Review: Garmin Mobile PC

A question guys. I don't know if you've noticed this, when you are in navigation mode, it doesn't seem to display street names, but that's not the case when you click browse map on bottom left corner. In browse map mode with enough of zoom in, you can see all the street names. I like to see all the street names appear when I am in 2d navigation mode.

Garmin Mobile PC arrived and I ran it for the first time last night.
This isn't a bad GPS program in my opinion, overall it performed well. Mainly the only issues I had was loss of signal at times which I believe is my new Deluo Navstick's fault. I'm calling tech support for help.

Anyway, some of the things I wish one could change or alter would be the info "bars" on the bottom of screen most of the info is not useful to me.

But what is missing is your next destination and current road name. This is a simple item yet very useful when one enters more than a dozen stops or deliveries. On this program they are called "via points". It could make more sense to name them "destination" instead of "via point"?

However, overall I like the program so far.

For everybody having trouble with their third party GPS receivers the below link leads to a USB to serial driver that works with Mobile PC and Globalsat receivers.

Tested BU-353, BU-303.

Regards,

Ben

Ben, welcome to Laptop GPS World. The link is for the Pharos USB GPS receiver, and it's interesting that it worked for you even with your Glabalsat USB GPS units.

I have been more than pleased with Garmin Mobile PC. I use a Pharos Bluetooth GPS receiver, and it works flawlessly. I have tried the device out with MS Streets and Trips and Delorme Street Atlas, but it would only work when using XPort3 to establish a virtual serial port that the software could connect to. GMPC works with Bluetooth SPP natively and that is a big reason why I like this software.

Additionally, I'm using it on an HP tx2000 Tablet PC, and I love that the software is tablet aware, meaning that you can handwrite in the text-input boxes. Naturally, the keyboard works for input as well. I don't have a mobile broadband card, so the Garmin Online features aren't very useful on the road, but I like using them for planning road trips.

I'm going to Utah in a week for a nice 1200 mile road trip through several national parks. I can't wait to bring my Garmin along.

tpettyrox, welcome to the forum. This is off topic here, but I'm very curious about your setup w/HP tx2000. I'm in the market for a new PC, and the tx2000 may be it. If you one day, during you long trip, feel like telling us about your setup, how it is mounted, etc, in the hardware forum, it would be appreciated.

Get 10% OFF on your Garmin Mobile PC!

Has anyone else experienced low audio levels for the voice guidance? My audio output is set to maximum and worked fine with nRoute but with MPC it is difficult to hear the voice directions.
Acer 5520, Vista Home Premium, Royaltek RBT-2100 BT-GPS

I'm using the British accent version of English and the first time she said anything my wife nearly jumped out of her seat because it was so loud.
Now if I could only get my wife to speak like that.

Hmm, I am using the one that speaks the street names, perhaps I should try one of the other voices.

I used the one that pronounces the street names and I couldn't tell any difference in volume level between Mobile PC and nroute. Acer Aspire 5510/Vista Home Premium.

...ken...

I'd like to bring to your attention an interesting topic:



Changing your vehicle indicator icon in Garmin Mobile PC

I was able to take a short test run with Mobile PC on my ASUS r2h UMPC today. Staring out was delayed by a computer crash requiring a 2 minute restart before I was out of the driveway. Then it went smoothly. The UMPC is finger friendly unlike a true tablet so entering basic commands was easy.

The display was great ( warm but overcast weather didn't cause any wash out problems) and the voice prompts were good. I noted more directions on this trip than with Mobile 10 but it is a different map product.
I also saw that off-route recalculation was far more sensitive. Pulling into a parking lot less than 60 feet from the route would generate a recalculation.

The speedo display seemed to jump around more than usual. My cruise control is pretty accurate and Mobile 10, although updating more often with the GPS 10x than the old GPS 10, seemed to average better. Mobile PC was using the r2h built-in GPS so this may be the reason.

When I was home, I looked at the tracks to see if I could spot the erratic speedo readings. Unfortunately, I had so many tracks I couldn't see what I wanted. Mobile PC does not seem to have a method of easily deleting old tracks. They have to be deleted one at a time. On the subject of deleting old information, when you click on the 'Delete All' button in 'Manage My Data' - 'Favourites', only the favourites showing on the screen are deleted (only 3 for the UMPC).

I planned to test Mobile PC with the other map and the GPS 10x on the return trip to sort out some of the inconsistencies, unfortunately the power pack for the UMPC got upset and blew its input fuse. I'll get a new fuse and, if the power pack survived its ordeal, test these at a later date.

I think the power problem relates to the air preheat of the diesel. It draws the battery down to ~8 volts when it cycles and the power pack was trying to put out 12v at 2+ amps at that input. It overheated and blew its fuse.

Anyway, Mobile PC is looking like a great option for the UMPC once I get my own problems sorted.

Terry

Marvin,
I just realized the little globe /road in the bottom left-hand corner of most screens is a button for going directly to the main page.
Terry