driving around with a GPS
some features you might consider:
* bluetooth for handsfree answering and dialling your mobile phone
(if it's legal in your area)
* map upgrades - make sure you can do it for a number of years and
you're not stuck with this years maps forever
* text to speech - for reading out street names ("turn left at
Smith St" vs "turn left in 100m")
* tunnel mode (some use accelerometers and such to keep your
position accurate in tunnels or city centres)
* Online searching (watch out for data fees) useful for finding
the nearest petrol station
* Camera with geotagging
* expandable memory
* mp3 / video playing capability to use up that expandable memory
* on road / off road modes and route logging (not that you have to
go off road, but if you want to upload your tracks to a free
mapping service, then it needs to be royalty free, which means
you need to turn off the "snap to nearest road" function)
* digital compass, odometer, log book facility
* lane guidance and 3d features (I personally don't care for them,
but some do)
* etc
> Maybe searching out free wireless connections for
> bandwidth?
not sure how many plain GPSs have wifi.
hth,
--
Iain Buchanan
One person's error is another person's data.
