The Aytobe has landed.

At Last!

The Aytobe unit has came.

First impressions; Chunky (although MUCH slimmer than other units on the market), Rather heavy (no problem as long as you dont plan on walking with it in your pocket with out using a belt?)

Default maps are next to useless for my area, its funn, hard to explain exactly how uselss they are!


I played around with the unit for a while today, i got to the windows CE 4.2 desktop by editing the auto.ini file located on the unit, i then installed a version of the TomTom 6 software which seems to have much better maps for my area!


More updates to come soon.

The (4th) Order

Not much news regarding the Aytobe unit.

I managed to mess up the first order (Or so Maplin say), they managed to mess up two more orders, one last try later and it seems to have actually gone through and was dispatched today!

Lets hope it comes on friday then, if not it will be monday.

Stay tuned.

The Order

I placed an order for the aytobe unit yesterday (June 28th) which still has not been proccessed.

Hopefully the unit will come by tuesday.

The Aytobe

Ok, so I am in the market for a SatNav/GPS System for my car to stop me getting lost.

Easy I think to my self! If only!

There are a huge number of systems on the market. Websties that sell 100s of diff combos some of which include

• Dedicated Sat Navs
• These are the more standard ones you would see people using
• Black box the size of the LCD screen and mostly thick in size
• Sticks onto the car window and mostly stays there
• PDAs
  
• Internal GPS stuff or external hardware using bluetooth
  
• Some come with their own software
• TomTom software can be installed on these etc
• Windows based mostly
• Full PDA functionality
• Mobile phones
• Internal GPS stuff or external hardware using bluetooth
• Different software for these also
• PDA/(smart)Phone/mixes
• PDA functionality and can make phonecalls
• One device if it has inteneral GPS stuff

Some of the dedicated units, such as the TomTom units (and many others) may run a form of Windows, or Linux. This appeals to some people such as myself for many reasons, you may be able to get more functionality out of the devices than what a stock unit has, Which brings me to my next point

The Aytobe unit on Maplin, is £99 the cheapest TomTom unit (that is not really dated) is around £150 the prices range to almost £400.

£150 for the TomTom unit, well for some is fine, but the Aytobe unit runs windows, it costs £50 less than the TomTom, what do you get for the extra money?

To make things more interesting, TomTom release a version of their software which runs on Windows Based PDAS (along with other platforms). What does our Aytobe unit run? Windows!

This is why i am making this blog, to document my trip into the GPS/Sat Nav world and hopefully prove that i made the right choice, by getting the cheaper unit compared to the big name brands.

Maplin Info

Next Generation GPS with MP3 Player and Remote

• Large 3.5 inch touchscreen and included stylus showing 2D and 3D view in day/night mode
• Full UK mapping with 7-digit post code on SD using Tele Atlas maps
• Remote control, car charger and home charger included
• MP3 player stores your favourite songs via SD card (up to 80 MP3s)
• Sirf star III antenna for optimum GPS signal
• Built-in battery lasts up to 3 hours
• 64MB flash memory

This truly remarkable GPS machine really does show how much more functionality you get for your money today. With a very accurate Sirf star III chipset and a full postcode search the essential features are covered. Also, because you can use the unit with its remote, anybody can control it to navigate or even play MP3s. For the technology, its a bargain.


http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=115145&TabID=1&source=1&doy=29m7