HP iPAQ Travel Companion

[drledger]

I purchased this unit from Control Vision. It is very compact and I can fly for about three hours on battery power. The antenna is internal unlike my Lowrance 2000c which requires an external antenna and a power cable making the cabin look a bit cluttered. The unit has been modified to serve as an aviation gps and that is its primary function for me. It came with two mounts, a yoke mount and a windshield suction mount. I use the windshield auto mount in the Archer because it is smaller, lighter and fits exactly where I need it. This mount is a good solid unit unlike the things TT designed for the X10 series. In auto mode the unit works fair. Land based maps are not very up to date and since it is provided by an aviation company those must be updated elsewhere. There is no remote control which I have come to appreciate with my TT's. Graphics are fair and clear. Selecting locations seems a bit awkward that may be simply because it is new for me. Canceling navigation is much more complicated than TT. It comes with a form fitted leather case but someone botched the design. It fits so well that it constantly turns the unit on and the battery is dead when you prepare to use it. The unit ships with usb cables and an ac and a dc plug using that cable (which is also the update cable). I have had problems with the unit freezing. That has happened a couple of times while flying and I just have to land before I can reset it. There have also been some problems with the updates (daily btw) causing the unit to freeze. ControlVision is shipping me a replacement so I gather they know something is wrong. This would be a very nice compact unit for someone but if you have used a TT I doubt you would want to trade even a low end unit for this. There is an updated model from HP on line now but I think the functions are much the same regarding the land navigation features. Just my opinion.

Additional Note: When installing the unit into its windshield mount the lever that locks the unit in place snapped. So my comment about the solid nature of this mount....well...."it broke".

 

[Skilow]

are tom toms good for navigating while flying?

 

[dhn]

You would not want to trust a TomTom for an aviation gps. For starters, there is no built-in altitude function.

 

[drledger]

As dhn said the lack of an altitude readout is one major concern among many. I have tried the 910 in the air and it just does not work well because it is always trying to put you on a highway or other road. In an emergency it probably would be of some minimal use because it does have a functioning compass and heading indicator and if you zoom it out you can get a bit of an idea of location.
I have almost become a subscriber to the theory that hardware designed for land use may not be the best when upgraded for aviation use.

 

[mikealder]

Off Road navigator loaded to the 910 works very well, you can also add your own map tiles to the huge 20GB internal drive so you can see your position on an aviation based map (if thats the type of map tiles you instal), setting up such an installation isn't easy though. I did load quite a large area of mapping from the Open Street Mapping project to my 910 a while ago which worked quite well (till the 910 went up in smoke) - Mike