I just bought one of these on ebay. Its a generic Chinese GPS designed for motorcycles. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/250967928528?ssP ... 1497.l2649 My Garmin 60cx fails to work now after being smashed into the rocks so its time for another one. This one is equivalent to the Garmin zumo 220, but at 1/4 the price with all the adapters, and mounting brackets provided for your car and motorcycle. The equivalent brackets/adpaters alone would be over $50 from Garmin. The nice thing about this unit is that it is a Windows CE 5.0 device. That means its really a Windows PDA and I can "unlock" it and run any software I want. Plus, since I know my way around MS Visual Studio, I can actually write any kinda of software to run on at. Maybe a custom enduro computer? Here is a great collection of app I am going to try: http://netfresco.com/MioPocket/default.aspx Also, I can load any software or maps that I want, including Garmin. I will try to run Igo8 which is a really slick looking GPS software. The entire planet will fit in 3.6GB. Since the GPS will accept a 8GB micro SD card, I will have plenty of space for music and even videos. With a stereo bluetooth headset, it could be a sweet setup on a long trip. If the Igo8 app doesn't work well offroad, I can try something else. I also like the feature that for motorcycle use, it does not power the unit through the fragile USB port, but through an external connection in the holder. This should be much more durable than the mini-USB which doesn't take much to wear out or break. I will update the review after I had a chance to play around with it for a few days.
Hmmm...looks interesting. My Chinese "Garmin"...or "Charmin" as I call it...has worked flawlessly. If anything it has too many functions that make it confusing when you first use it. Other than that, I've really used it a lot and really had good luck with it. Keep us posted on your buy...maybe it's finally time for me to upgrade from my old GPS-V :shock:
All right, the unit came in and I have a few days to play with it. First off, its very well built, much better than I had thought. Its ruggedly built and has some heft to it.The overall design is quite well done. The motorcycle holder is very solid and well built. The unit snaps in firmly and locks in place with a small thumbscrew. The holder also has a place for holding the supplied stylus, which also serves as a small screw driver that can be used to remove the battery door and get access to the micro SD card. When the unit is snapped into the holder, it contacts five spring loaded electrical contacts for external power. One of the contacts in labeled Antenna, but there is no connector to plug in an external antenna. I found one was not needed, GPS reception was very good. You can also use the mini-usb connector to power up the device or run it on battery power. It also came with two batteries. The battery door itself is a cast aluminum piece and is sealed with a proper O-ring, so it should be fairly watertight. The documentation says that the max SD card is 8GB, but I put in the 16GB card from my helmet cam and it worked fine. In fact, I clicked on one of the videos from the built in media player and it played! I was suprised the little unit has enough horsepower to play HD. The screen is quite sharp and clear, but its no iPhone or Galaxy and resolution is only 320x240, but is way better than the 60cx that it replaced. This is a Windows CE device (many GPS's are), and I tried loading up the MioPocket software. It loaded no problems, and has a ton of stuff including all the standard Windows CE stuff like pocket Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc. Since I am using the device as a GPS, I removed MioPocket and got Igo8 running. For road use, Igo8 is simply fantastic. The software is very well done and is about 100X better than the 60cx for the street, which was pretty much useless for routing etc. The unit runs Igo8 very well, screen draws are fast, routes are calculated quickly. I'm not sure how well Igo8 will be for off-road use, but everything is there to make it work including track logs, which are only limited in size by how much space is on your SD card. A 16GB card should hold enough for a few trips around the world or maybe to the moon and back. I am in the process of getting the 3D topo maps for Canada (and the rest of the world). Yes, Igo8 will display 3d maps. BTW, if Igo8 doesn't do what I need, I can always load something else. In fact, with MioPocket running you could launch whatever GPS software you want. I am very happy with Ig8 so far, so I setup the device to just boot right into it. What are some of the cons? The handlebar adapter has a weird design. It is quite sturdy, but was obviously repurposed from something else. You might have to drill a hole and reposition it to get it where you want. BTW, the holder will bolt to a standard RAM without much effort. As mentioned before, the screen is not the best and does get washed out in the sunlight. But, for $100 its a great deal given the performance of the unit and the mounting hardware provided.
