off-roader
Mitsubishi Forum Moderator
Reged: 01/16/00
Posts: 15499
Loc: Bay Area, CA
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End User Review: Using an ipad for off road navigation.
08/27/12 06:00 PM
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When the iPad 1 first came out, many saw it as a perfect tool or toy to allow them wireless access to games, the internet, movies, etc.
I too saw it for those posibilites however due to it's simply intuitive interface and rugged design, I also saw it as an ideal 4x4 navigation tool for off road use.
Not wanting to invest too much money in a 1st gen tablet I elected to buy an iPad 1 (wifi only) for $500 (yeah, it's cheaper to buy a laptop).
I also purchased a RAM car mount system consisting of a locking ipad mount and a RAM articulating arm.
For a gps, I choose a Dual brand XGPS-150 bluetooth gps receiver. For one, it was a separate bluetooth until with it's own battery (so it doesn't rely on the iPad battery) and it could theoretically be used for other bluetooth devices in the future.
For mapping software, I went through several packages before deciding on Scenic Map West and MotionX GPS HD for topo use. I also downloaded You Need A Map for an offline street map (not 100% complete) of the entire US.
For a while I was downloading maps to GPS HD but decided that the space required was far beyond the 16GB capacity of my ipad model.
The xgps-150 gps receiver worked well when it would connect to my iPad but I found all too frequently the bluetooth connection far from reliable.
I've since been able to compare the built in gps receiver in a 3G ipad II with the xgps unit and surprisingly the ipad gps was far more sensitive and accurate than the xgps chipset. This was on a 3G ipad w/out any 3G contract so it was using the gps chipset alone and not leveraging cell phone triangulation to assist it.
Unlike my experience with the XGPS unit, the iPad RAM mount (RAM-HOL-AP8LU), RAM mount arm (RAM-B-201U-C) & two ball joints (RAM-B-202U) were all awesome at holding my gps securely through the roughest off road terrain.
The lock combination on the iPad mount is user changeable so it's about as secure as you can imagine. You can read more about the mod and install process here.
HTH. 
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Off Roader
96SR (3.15:1 xcase, 35's), 89 V6 SWB (33's)
96SR Build Up Thread
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