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Rating: 
Summary: Magellan GPS Companion, the best GPS so far for the V/Vx
Review: I bought several GPS for many Palm PDAs. Overall I consider this one the best for the V/Vx for several reasons: Sleek form factor, very light, easy to clip-on/off, good battery life and external power connector, gets and KEEPS fix even when not pointed to the sky or placed on the dashboard. I am quite amazed seeing totally different comments. Furthermore the software that comes with it works quite nicely. The MapCompanion has the fastest continuous seamless scrolling of any similar programs and its maps are the most compact ones. No wonder, it is just a rebranded version of MarcoSoft's well known Quo Vadis. I even tried it thru high mountains. It did show the right altitude at all times. In New York and other cities too it worked perfectly well showing my position with an acceptable precision.
Rating: 
Summary: High Tech Toy
Review: I buyed it from here, first it is very limited, you cannot transfer the data to a pc, to process it or print. The softwares are not very good.
And theres is a problem, it hangs and dont recognizes the gps, like is not attached to the palm, and you have to reinstall the software in the palm to use it. I dont like it, is not very usefull.
Rating:
Summary: High Tech Toy
Review: I mainly wanted to use the NAV program to record and plot waypoints. As Mark noted, it's fairly laborious -- erasing the default Wpt00001 name that comes up and then writing in a new name. Worse, once you've marked all your waypoints, no matter what scale you use to view them, they are generally all scrunched together, so you have good data but no good way to view it graphically. Worst of all, no way to download the data to a computer. There is a PDB backup file made in your backup directory, but it's encrypted, so if you wanted to import the data into your plotting program and make a physical map, no such luck. The only software that appears on my computer is a fairly useless help file (i.e. description of all the obvious functions but no real help with HOW to use them or what they are based on). This is one of those high tech toys that works great as a module, but not as an extension of the Palm or computer. Fortunately, I got it as part of a rebate program, and only lost $30 on the deal, not the full $100.
Rating:
Summary: Less than I expected
Review: The device actually works reasonably well for the $$. I spent on it (rebates!). However I had to figure out how to use it by trial and error. There is no hard copy user's manual, only a help file on the CD-ROM. The help file is some Windoze frame application that won't open with MSWord or by any other Mac application. The web site does not have a user manual ftp. Otherwise, no problem using the Palm Mac software to load the applications and maps.
Based on one trip it seems pretty cool. If only I could get my hands on a manual! It seems that a MSWord or pdf file would have been a bit more global, Magellan.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not perfect but it is a good start - 30 Day impressions
Review: The GPS unit comes with CD ROM with help file for documentation, a set of US maps (300 Meg) and two Palm applications, NavCompanion and MapCompanion. The maps are arranged by city with State / County / directory structure and one can download these 'databases' using the hot sync install utility. The two software programs are fairly independent of each other and the Nav seems to work better than the Map program. If you want to know the takeoff velocity of the A320 flight you are on the Nav program is your choice - it works but you need to be in the window seat since the GPS signals are stopped by metal skins. When the pilot announced altitude -37,000 - the GPS matched and told me we had a nice tail wind since we were moving at 610 MPH. My many measurements of the same altitude says 30-50 feet is the typical error from day to day measurements. One of my favorite features is the waypoint - if you have ever wondered what you are looking at from the window seat, set a waypoint and later you can lookup the Latitude / Longitude values and see where you were. The Map program works very well once you get it started and setup. It automatically loads the map where you are and moves between them automatically. But I find the program is buggy (can't find the GPS sometimes) and needs improved menu items to provide the tracking / scrolling / destination options. When it works, it is very smooth and fairly accurate (30-60 feet). Overall, I think this hardware is excellent and the software will improve. I'm looking forward to the Map program talking with the address book so it can look up the address for you. It already knows the names of the streets - except when they have numbers. El Camino Real is simply 82 on the maps.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most practical GPS product for a general consumer
Review: The product is a clip-on attachment to Palv V/Vx. Actually you clip Palm on it but it depends on the point of view :))The gadget is only a GPS reciever -the rest is done by Palm and the software installed on Palm. That concept is both money and wieght saver! The benefit for those who already owe Palm is that they do not have to drag along another screen, another chip,another software.... And in contrast to stand-alone GPS units is gives a user a much bigger choice of software applications and cuts ubmellical cord to a producer what results in different (lower) prices for the softeare and widens options considerably.
Performance - good performance one woukl expect from a consumer product.
Reccomend to update the bundled softeare - a better version 2.10 of NavComp is availabe on Magellan site. Drawback - when too mny waypoints are loaded becomes reaaly slow - but that ia a softeare problem....
Lack of a solution to feed DC to Palm itself on outsoursed power is strange.
I enjoy it
Rating:
Summary: US or International location streetmaps
Review: This is one of the only products I know that have street maps available of the US (Magellan-supplied software) and many countries in Europe (web software Route). I use it to navigate around Europe when there on vacation or on business trips, especially helpful when you don't know your way around. It makes it easy in helping to locate highway turnoffs as you drive, and helps you find and get you to your destination much more easily than not having a street mapping GPS. I have used it with map chart program in 5 countries in Europe plus in the US!
Rating:
Summary: Great product for the price!
Review: This product is a lot of fun and a great bargain for the price. I received mine last night and I was up and running in less than 30 minutes. The initialization program assists in pinpointing your current location and finds the satellites relatively quickly. At home, I locked on to the satellites in less than 2 minutes. Learning how to use the map software is tricky, but workable. I did notice a 2 to 4 second delay in displaying my exact speed while driving, but that is acceptable. I am more interested in my exact location and heading which are on par with other GPS devices. I recommend this product to anyone that has a Palm Vx (8 mb of memory) because the maps can use a lot of memory. Enjoy!!
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