Drew Burden

Last Friday, I finally broke down and bought a GPS unit for my car. I had to drive to Glasgow, KY to work on a computer and used my grandparents’ GPS unit to help get me there. I loved it and was instantly hooked. I didn’t like the prospect of having to give their GPS back to them, so when I came home I immedately drove to RadioShack and bought my own. I now have a Mio DigiWalker C320 widescreen GPS. It currently sells for $179 plus tax at RadioShack. For the most part I am very happy with my purchase. It doesn’t have text to speech which isn’t a big issue for me. I can look and read the street names. I told the guy at the store I liked the widescreen, and he told me that this unit doesn’t do true widescreen due to its split-screen interface. He was actually incorrect in saying that, you can hide the info pane on the right side to have a full screen map. It has a slot for SD/SDHC/MMC cards and you can play MP3/WMA files (why any normal person would want to do this with a GPS unit, I don’t know). Overall, it’s a very feature filled and desirable device.

Over the weekend, I discovered that this GPS unit actually runs Windows CE as its operating system. It’s basically a Pocket PC with no buttons. In keeping with my track record of hacking every gadget I own at least once, which I have done with my iPod touch and HTC Wizard pocket PC phone, I decided to install a third-party shell and “unlock” my GPS unit. If you have one, some guy named Scott has written up something that can help you do it too. It’s very easy and for the most part, completely harmless. I can now use this device as a calulator, have full access to the filesystem with TotalCommander CE, and even play videos on it with TCPMP. (I don’t recommend watching videos while driving.) I would really like to find a way to have it relay GPS data to a computer through a USB link (Netstumbler or Google Earth, anyone?) and find out if it supports SDIO devices like wireless adapters so I could get on the internet with it. The possibilities are endless. If anyone knows how to do this stuff, let me know.

In the end I have been really pleased with my purchase. If you travel like I do sometimes for work or leisure, a portable GPS navigation system is a worthwhile investment.