Thread: Pocket (Car)PC!

I thought about ripping my Ipaq 3970 and custom mount the screen on the dash, cheaper, easy and neater to implement. I abandoned the idea as it is not powerful enough for my needs.

My spec is :

Compaq Ipaq 3970
Pocket PC2003
Flash card jacket / external battery
1GB IBM Microdrive
Garmin GPS 16 on a modified TOMTOM cable

I only used it for navigations since I can move it from car to car...maybe for mp3 too. Tomtom 2, destinator 2, alturion 5 are all slow when searching a road an a whole country map, reroute is very slow too...infact anything you do on PDA is slow. Tomtom is good but the PDA is just not powerful enough, cant do much with the speed either, 400Mhz is probably still the most powerful one.

Thats from my experience...

Im really amazed you can tolerate all those stuff on your 3630, I used to have one.

Originally Posted by wizardPC

who makes that holder for your pocketPC?
I have been looking for one and cant find it

http://www.arkon.com/product.html

I've had 2 of their "goose-neck" mounts in the Wrangler so far with the FM-transmittor... Good stuff... (reason for 2 is my dealership broke it when the Jeep was in for service)

Eventually I'm to replace the head unit and use RCA inputs rather than FM transmittor... But I think I'll still use the Arkon mount.

Ipaq 5450 here Impressive power for a PDA. I'm going to relocate the head-unit to a more secure location, and put a plate on the dash where the head-unit used to be... mount a remote for the head-unit and have the Ipaq mounted there...

Oh and if you have it flat mounted rather than vertical like onevision, I learned very quickly that you're going to want to put some grip-foam in the side grips... I pressed the brakes and my Ipaq slid out! Grip foam solves that

Haven't got any pics I'm afraid...

And by the way, if you order the ones with the FM transmittor - you can remove the transmittor later if you upgrade your head unit to RCA inputs. FM transmittors are only so-so quality. A temporary solution. (well, you may want to check first, but mine you can certainly mount the Ipaq without the transmittor.

I'll probably end up using this one:



The wires you see there are for the FM-transmittor... you can run it without those if you want.

But at the moment I'm using this:

Link: http://www.arkon.com/images/CM455.jpg (big pic)

Nice plug-and-play solution to an MP3 Car... certainly not as nice as some of the other installs I've seen on here, but I can remove it and carry it in my pocket

I'm just using my pocket pc as a controller for my system. I will have a mini-itx system in the trunk, emulating a cd changer for my stock head unit. It will use wireless to communicate with my CASIO Cassiopeia. So, I am not reliant on the speed/sound qulaity of the Pocket PC.

Originally Posted by wizardPC

GEEZ!! $45 for a mount? that's ridiculous.

Well - they look pretty decent IMO... most cheaper mounts are generic one-size fits all crap. These Arkon ones are specific to the Ipaq and can even take GPS backpacks and so on...

And anyone who's got an Ipaq knows accessories aren't Cheap

It's kinda circular logic, but if the PDA is expensive then they can charge more for the accessories...?

I have a Dell Axim that I use with one of the ARKON Powered PDA Mounts. See http://www.arkon.com/pdapower.html

This thing is sweet! I use it with my CF card GPS receiver and my Intelinav GPS software. This year alone, I've gone to Vancouver, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona, Seattle, Oregon, and California... all with my trusty ARKON power mount blasting the voice commands in the car.

The powered mounts have a built in amplified speaker that allows you to hear your audio extremely loud in the car. I ordered the CM526 windshield suction solution for my Axim X5. Though I had tried other companies windshield pedestals in the past... and they sucked... the one from ARKON is crazy strong. Not only has it never fallen off, I'm able to attach and remove it frequently which is ideal for me since I travel so much.

For those of you in a similar situation, you may want to consider the longer windshield pedestal as when you're renting a car, you never know how long the dash will be.

They have a whole bunch of other pedestals as well... including a cup holder, vent mount, bicycle mount, console mount... everything.
See http://www.arkon.com/pedestals.html for the additional pedestals.

They usually give you a significant discount on the pedestals if you let them know that you already have one of their mounts.

I've also seen some of their upcoming solutions. They're working on docking station type solutions that are specific to the Dell Axim (X5 and new X3) and the newer style iPAQS. These will have the same built in amplified speaker however with the added bonus of being able to drop your iPAQ directly into the connector.