Phone + GPS January 20, 2007

Posted by Martin in Hardware.
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My trusty mobile phone is dying… 9 out of 10 times I need to remove the battery to reset it before being able to make a call. And since my wife and I wanted to purchase GPS navigation I thought why not buy a device which can do it all at once.

My too old phone
height (with antenna): 13.2 cm
width: 4.6 cm
thickness: 2.5 cm

I thought a simple Google search would come up with lots of models, but unfortunately it appears my requirements are not that widely spread yet. Most of the GPS enabled devices are just that; GPS devices. There are PDA’s with GPS functionality ofcourse, but I would prefer a smart-phone with integrated GPS antenna.

These are the devices I came up with (more will follow, suggestions are welcome)

MIO A701

From what I found this is a device with lots of pros but unfortunately there are also some serious cons.

It appears that this device takes about 50 seconds from the moment you turn it on until it can be used. Starting the GPS software takes another 30 seconds… The biggest pro is that it’s much cheaper than the only alternative device I found this far.

Nokia N95

This phone has it all. It has phone functionality, it has Music player functionality, it has GPS functionality and it has a humongous price…

The most impressive feature is it’s camera. I already have a Canon A95 Camera so I don’t care about the camera quality but it is impressive that this phone has the same amount of Mega-Pixels as my A95!

Eten x500

I found some more GPS enabled phones. This is the Eten x500.

The most interesting feature in my opinion is it’s small size. Most of the above mentioned phones have a >2cm thickness which can make them a bit less usable as a phone (although my C35 is 2.5 cm thick). This phone however can be considered thin with its 1.5 cm.

It’s also just a bit wider than my old C35 which makes this a good candidate as a replacement for my old and dying phone. But there are more Eten devices so lets look at another smart-phone from this company.

Eten M700

This is the M700 model. Similar in size compared to the other model from Eten, this one comes equipped with a QWERTY keyboard which slides from underneath the display.

The M700 is nothing more than a X500 with a QWERTY keyboard since all the other specifications are equal to those of the X500.

This Eten is a very complete device against a reasonable price, but I have found one more device so let’s continue this GPS Phone overview. The next device is more PDA than phone.

HTC P3300

HTC is the brand-name which came to my attention first, when I started my investigation.

I’ve had never heard before of this company until I wanted to have a GPS enabled smart-phone. It’s actually the same device as the T-Mobile MDA Compact III.

One feature that stands out is the jog-dial which makes it possible to quickly navigate the screen without using the stylus.

Perhaps this device is too much of a PDA for me. But I think I will need to see the devices I’ve mentioned in real life first to make a decision. The only problem is; Where to find a shop that have them. Until now I’ve only seen them on Internet-shops…