GPS in Your Palm

The perfect traveling companion: directions, Yellow Pages and good looks.

By Ronaleen Roha

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, November 2003

A GPS device seems like magic. It catches signals beamed from satellites in space and shows you where you are and how to get where you're going.

Once you had to conjure up a lot of cash to buy one and be a technical wizard to make it work. But even a bungling sorcerer's apprentice can use the new Garmin iQue 3600 ($475 at Amazon.com; www.garmin.com). It's the first GPS system built to look and act like a Palm. The Palm-like platform means it also has all the standard PDA functions, such as storing addresses, phone numbers and memos. And it has an MP3 player and voice recorder to boot.

The iQue is designed with simplicity in mind. Just flip up the GPS antenna that is nestled into the back of the device, and in a matter of minutes (sometimes less than one), you see your location on a detailed map. The iQue menus are logical and self-explanatory, unlike other systems that require many more trips to the manual. And because the GPS function is linked with the PDA functions, the iQue can map a trip to any address in your address book with just a tap.

And the price is right. Comparable PDAs without GPS functions often cost $100 to $200 more. Oddly, Garmin's own Talking Street Pilot III without a PDA costs $675. The iQue also gives driving instructions by voice, so it can be used safely while driving, saving you the cost of a $1,500-to-$2,000 onboard navigation system.

The software can pinpoint more than five million locations, such as ATMs, restaurants and service stations. A scroll wheel lets you quickly view maps as wide as a continent or as narrow as a single square block.

You may want to buy some extras, though. Consider getting a Secure Digital memory expansion card (128 megabytes runs about $40 online) to supplement the 32 MB of built-in memory so that you can load as many maps from the software included as you'll need without worrying about space. Because using the GPS drains batteries faster than other PDA functions, you may want to spring for an iQue car kit ($52). The kit has a weighted base, a 12-volt charger and an external speaker that offers better sound quality than the internal speaker.

Upgrading your PDA.

If you want to graft a GPS system onto your PDA, there are systems available, but you'll trade form for function. Typically, you'll have to plug your PDA into a sleeve with a stubby GPS antenna, or plug a card receiver into the PDA's card slot. That receiver links by wire (or, in some cases, wirelessly) to a small antenna that sits on a car's dashboard.

CoPilot Live/Pocket PC 4, by ALK Technologies ($200; www.alk.com/cp4), works with a number of newer Pocket PCs, such as the Dell Axim we tested it on, HP/Compaq iPaqs, HP Jornadas and Casio Cassiopeias. To use CoPilot's "live" feature, which allows people to track your location and communicate with you via two-way text messaging, you need a cell phone with a data service connected to the PDA. CoPilot Live also lets you choose to receive specific instructions, such as "turn left at Wisconsin Avenue," instead of generic directions to "turn left in point two miles."

The Sony PEGA-CC5 Clié Car Cradle ($300; www.sonystyle.com/clie) is a sleeve that fits several models of Sony Clié hand-helds. It can broadcast its voice directions through your car's speakers, if you want to wire it in.

--Reporter: Jessica Anderson

Get out of rough spots

After three holes, my playing partner, Tom, and I were beginning to doubt the utility of StarCaddy, a leading golf GPS system. He'd been estimating distances to the green from balls on the fairway using stakes and markers, and had come within a yard or two of my StarCaddy's readout.

So what if it tells you the ball-to-green distance, keeps score, does handicapping automatically, and even tracks bets and side bets (such as greenies and sandies)? Those are nice touches, but can StarCaddy help improve your score? Actually, it can, especially when you're playing on a strange course. At the very least, it speeds up play.

StarCaddy proves its worth when you need measurements that can't easily be divined from yard markers or score cards, such as how far to carry a creek or cut a dogleg.

In my case, I sorely needed to know on the fourth hole the distance to a swamp-and-bunker-guarded green when I was stuck in the woods with no yard marker in sight. A couple of quick clicks can give you such a measurement and save you the trouble of pacing off or guesstimating the distance.

If you have a PDA with a GPS receiver (such as the Garmin iQue 3600 described in the story above), you'll need to pay $50 for StarCaddy software. Or you can buy a StarCaddy GPS receiver (which can work with other mapping systems) and software to go with your regular PDA for $250. StarCaddy has receivers for most PDAs (see www.starcaddy.com for a list). Each 18-hole course costs $20, and course updates are free. StarCaddy will map a course not in its database (using satellite and aerial images to get the lay of the land) at no extra charge, though the process typically takes five to ten days.

It's not cheating. The United States Golf Association has ruled that using a GPS system is legal except for USGA-sanctioned events, such as the U.S. Open.

Oh, StarCaddy saved me from overclubbing on that fourth hole and putting from the swamp. I just wish it could have read the break on the green, too.

--Robert Frick

Make CDs look great

It just doesn't seem right: You burn the perfect music mix or photo montage on a CD, then label your masterpiece with a Sharpie marker. Now you can replace the Sharpie with a low-cost printer that shoots color images directly onto CDs and DVDs.

The Epson Stylus Photo 900 ($180 on Amazon.com; www.epson.com) has software that lets you design the image -- say, a picture of your kids for a birthday-party DVD -- and a special tray that holds the disc as the image is printed. Drying takes 24 hours. You'll need to use inkjet-printable discs, which are more expensive than high-quality, nonprintable CDs.

But the printer is not just for discs. It produces photo-quality images (when using special Epson paper), with crisp blacks and vibrant colors.

--R.R.

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