Newbie Question

[GeorgeofGeorgia]

I am looking at buying 505m/Magellan GPS Companion combo an wanted to get some advice from people who have these.

This is the combo I am looking at

http://buy.returnbuy.com/store/control/product;jsessionid=NOKIEKHHHOIA?category_id=1202&pcategory=1200&product_id=1071

http://store.palm.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1174488

Are these prices good?

Would you guys recommend a different PDA ?

Thank you in advance for any help,
George

[OldBlue]

The prices are good. The Palm promotion for the Magellan GPS ends this weekend, so you'll have to order it soon. If your budget allows, you might want to look at the m515. The Magellan will work on the m515, too. The m515's screen is considerably brighter; it has 16 MB RAM compared to the m505's 8 MB; the m515 has Palm OS 4.1 vs. OS 4.0 in the m505. If the m515 is a bit more than you want to pay, the m505 is still a great PDA. I used an m505 daily since May 2001 and only recently replaced it with a Tungsten T.

OldBlue

[djmangen]

Echo OldBlue's comments 100%. Good prices, but M515 is probably slightly better if only because of the memory -- much less the brightness of the screen.

BTW, expect to be downloading maps that could be as large as 3 Meg if you want to keep a map of a major metro area on your Palm -- hence one of the advantages of having 16 meg. on the Palm.

[OldBlue]

djmangen

Thank you for your affirmation. With me, the m515's screen was a major point because it is so much brighter than my m505's and my old eyes were having a difficult time with my m505's lower level of illumination.

As you point out, the extra RAM is important for large files like maps. I store my map files on my SD card, but Mapopolis still needs to copy a map file to RAM in order to work. The RAM overhard is necessary for Mapopolis.

OldBlue

[JohnKes]

I just realized that PiDirectII was able to work with Mapopolis. I can keep huge maps on the card, and PiDirect allows small blocks to be pulled from the map - I don't have to have the whole map in RAM!

[OldBlue]

JohnKes

The Mapopolis application within itself allows you to copy and delete map files to both RAM and memory card. You can store all your maps on the memory card and have Mapopolis call up the one you wish to view. When you close Mapolopolis, it asks if you want to have the map file(s) copied to RAM deleted to free up RAM.

OldBlue

[JohnKes]

But if you don't have enough RAM, Mapopolis can't copy the map from the card. That is how I have been using Mapopolis before.

Using PiDirect, when I put all my maps in the PiDirect directory Mapopolis thinks they are all in RAM and accesses them directly without copying each whole map to RAM.

[OldBlue]

JohnKes

Thank you for the info about PiDirect. It sounds like a good utility. Does it work OK with Palm OS5? I checked Palm's web site compatability list and it was not listed.

OldBlue

[djmangen]

I don't know for certain, but because of the way it works, I doubt that it is OS 5 compatible.

[JohnKes]

It doesn't work with OS5, and PIT is not yet working on an OS5 version of PiDirect:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8314

[OldBlue]

Thanks for the info and the link on PiDirect. I've found and bookmarked PiTech's home page and will check periodically for the release of a Palm OS5 compatable version.

OldBlue