Category: Handheld

AIO PNDs, and writing 8

AIO PNDs, and writing

AIO_PNDs_in_Camden_cPanbo

If Mae West were alive, her famously bawdy trademark line might go like this: “Hello there, sailor. Is that a WAAS GPS AIO PND loaded with a continent’s worth of nautical, street, topo, and photo cartography and several hundred thousand POIs in your pocket…or are you just happy to see me?” To which a sorry geek like me might squeak back, “Pardon, Ms. West, no time for flirting; I’ve got gadgets to fiddle with!” Indeed I do.

SPOT share pages, in beta 0

SPOT share pages, in beta

Spot_sharing_example_cPanbo

The SPOT satellite messenger is about to get more attractive to many boaters. Originally it wasn’t all that easy to share your tracking with friends and family; in fact, to do so you had to share your entire Spot account user name and password. But now Spot is beta testing a pretty sophisticated feature that enables Web sharing of both tracks and messages…

Lowrance XOG, first impressions 0

Lowrance XOG, first impressions

Lowrance_XOG_Virginia_cPanbo

I’ve actually been testing Lowrance’s XOG for months now, and have become quite a fan. Primarily it’s a touch screen car navigator with voice directions and two gigs worth of Navteq street maps (U.S. and Canada) and three plus million POI’s built-in. But it’s also splash proof and can display all sorts of Lowrance and Navionics cartography on preprogrammed SD cards, or

DeLorme PN-20, first &$?!ing look 8

DeLorme PN-20, first &$?!ing look

DeLorme_PN20_chart_cPanbo

Sure, I’m a dite biased toward companies from Maine. I’d be excited about ActiveCaptain no matter where it was, but knowing that it’s home-based right across the the Bay likely juices my enthusiasm a few percentile (and maybe the reverse bias is why my Navagear buds seem so oddly tepid on AC?). At any rate, it’s with some sadness that I’m about to skewer DeLorme, even though

Garmin Colorado, next gen handheld? 8

Garmin Colorado, next gen handheld?

Garmin_Colorado_crop2

Last night Garmin announced a slew of new mobile products, and I must say: WOW! Check out the Colorado, a high-end handheld designed for driving, hiking, boating, and…um…multimedia, location-aware, gaming/educational experiences!…

Amerigo mobile nav, open source 9

Amerigo mobile nav, open source

Amerigo

Head’s up, open source programmers. Marcello Ferrero has begun the Amerigo project, navigation freeware meant for PC, PocketPC and WinMobile phones and PDAs. A “PreAlpha” release is out, and Ferrero is hoping some nautical code jockies will join him. One feature that he thinks unique…