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VerySmartPhone

I had to get my hands on a c500 smartphone for myself, I just couldn't wait for my Orange contract to expire in 6 months so I upgraded my e200 at the weekend for £75...and the clincher was, TomTom Mobile works* on it!

So there I was Saturday morning idly scanning the pocketgps forums and low and behold...a forum posting on TomTom Mobile finally working on the c500....15 mintues later I had a c500 on order, ebay provided me with a good deal on the TomTom software (£189 inc P&P) with a 265mb mini-SD courtesy of Expansys.

So this morning it's all hooked up and working like a dream - This solution for SatNav is fantastic, I carry one device, my smartphone and it does everything you would need for the consultant/gadget man on the move,
  • Email, Calendar, Tasks via company Outlook Mobile Access or Local Client
  • IM with MSN Messenger
  • Web Browsing with PocketIE
  • SatNav with TomTom Mobile
  • Speed camera locations inside TomTom with the PocketGPS Camera Database
  • Windows Media Player for music and video
  • Home PVR (ShowShifter) control with WebShifter via PocketIE
PocketPC (PPC) users beware...I think that form factor is going into a convergence period with Portable Media Centres (PMC). PPC with no phone capability are dead, having to carry a phone as well just doesn't work. The c500 is small, lightweight, has very good battery life and I think its a historic device - the first useable, multi-function device that sits easy in the pocket and doesn't require charging every 5 minutes!

Check out Hugo's exploits with his c500, he's been using some neat software to manage synchronisation and SMS's


*NOTE! It's a slightly confusing story about exactly how TomTom was working as the orginal version of it did not support the c500! The pocketgps forum suggested that this was due to either the c500 ROM update OR the TomTom Traffic update. Well my c500 came pre-installed with the ROM update and it DID NOT work with the TomTom software out of the box - no BT connection could be made to the GPS unit (flashing blue light seen when it needs to be a constant blue light to indicate connection). I registered for the one month free Traffic trial with TomTom, downloaded the patch and instantly I picked up the satellite information stream from the GPS, yay!

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