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For more than a year
now, I’ve been charting on a personal digital assistant (PDA) that’s
accessorized with a GPS. It’s time I tell you about my experience,
especially as various related products are coming to market. In a nutshell,
these handy handheld computers have evolved to where they work as darn
powerful personal plotters, on water or on land, but the overall technology
is still in its chaotic adolescence.
After all, PDAs were
not really viable products until 1996, when the Palm Pilot was introduced.
The design succeeded by being simple, small, and fast—thus creating
a real alternative to the paper day planner. Millions of folks on the
go got used to having their essential electronic data synched by wire
from PC to handheld, where they could call it up with a few control keys
and a touch screen. Some even learned the shorthand needed to update an
entry or write a note with a stylus.
Another reason for Palm’s
success was how the company encouraged independent developers to write
additional applications; it even licensed its operating system (OS) to
other hardware companies. A universe of programs and gear flowered. In
the year 2000, mighty Microsoft entered the fray, introducing the considerably
more powerful and feature-fat PocketPC OS and enticing several hardware
builders to support it. A notable winner was Compaq, whose iPaq series
featured a comparatively large color display and the ability to add sleeved
accessories.
Thus the pieces came
together for PDA plotting, and in 2001 Maptech introduced Pocket Navigator,
the program I’ve been running on an iPaq equipped with a Navman
GPS sleeve. It’s a slick package. Before a trip, I boot up the software’s
PC module and select the raster charts and topos I want, build routes
if needed, and download everything to the handheld’s memory card.
Once I’m outdoors or have the iPaq mounted to my boat or car windshield,
the GPS acquires position, and the magic begins. Friends looking over
my shoulder, particularly ones familiar with regular plotters and/or PC
charting, are invariably astounded at how sharp the charts look, how fast
they zoom using the control keys, and how smoothly they pan when dragged
with a stylus pen or one’s fingertip.
Now let me interrupt
this geek reverie with some of the not-so-positive details. The iPaq’s
reflective display works okay in direct sunlight but washes out in muted
or oblique light. The screen does have internal lighting, but I have to
be miserly with it, as the unit’s battery life, especially with
GPS attached, is marginal (I use a power cord whenever possible). The
device does not always synch properly with my PC, necessitating reboots,
and when I upgraded its operating system, it ended up making three trips
to a Compaq repair facility! I’ve also run into software incompatibilities
and the need to update drivers, etc. In short, computer power comes with
computer headaches. And, more generally speaking, you don’t want
to know how many types of memory cards, connectors, and processors there
are in PDA land.
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