Anyone tried using a PDA with memorymap as a GPS route guide whilst riding instead of a eg Garmin

bump

I think that most people are using smart phones now, a few years ago there were some posts about people buying cheep SatNavs from ebuyer (that run Windows Mobile) and installing MemoryMaps.

ive used one for a while, works perfectly, the pda has a large screen so viewing is fine, battery life was not so good, but i got a battery extender for mine so 10 hours was no problem, and memory map works great

I use an old PocketPC PDA and it's fine…but with Quo rather than Memory map. Again it's the screen size that's the most useful bit about a PDA. I get about 4 hours on a full charge though (it's got inbuilt GPS). I'd go for a seperate cheap GPS device like the navman B12 and bluetooth it to the PDA.

Yes. Although I use a phone that runs windows mobile these days (which is the same thing really).

I remember reading about using a Navigo Sat Nav, hacking the firmware so that you could access Windows Mobile and then installing Memory Map. I think that there was some stuff on the old forum.

There is some discussion here, here and here

Works fine, although an external bluetooth GPS will significantly extend your battery life.

Thanks to all , for the info
Cheers

I use an old Dell PDA with MM and a bluetooth GPS receiver. Works really well. Better I think that many of the dedicated units.

In good daylight you can turn the backlight off on the screen which really improves your battery life.

Also worth thinking about some form of protection for the PDA. I broke my first screen. I now use an otterbox which makes it almost bomb proof.

I used a Mio 168 with Memory Map until last year. It was excellent as the aerial was good so it got a good GPS signal and the screen was perfectly adequate. I used to use it with CoPilot in the car and on the motorcycle, too, with a Brodit mount.

I started using a Windows Mobile powered Samsung Omnia when I started running, to cut the bulk of a mobile and PDA down to just a largish mobile. It's more powerful than the Mio and the screen is a slightly better resolution although smaller. The GPS is buried inside and the trace from a ride through the woods is patchy at best.

Being able to run MemoryMap is possibly the only advantage Windows Mobile has over it's competitors! Hopefully they'll make MemoryMap for Android and I can ditch Windows Mobile for ever!