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Anyone using the Navman GPS 4400 with XDA II in Australia?

I am looking at getting a GPS module for use with my XDA II and want navigation software for when I return to Australia in a few months time.
I'm currently in Sydney on holiday and came across the Navman GPS 4400 Wireless receiver with Australian navigation software for AUD$849
I'm new to the idea of PPC GPS having previously used a stand alone GPS so I have a few questions to anyone currently using the Navman GPS 4400 with XDA II Australian software combination.
Is AUD$849 a good price?
Does it work well with the XDA II?
If I use a BT headset can I use the BT GPS at the same time?
Is the map coverage good, fair or poor?
Thanks.
Ed

NAVMAN and Upgrade ROM
I have used the 4400 with an XDA II in Europe, but I'm afraid that after a recent upgrade to the new O2 Asia 1.60ROM I have lost the functionailty completely. TOWA's BTTools 1.02, which worked well with the 1.52 ROM will not work with the upgraded ROM, nor will the BTTools 1.1. I can only set COM7 on the profile, which is precisely the COM port not available on the NAVMAN.
I could not use the BT Headset with the BT GPS at the same time.
As far as map coverage in Australia, I have seen it and it appears to be quite good.
I paid AU$1080 for the Euro maps so your price looks good, but check out the LeadTek GPS unit as well. It seems to have the edge over the 4400 as far as low strength areas are concerned.
Cheers

Fixed, of all the simple things
After yesterday's post, a friend and I had another try to get things working between the XDAII and the 4400, and succeeded.
Firstly make sure you unbond all other Bluetooth devices first so that the NAVMAN gets first pick of the ports.
Install "BTTools", the new 1.1 versions does work. When you bond with the 4400 you will still need to run the "enablechar.exe" program. You will be offered port 7 on TOWA's connect page.
When you open the NAVMAN software, select port 7, 57600 speed.
Here is a little tip that I overlooked. There will be a red box just to the left of the port selection box. If you tap that it opens the port and turns green!!!. How NAVMAN expect you to just find that is amazing as it is not labelled at all. Stupid Software design. (or possibly stupid operator ).
Anyway, happy driving when you get back.
About the only downside of a phone pda combo is that when the phone rings you lose your GPS screen, usually at a critical turn.
Cheers 8)

Thanks for the updated information Camstech, greatly appreciated.

First Trinity, then Hermes, GPS for Treo too?

just a question, since all three use the same chipset (Qualcomm 6275) could we Treo users ever have the joy of on board GPS?

The Hermes has a SirfIII and the Trinity uses Qualcom but the Treo I believe doesn't have any built-in GPS chip in it.

The hermes is the tytn/cingular 8525, right? i didn't know it has a gps chip on board. if that is so, can i load tomtom onto a hermes and use it out of the box without a bt gps receiver?

The following Treo's have a built-in gps chip Treo™650, Treo 700w, or Treo 700p though.

Oops! My mistake. The Hermes doesn't have a GPS chip built-in. I myself suddenly got confused there.

The Hermes did have a GPS chip built in, however it was disabled by HTC and the antenna was removed.
No Treo to date has had a GPS chip on board.

Interesting, doesn't the Telenav on AT&T require built in GPS (which is advertised on their site). If so, can the gps be unlocked and used with my own gps software?

GPS receiver upgrade or to buy Tytn II

Dear All,
before to buy a Tytn II, I'd like to understand if the GPS comes upgraded by the future's ROMs (I think yes) or is necessary a future hardware change ???
P.S.:
I have a Tytn with the GPS Fortuna ClipOn BT, and I don't know is better to change the GPS receiver or buy the new one with GPS included.
Thanks a lot
Ciao ...

ritmia said:
Dear All,
before to buy a Tytn II, I'd like to understand if the GPS comes upgraded by the future's ROMs (I think yes) or is necessary a future hardware change ???
P.S.:
I have a Tytn with the GPS Fortuna ClipOn BT, and I don't know is better to change the GPS receiver or buy the new one with GPS included.
Thanks a lot
Ciao ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy the new phone - its worth it. The GPS works fine & the phone has a lot more oomph (CPU memory etc)

Seconded, get the Kaiser and off load your BT gps. My Wizard is now relegated to my wifes car with my old BT gps and that is her SatNav solution. I am well happy just having the Kaiser as the gps works as well if not better, and I only have to carry one device around.

Had a bluetooth GPS unit connected to my AXIM as my GPS system before I bought this phone.
My AXIM crashed, battery died flat dead, so I had to use my phone as backup. Used the built-in GPS with TOMTOM on my Kaiser and it was AWESOME- worked perfectly!
Get this phone you won't need anything to supplement it what-so-ever...

No. The Kaiser built-in GPS chipset can't compare to BT-359 SIRF III. It sees less Satellite; also, many of them are invalid signal, that means these satellites were grey. With the ones are blue, the signal keeps going up and down. Sometimes, for somewhat reasons, Kaiser loose the GPS fix (you see the map turn around) even in the clear view sky, then you loose your current position.
If you're driving in the crowed sky area (e.g NYC), stick with bluetooth GPS SIRF III chipset receiver.
Read more here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=339257 I had used the BT-338 then upgraded to BT -359 which is slimmer, sleeker but lack of external antenna connector and less of batt. time life.

i have tomtom - works faster.
tilt gps - far worse. but it works at 95%.

ritmia said:
Dear All,
before to buy a Tytn II, I'd like to understand if the GPS comes upgraded by the future's ROMs (I think yes) or is necessary a future hardware change ???
P.S.:
I have a Tytn with the GPS Fortuna ClipOn BT, and I don't know is better to change the GPS receiver or buy the new one with GPS included.
Thanks a lot
Ciao ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Frankly I doubt the inbuilt GPS is going to be as good as an external one. (I reserve my judgement till my Tytn II arrives. However, your decision should be based on expense too. Do you mind spending out the extra for inbuilt GPS by buying a whole new Smartphone?
If yes then no problem because you can still use an external gps. If you want to keep the cost down get an external one. I bought an i-blue 737. The device cost me 30UKP and it's never ceased to amaze me how good it is. This will pick up 7 satelites anywhere in my home regardless of where I am. No need to go near a window, the acuracy is astounding with WAAS + EGNOs enabled and 115000 baud coms.
As I say I doubt the inbuilt one is going to match this but it probably will be fairly decent.
Disclaimer: this is just my opinion.

Nghiem said:
No. The Kaiser built-in GPS chipset can't compare to BT-359 SIRF III. It sees less Satellite; also, many of them are invalid signal, that means these satellites were grey.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True for the reception quality, but not for the TTFF which is much shorter with the QualCOMM chipset than with a Sirf III (less than 5 seconds in most cases).
The degradation of the signal due to obstruction (when inside a car for example) is virtually identical to a Sirf III chipset.
The only real weakness with the QualCOMM chipset for the time being is that it has major problems getting a fix when moving quickly. I tried several times to get a fix while moving with ~450mph with a clear view to almost all satellites and the QualCOMM has a very hard time to find more than 2-3 useable satellites. Even after 5-10 minutes no useable position can be determined. Moving quickly to get a fix should not be a problem at all for any GPS chipset.
But I have high hopes that those "quirks" will get fixed with a future firmware update.

The Kaiser has an antenna port specifically for the GPS undeneath the battery cover. I don't know if a battery cover can be found that exposed it more gracefully but I imagine with a small antenna would augment the signal nicely.
That being said, without using an external antenna, I'm actually quite impressed with the accuracy. I wouldn't have anything to compare against it but it's always been dead on for me.
I use TomTom 6 but I've played with google maps and Windows Live Search.
I have noticed it can take a long time to get the first lock on occasion, and especially so when driving at speed. Not really a problem for me, as you usually plan where I'm going while the car is stopped.
-James

Since GPS works with as little as 3 sats, and 4 for 3D positioning, why does everyone worry about getting 7 tuned in? Seems a bit anal to me.
The Kaiser GPS IMHO is a tad slow to init, but other than that, it's worth every penny to not have 2 devices to handle at times. I've never had a problem loosing connectivity, so I'm 100% satisfied with the Kaiser. YMMV of course.
Now if HTC would use a decent CMOS sensor in the camera, then I'd call the phone perfect. But that's another thread...

Dear All,
thanks to everybody about the answers ... I think I'll upgrade my GPS receiver (is more cheap). In this moment, I wait other tests about the GPS of Tytn II.
Ciao, ...

scottwilkins said:
Since GPS works with as little as 3 sats, and 4 for 3D positioning, why does everyone worry about getting 7 tuned in?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because the more satellites you are evaluating, the more precise the position gets and in case you lose track of one of the satellites, you will still be shown a valid position.
Adding to that, the RAIM functionality of GPS receivers for an even more precise position while getting rid of most common GPS erros only works with 5 satellites or more.
So, while it's true that you only need 3 satellites for an 2D position, this fix will not be very precise (due to lack of crosschecking with other satellites and typical GPS calculation errors which happen all the time) and you will lose your position as soon as one satellite disappears from your view.
However GPS receivers which can track more than 12 satellites at any given times are useless because there will never more than 12 satellites visible at any specific point of the earth, most of time you can only track and use a maximum of 8 satellites simultaneously.

vacsed said:
I tried several times to get a fix while moving with ~450mph with a clear view to almost all satellites and the QualCOMM has a very hard time to find more than 2-3 useable satellites.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't your F15 eagle have built in sat nav?

GPS Navigation Possible?

I saw a friend who just got the HTC Tilt and had a TomTom navigation program installed on it that worked without pairing it with a bluetooth gps receiver.
I know that the xv6700 has the built in gps (for 911) and was wondering if anyone has gotten a navigation program to work with this phone without purchasing an additional BT GPS Receiver.

NOPE!
If you do a search you will find this question has been asked lots of times!
Sorry, I too hoped it would work!

Works Fine
I use the Tilt with TomTom everyday. It works fine using the built in GPS.

I'd love to see a hack to be able to use TomTom on my xv6700....anyone come up or leading up to one ?

I have a XV6700 with TomTom but in order to get it to work I had to go and get a Bluetooth GPS antenna. The built in GPS chip does not work with TomTom only E911. Using it with the bluetooth it works REALLY great.
HTH

Once and for all, the 6700 has E911 GPS only, it cannot be used wtih turn by turn gps applications. If you really want/need some form of inaccurate navigation and don't want to buy a bluetooth gps unit, your options are Microsoft Live Search, Google Maps, or Navizon.
This thread should be closed.

Apache GPS
I've recently upgraded the Titan to the new radio version that allows for built in functionality. Does anyone know if the new Apache radio will work, or if a newer one is coming out?

as many times as this has been posted and with the post above yours you still ask this question. the apache has no real fuctioning gps chipset. it functions for 911 location only. end of story

i would like to beg to differ, the 6800 does not have a dedicated GPS chip but the same GPSone chip the 6700 has... it may be a newer version of the chip but it does the same thing the 6700 does. if someone who isnt closed minded cares to take their time to try to extract the information from the 6800's radio firmwares and impliment it on the 6700 it should work.. the only thing that could stop us from using that chip is if it is hardware locked. all you have to do is redesign the radio firmware and put it into an existing kitchen rom... I will try to figure it out but ive never worked with building custom roms before and it will likely take a long time to get anywhere... i am sure someone who is any good at kitchen roms would be willing to take a crack at it

yeah but you miss the big picture. a chip isnt worth a hill of silicone if you dont have an antenna to hook to it

madmattco said:
yeah but you miss the big picture. a chip isnt worth a hill of silicone if you dont have an antenna to hook to it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, if the problem is *also* that there is no antenna attached, will it be possible to solder a connection from the chip to use the phone antenna??

willfck4beer said:
So, if the problem is *also* that there is no antenna attached, will it be possible to solder a connection from the chip to use the phone antenna??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But if there is no antenna attached, then how is the e911 getting its gps signal fix?
Jeff

most do it by triangulating between 3 or so cell towers

the program GPS Today has a feature that can used cell phone tower based positioning instead of a GPS receiver. i've never tested it because i have a 6800 with fantastic GPS, but its worth a try. Its free and pretty damn cool, so that would be crazy if the solution was that easy. try it out.
http://m.geoterrestrial.com/

There was a long thread about this over on pdaphonehome a while back. In short:
YES, the PPC-6700 DOES have stand alone GPS functionality. There was an email from HTC posted where they confirmed this. The reason it does not work stand alone is because Sprint requested it be disabled (I guess they wanted to charge for their own navigation package). But there is built in GPS that can use cell tower triangulation and regular GPS. Some people actually had the Verizon version working in a roundabout way for a while.

I went so far as to install Sprint's Nav software after I got on a plan that included navigation (for my wife's Instinct). It ran fine, but could never get a signal.

Sorry to bump an old thread-
Since the GPS hack is out for the XV6800, can it, or something similar be applied to the PPC6700?

iornslave said:
i would like to beg to differ, the 6800 does not have a dedicated GPS chip but the same GPSone chip the 6700 has... it may be a newer version of the chip but it does the same thing the 6700 does. if someone who isnt closed minded cares to take their time to try to extract the information from the 6800's radio firmwares and impliment it on the 6700 it should work.. the only thing that could stop us from using that chip is if it is hardware locked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Umm, I'm not sure where this info came from or what planet this phone came from, but it is completely inaccurate. Here's the story and please, DO NOT post anymore "Can I" questions on this as it is not a viable issue.
The 6800 (known by HTC as the Titan) has the Qualcomm MSM7500 "cell phone on a chip" chipset. This includes their GPSOne gps solution. It is an integrated GPS receiver for the phone. It is unique to the Qualcomm systems as it is their technology. In essence, it is a standalone gps receiver as it requires drivers to run and can be used independently of other functions.
Now, the 6700 (known by HTC as the Apache) has the Intel Boulevard chip. It is not a "cell phone on a chip" solution as the MSM7500 is. The 6700 would have had the Qualcomm solution (maybe not the 7500, but equivalent for the time), but legal matters complicated things and HTC signed with Intel instead. The Apache HAS gps built in as does EVERY cell phone made after a certain date set by the government requiring ALL cell phone manufacturers to include a GPS solution for E911 location requirements. These solutions only need a 2D fix and are not processed in the same manner as an NMEA enabled GPS receiver. As it would be possible to intercept these signals and process them through an intermediate driver, it would be practically worthless as the fix is only approximate (30 meters+-), half or all the data is tower triangulated (aGPS) and the value of the fix is geek value only.
So, if you want to mess with it, go ahead. Just remember, a seperate GPS receiver is a lot less hassle and a lot cheaper.

GPS external antena connector??

Hello guys,
Lately im having reception problems on my GPS so wanted to help buying an external antena so:
Just wondering if the connector we can se at the back of the P3600 is a GSM or GPS connector? Because on the HTC website they seem to sell the navigation pack with antena but i cant seem to get just the antena for this phone.
If it is a GPS external connector what type is it mcx or mMCX???
Or im i having reception problems no one else seems to get?
Thanks for your help.

Hello it's GSM connector

jcinfo, thank you for that. No point of wasting money on something thats not going to help me.
Any ideas how to improve the GPS quality?? I cant remember which ROM i installed as it was a long time ago, i think it was the 4.11, if that makes sense.
Thank you

GSP is very long for fix, dont move when you run it !
No idea for improve the signal .

i think antenal's trinity is very sensitive, it can see more satellites. however the fist time to fix is still slower because the chipset buit-in isn't perfect, its doesn't have the SIRFinstandFix the same as SIFR III to improve the time to fix.
to solve this problem, can't connect the GPS external antenal, it maybe is rom radio or drive or a chipset's solution.

Use 1.56 radiorom. Gpsfix will be around 45 - 60 sec.

well, i also have a gpsslim 296 (external GPS based on sirf star III and communicating by bluetooth) which outperforms the internal GPS even without AGPS or quickgps in all aspects: resolution, number of sats, fix speed. Since they probably cost like a gps antenna...