Palm Zire 31 + GPS Bundle

geordie458

Not entirely sure if this is a bargain. These are available in Staples Stores (not online) for £99.91. Ive had a look around and even second hand ones on Ebay are going for over £90. Seems like a cheap route into Sat Nav plus you get the PDA too. Anyone had any experience of these please?

dancleary

Here's a lin to a review for the PDA- it seems it does the basics very well

http://www.lordpercy.com/palm_zire_31.htm

hope this helps

Dan

wizzer

geordie458 wrote:

Not entirely sure if this is a bargain. These are available in Staples Stores (not online) for £99.91. Ive had a look around and even second hand ones on Ebay are going for over £90. Seems like a cheap route into Sat Nav plus you get the PDA too. Anyone had any experience of these please?

Yes - I bought the same about 10 months ago (I think for about £150) because I needed a replacement PDA and I also wanted a cheap way into satnav.

The Zire 31 is perfectly adequate as a PDA. Regarding the satnav, it may depend what satnav software you have. I have something called Mapsonic by ViaMichelin and I think its version 3.5. This doesnt allow you to search by post code which most sat navs now do - a big disadvantage. That said, the satnav works very well although I do find it throws up some funny routes and the ability to change the paremeters (eg quickest/shortest etc) is limited. For example, I think for most journeys you'd want to stay on the motorways/A roads as the simplest and easiest way of getting from a to b. Ive found that map sonic seems to take every possible back road that it can find! Certainly gets you to the right destinatinon but I find it hard to believe its the quickest. Found it a bit of a problem in Cornwall last year on holiday when again it would find routes for me along the narrowest country lanes when I would have been more happier sticking to main roads.

So as a basic sat nav I suppose it does the job reasonably well. However, by comparison to TomTom which my father in law has bought, it doesn't compare but of course you're paying a lot more for the latter.

Prices coming down fast now before Xmas - I'd look at some of the others first.

michaels

It is possible to upgrade from the supplied mapsonic 2.5 to v 3.1 (see pocketgps.co.uk for details) which then allows postcode searches. I have one and it is generally good but occaisionally I can get the sat-nav to freeze which is very annoying.

thespacecowboy

I've got the Zire 72 bundle and it's great. v3.5 of mapsonic does do postcodes, although it only really goes a few digits i.e. NR1 3 for example.

Advantage of a palm based on it you can play games, apps, email etc which you can't do with a tomtom!
Also, you could always buy the tomtom for palm and install it on this if you don't like viamichelin.
via is not perfect but it's fine for me

empfun

Do you have to pay to use Satnav?

dc

NO you pay for the software on a one off basis.

If you buy a bundle then it is already in the price you paid. You have the option to purchase any software upgrades that become available later, but only if you want or need to.