New Toy

[Team_Pink]

I lost my cell phone in Texarkana while geocaching. I just got a replacement and I have found the "almost" perfect geocaching toy. The phone is Windows Mobile 6 and has an integrated GPS. Add Cachemate and everything is right with the world. One device = waypoint database, navigation, geocaching logs, phone, and internet. I like it!

If you shop for anything with a flashcard in it, look for SDHC or SD 2.0. This new spec will go up to 32 GB!

Now all I need is a holster with a chain on it!

[BSA534]

I've seen some info about using phones for caching and I'll be interested to hear your experiences with it. It does sound like a great combination. How does the GPS accuracy rate compared to the GPSr you normally use? Maybe I missed it, but what model phone did you get?

[Team_Pink]

The phone is the AT&T Tilt, aka HTC TyTn II. It apparently has the Sirf III chipset, I can get a lock inside my house.

The biggest disadvantage is how fragile it is. One drop on a rock and it's all over. I have dropped my 60Cs off the roof of the vehicle more than once at a pretty good speed not to mention other abuse and it still keeps on ticking.

The phone I had was the 8525 and this phone costs the same. I hope to try out the CacheNav that comes with Cachemates to locate a cache pretty soon.

[Gaddiel]

I've got the Cingular 8525 now, and I love it except for the fact that it has no GPS... :(

Of course, my work bought it for me, so I can't really complain. The AT&T Tilt looks good. Does the phone part of it work well?

Wayne

[HercMaster]

I lost my cell phone in Texarkana while geocaching.

That brought to mind one of THE funniest geocaching logs I have ever read:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx ... 35d17686cf (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=fd95105b-1fbc-4607-b1c8-57935c155613&IID=7652452b-379c-4e28-8f96-fe35d17686cf)

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/dfd8d7f6-95ee-46db-b40b-b60934a920c5.jpg

[Team_Pink]

The 8525 is what I lost and unfortunately I was the sole contributor to it's purchase. It was 1 year old almost to the day.

The tilt came with Windows Mobile 6. I had upgraded the 8525 to 6 from the HTC website. You can do that for free if you haven't. The WM6 GPS driver will let more than one application receive the GPS data stream (not sure how handy that will be). Even though the 8525 and the 8925 (Tilt) are very similar there are a few differences that I am starting to appreciate. You can select one of the buttons for voice speed dial. I had downloaded a hack to use the PTT button for that on the 8525 only to have it disappear when I upgraded to WM6. There is a Task Manager in the top right corner that I like a lot.

Here's the biggie, the Tilt has a micro SDHC (SD 2.0) in the bottom. That spec uses the FAT32 file system and will scale up to 32 GB! I just ordered a 8 GB card from Amazon.com. It will hold a lot of maps! I use Ostia for navigation and there are four files for Arkansas, not counting the GAS, FOOD, etc files. With 32 GB that's enough storage for maps, podcasts, MP3s, and a healthy waypoint database. I haven't used Cachemate for long but it works nicely on WM6.

There is a hook up in the back for an external GPS antenna. I have read that Bluetooth and GPS together kill the battery pretty quick. WM6 comes with a winzip-like program along with Adobe. I can't tell that syncing with Exchange is much different or faster.

The Tilt was the same price I paid for the 8525 so it was a no brainer on which one to get!

I just hope I can hold on to this one a little longer than a year!

[HercMaster]

I thought about getting the Tilt, and also looked at the 8525. But my previous phone was a candybar style like those two, and I always had to lock the keyboard so it wouldn't accidently dial stuff while it was in my pocket. So I decided to get the Cingular/ATT 3125 instead. It's the only clamshell I know of which runs Windows Mobile, which I really wanted for ease of syncing my Outlook contacts to it, which it does flawlessly.

It will run various Smartphone software, but it has a much smaller screen than your Tilt does, so it's not nearly as readable as yours, unfortunately. Nor does it have a self-contained GPS.

Now if they made the Tilt in a clamshell version.... ;)

[Team_Pink]

I had a cache that needed some maintenance so I went out to check on it and used the phone. I am not impressed. The pointer didn't move much when walking and the distance didn't update very quick either. Not a very thorough test but disappointing. I'll try more later but I think I have had a 60Cs too long!

[HercMaster]

Well, sorry it didn't work that well for you, but at least it's good to know. The slow updates are probably because the processor has a lot to do, running Windows Mobile, whereas the processor in the 60Cs is dedicated to only having to calculate the receivers' data and run the display.

Still, it should be more than adequate were you to lose your way while hiking on Mt. Hood!

I'm still surprised that, in this day and age, winter hikers and mountain climbers don't regard a GPS as an absolute necessity. They at least thought to carry a cellphone, but without a GPS (either in their phone or a separate unit) they were darn lucky to stumble across that geocache and get rescued!