Laptop GPS World

FYI for anyone else running a TabletPC in portrait mode (768x1024) ... the right side of the Garmin Mobile PC will be cut off. Looks like Garmin makes some custom windows and requires 800px width. Perfect for UMPC and those in-dash displays, but...

see attached.

(update: reply from Garmin)

Attached Images

Untitled.jpg (120.0 KB, 8 views)

Perhaps a good idea to make a quick phone call to tech support to let them know about this, so they can correct it in a future release .

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Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

Oh there's other little quirks too... since they based it on their existing GUI... on a laptop, I always expected to be able to scroll by swiping my mouse/pen across the screen... but with Mobile PC, you have to press "browse map" ? Or am I doing things incorrectly...

Until you press 'Browse Map', the sceen is locked in navigation mode keeping the map centered on your GPS icon.

Terry

Mapopolis had an amazing UI... too bad they scrapped their Mapopolis program.

With Mapopolis, it was a simple display, nothing special, nothing fancy but it worked very well. If you wanted to scroll, it would move the screen and without any inputs for 5 seconds, the screen would go back to your location.

I also only selected the regional maps appropriate for my travels (which is in Toronto, Canada... I had Halton/Peel/York/Durham/Toronto) so searching addresses was a very simple two-tap process (Menu->Search Address). I had all of Ontario and most of New York in memory too, just in case I travelled there. But again, the Mobile PC UI was taken from their standalone dedicated units so I can see where the lack of laptop-focused UI comes from.

Maybe that was part of Mapopolis' failure: it was TOO good... it had no frills, to fancy colours and bubbly buttons eye candy for consumers. But whatever, I use a Mac, who am I to say bubbly buttons.

What's wrong with having to press the 'Browse Map' button? It doesn't take that long to press it, imho it's not too big of a deal . Perhaps iGuidance would suite you better - you can move map in iGuidance I think exactly the way you have described above.

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Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

Yes, I think I'll give iGuidance 5 a look-see when it comes out (hopefully shortly!) It's just an extra tap that IMO is not needed. Plus when I browse map, it seems it always goes to country-view, which I then have to manually zoom back into my location? Maybe I'm doing something wrong here...



Garmin Mobile PC is good, but since it looks like a port of their standalone unit software, I think they have a ways to go before Mobile PC is truly laptop-oriented. Then again, it's version 1, so who knows.

And I got a reply from Garmin re: cut-off screen.

videonerd, thanks for sharing the info.

* Still no rumours on iGuidance 5 ETA

* May be a good idea to send a quick email to the above address, and to request/suggest to correct the screen resolution problem

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Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics