T-Mobile MDA Compact - the best small PDA phone for car navigation
April 05, 2005 [Pocket PC phone] | By Edward J. R.
The biggest communications magazine in Europe "connect" has tested in big detail the T-Mobile MDA Compact Pocket PC phone as a part of car navigation kit (T-Mobile offers such kit and also 3rd party kits and software are available).
Overall result of the test is 4 of 5.
Some highlights from the review of T-Mobile MDA Compact as a part of car navigation solution:
- car navigation with T-Mobile MDA Compact is possible not only with 3rd party solution but T-Mobile itself is offering "Navigate Bluekit II" - a car navigation solution that in combination with some tariffs makes it possible to get the phone and GPS receiver and software for a very low price
- since the T-Mobile MDA Compact (also known as i-mate JAM or HTC Magician) is the smallest Pocket PC phone of them all, the display is also small and handling of the touch screen therefore is not the best - particularly when you are driving at the same time. Actually these problems with handling the (a bit too small) touch screen, is the main complaint in this review.
- despite the small size, the quality of display in T-Mobile MDA Compact is excellent - therefore very good for car navigation
- processor of speed 416 MHz is fast enought to handle smoothly navigation software and it is much faster than in smartphones (that usually have only 200 MHz processor speed).
- if you speculate to buy (cable based) GPS mouse (receiver) from T-Mobile as a part of the navigation kit from T-Mobile and then use it with other software: be warned that during the reviews and tests it came out that other software (not from T-Mobile) is not working properly with this (cable based) GPS receiver! For example Navigator 4 and Route 66 programs had problems with this (cable based) GPS receiver. In this situation maybe buying a Bluetooth based receiver could be better choice for you - particularly if you would like to use also other software for navigation.
- it has been tested and confirmed: yes, it is possible to have 2 Bluetooth connections with T-Mobile MDA Compact at the same time: one between the MDA Compact and Bluetooth GPS receiver and the other between MDA Compact and Bluetooth headset! So contrary to several Symbian phones, in case of MDA Compact in fact it is possible to use Bluetooth for both (most needed) things at the same time!
- there are many ways to mount MDA Compact in a car! On above photo you can see a way that places it in the ventilation slots, but here:
... you can see that it can be also mounted on the front window of the car.
Source: Connect magazine (full review is not available online for free, but only in the paper magazine or online on the pay-per-view basis).
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