Hewlett-Packard iPAQ 310 Bluetooth 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator by hp
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List Price: Our Price: $170.00 You Save: $279.00 (62%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Hewlett-Packard iPAQ 310 Bluetooth 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
Digital camera Review: Great features at a great price.
Summary: 5 Stars
This GPS is packed with features. It is priced at a GPS that does half as much. The GPS is fast and maybe too fast. It tries to get you back to your route a little bit, but you just keep driving and it recalcs super fast. The bluetooth works flawlessly and is loud enough in a typical car. If your car is really loud - then obviously you might have problems. We liked the UK voices best. The text to speech isn't perfect - but c'mon - how good do you want it?
The display is amazing and it locks on fast.
Digital camera Review: Great features!
Summary: 5 Stars
Overall i like this device. I have owned over 6 GPS units and this is by far the most feature rich. My kids like the games that are preloaded and I like being able to listen to music while I drive. The mount is very nice and easy to use on an every day basis. I got this for a great price on an amazon Friday deal. The voices are pretty muffled but this was not a big problem as I hooked it into my car's audio system. The GPS routing works fine, and will get you where you are going. Has tons of features. If you are looking for a full featured GPS - this is it. Overall I give it 4.5 stars as it is not for newbies and is not simple to use. But if you are a techie you will love it.Digital camera Review: Great features, but buggy performance
Summary: 2 Stars
I have owned this unit for 2 year now, and I like practically every aspect of this GPS unit (all the good things that everyone else has mentioned.) I never had a problem with strange routing like some people have mentioned, and any other quirks or "problems" are pretty easy to ignore, except for one:
The biggest problem that I have experienced with this unit is that its software crashes pretty regularly. If you cross a time zone - crash. If it is too cold (e.g., in the morning) - crash. If you look at it the wrong way - crash. It crashes both randomly and predictably. It doesn't happen a lot, but enough to get annoying. It probably crashes about once a week for me. This is the reason for the lower rating. I would not recomment this to anyone looking for a new unit.
I look past this shortcoming because of the unit's multimedia capabilities. When I bought it 2 years ago for $230 (that price was normal for this unit back then), it was by far the cheapest GPS unit that could play mp3s and movies, and with a 480x800 resolution. Today there still isn't a very good selection of multimedia-capable units, unless you go way higher in price.
Digital camera Review: Great graphics, unsound sound
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The iPAQ 310 is a feature-rich device with excellent graphics, average GPS capabilities, and appalling audio.
It has the feel of a work in progress, rather than a mature product. There is an associated website which, for the moment, has very little on it, but could grow to be very useful in time. Many consumers will thus be skipping this release of the product and waiting for the next.
A lot of the negative points mentioned by other reviewers can actually be overcome. In particular, you can attach the audio to external speakers (or to headphones when using it as a portable entertainment center), and in general, many of the problems users encounter are due to incorrect settings. And that raises an important point -- getting the settings right for this unit is a long and quite complicated process, just as it is for many other GPS devices, if you want to really get them functioning the way you want. If you are really adventurous (or foolhardy) you can go `under the hood' with these settings, because you can download code into the games library and run it from there. You could thus gain access to the CE operating system. Of course, you are then very much on your own.
The overall design of the iPAQ is attractive. The slightly protruding power button has caused some users problems, as it can be pushed accidentally if you carry the unit around in your pocket. I carried mine around in the leather case and did not have that problem.
Note that you need to buy an SD card if you want to download music, etc. It takes high capacity SDs. The slide show capability is very good. All in all, the iPAQ functions very well as an entertainment device.
So, is this the GPS for you or not? If the visual display is most important to you, and if you think that the non-GPS features (music, etc) will be useful to you, and if you can get a good price, then yes, go for it. If you want a purely GPS device, and are content with an average display, then for the moment you are better off with a Garmin, for example. Talking of price, the cost of an iPAQ varies tremendously from one supplier to another and even fluctuates violently from day to day with individual suppliers. So spend a few days shopping around.
Digital camera Review: Great potential with a few issues
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought a refurbished IPAQ 310 and used two weeks; then returned it. If you bought a new one, your experience may vary.
The unit's appearance is attractive and in good quality, the screen is bright and big. When I purchased it, I had three expectations:
1. GPS, of course
2. Ebook reader.
3. Multimedia player
The device has potential to fulfill all of them. As a portable media player, it plays avi, divx, mpeg and other type of files. However, you need to install TCPMP to play some types of media files. Playing quality is very impressive, I didn't notice lost frames or sluggish.
As an ebook reader, you need foxit pdf reader. Currently it is in the first version and the program is not easy to use. but book is still readable and clear. Forget about CHM format. There is no reader for CHM for Windows CE. I probably is writing such a program if I didn't return the device.
As a GPS, it disappoints me most and is the reason I returned it. I used it three times, only first time it acquired GPS signal. At first, I thought the problem was caused by modification of the software, so I restored it to factory default using HP current patch. It didn't help. I reset it multiply times without putting any SD card in it, walking in my back yard with no tree blocking the sky. No signal! Another time, I drive to downtown from my house for about half hour. No signal. I didn't see any switch to turn GPS on or off. So I assume it should be always on.
Based on my experiece, there are a couple of issues preventing the device being a gread gadget:
1. Difficult to acquire GPS signal. This could vary by device. I have no doubt that other units may not have this problem;
2. Using Windows CE as its operating system. In my opinion, this is a big mistake. There is literally no software for Windows CE. This is a lesson I learnt from this device and I would NOT buy another device with Windows CE on it. Before I bought it, I thought Windows CE is a variant of Windows Mobile or Pocket PC version. Big difference! If it runs Windows Mobile, the potential of this device is unlimited.
3. Could not charge it with car charger. I found this on the road. When I saw a warning of low battery, I plugged it with car charger and the device still turned off in 10 minutes and no matter what I tried, I could not turned it back on. The only way to charge it is to use dual power USB cable with both USB ends plugged into USB hub. Apparently, the unit needs higher power provided by single USB cable. The problem is worsened by relatively short battery life. With a full charged battery, I can only play two hours video, then the unit shut off.
The one I bought has product #: FA974AA#ABA. it is not clear whether this is first revision or second. I would suggest you to avoid it if you want to buy refurbished one to save money.