Blue tooth GPS

[bungie]

anybody have anything to do with these ??

http://www.riversidetechnologies.com.au/products/destinator_gps_9537.htm

[subzero]

The software side of things I know a little bit about, Destinator, Travroute and Garmins City Navigator will give you voice navigation on the road if you run it through a laptop or a pda.
In my opinion, the best but by far the most expensive is the Destinator one, I personally use the City Navigator as it is $200-00 cheaper and does the same thing.
The graphics on the Destinator are superior to the Garmin, but for the difference in price I couldnt see the value in it... (You can use voice comands in destinator but if you have ever used a dictation program they are sh!ts of things anyway and you are liable to end up going the wrong direction).
With the Garmin programs, you can install a program called NRoute which is free to download from their site for the voice addition, another program you can download free is Ximage to take snapshots of your screen.... one that you may need to buy is Garmins Trip and Waypoint manager unless you know someone who has it and may be prepared to copy it for you, ;) which of course is theoreticly a no no... 8)
In Australia, they all use information supplied by sensis which is part of Telstra (I think)
Use the search function here and you will get an idea of the detail you get from the software http://www.whereis.com/whereis/home.jsp

The ones I find who really know their stuff and are usually pretty happy to help are Johny Appleseed GPS... I spent 3-4 months trying to buy software in particular cheaper than them and couldnt do it particually when taking freight in to account. Tried ebay, overseas, all over Aussy couldnt do any better pricewise on the software
This is their website contact details, try them for anything you want to know
http://www.ja-gps.com.au/contact.htm

If you want to have a look at mine, pm me and I will arange to catch up with you and you can have a play... I use the Garmin GPS 60cs
Cheers Lloyd

[bungie]

I have a few options with the software, was wondering more about the bluetooth GPS hardware

[subzero]

Sorry Bungie, cant help there, but ring Johny Appleseed anyhow, they sell all the recievers etc including bluetooth... in packages with or without software.
Here is their bluetooth page, dont have a heart attack looking at the prices at the top of the page, the ordinary stuff is down towards the bottom.
http://www.ja-gps.com.au/results.aspx?searchString=bluetooth&Submit=Go
Cheers Lloyd

[bungie]

Wow some price differences

Johny Appleseed ........Leadtek Bluetooth GPS 9537 - $269.00

Harris Technology ...... Leadtek Bluetooth GPS 9537 - $349.00

[subzero]

I spoke to another coy here in Brissy regards pricing and I spent a bit of time talking to the guy and got on well with him. He told me that they have asked Johny Appleseed to increase their prices with them because their is no money in it as far as they are concerned but J.A wont have a bar of it. (I believe thats what they call price fixing).
J.A specialise in GPS products so as far as they are concerned, they can keep their prices low because they dont deviate into other areas so can concentrate on their core bussiness.
I have tried Olbis, Prestige, GME, HT, GPS Oz, and a heap of other small players and the best some will do is match their prices. Olbis offered to undercut them by $1 on the City Navigator... sh!t, that kind of saving really swayed me ;) laughed till I :'(
Their prices are good at JA, and their before and after sales service is very good, thats also got to be worth a few extra dollars...
By the way, if at a later date you did decide to buy offshore through places like e-bay etc, the base maps supplied with the units will not be Aussie or Pacific base maps but normally America's, so their are the odd downfalls. (I never found an overseas supplier who was prepared to get the Australian version of the 60cs... It was their versions or nothing...
Cheers Lloyd

[cooky]

subzero - it sounds like you spent about $500 trying in your quest to find a cheaper price :)

Is this a mad obsession? I can understand if the thing was $5000.

[subzero]

One would think so wouldnt they, it did actually become a bit of an obsession to be honest.... no I just couldnt believe that I couldnt get a discount for cash... even a small one :'(
I didnt spend any money searching, just one hell of a lot of time... also normally I am prone to going off half cocked and buying the first thing that looks good, later on finding out it doesnt have all the features I wanted or needed.... this time I did my homework as the old girl can get pretty cranky when I blow a bit of dough on the wrong thing ;D By the time I brought the 60cs and the additional software etc it was about $1,200-00 all up and thats a fair bit of money for a gadget for me
Cheers Lloyd

[Needmorerum]

One of the blokes that I go 4WD'ing with uses Destinator and the Bluetooth GPS through a dash mounted PDA.
Top set up, and as far as I know, hasn't had any problems with the Bluetooth side of it at all. He is running three different mapping programs and all is well.

Corry