Nokia 770 GPS car kit
As I already mentioned in my previous post, I bought myself a bluetooth GPS receiver so I can use it with the Maemo Mapper application. Ok, I had to take this a bit further and since I’ve seen other people having their Internet Tablet attached to their car’s windshields I decided to give it a try. I Googled for a while to find a suitable holder to get the N770 attached to my car. Finally, I found a Universal PDA Holder sold by the PDA Hut in UK that seemed to be well suited for this task. Here is a couple of pictures of it in action…
I only made a brief test drive and the holder performed very well. It is easy to adjust it in a right position and it stuck really firmly to the windshield and also to the N770. It is also really easy and fast to attach and remove the Internet Tablet form the holder. I could also connect the Tablet to my car’s cigarette lighter to get it charged since most of the connectors are free even when the Tablet is in the holder.
Here’s a picture of the whole setup that I have and also couple of closeups of the Universal PDA holder holding the N770.
July 15th, 2006 at 1:42 am
Just wondering…
Does that cigarette lighter connection power the 770 or the GPS.
If the 770, where did you get it?
TIA!
July 15th, 2006 at 11:09 am
The cigarette lighter charger came with the GPS receiver so it can charge it of course. But the best thing is that it can also charge my mobile phone (Nokia 6630) and with an adapter that came with it, it can also charge the Nokia 770. So I only need one charger.
July 17th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
I was wondering if with the holder on, you are able to desplace the 770 horizontally so that the USB port (or all of them) fit the hole so they are usable. I was thinking about connecting the audio output to the car-audio input, and the USB to a portable HardDisk carrying my MP3 collection.
Nice blogging, keep it up!
July 18th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Hi, unfortunately the tablet wont fit to this holder horizontally. The maximum that it can spread is something like 8 cm. Also you cannot get all the connectors visible at the same time. It’s just about few millimeters too narrow. You can get the earphone connector and the USB connector visible at the same time but then you cannot use the power connector. So you would have to compromise.
July 19th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Noticed you are using the New 2006 App with your Maemo GPS setup. I’ve been looking for a bluetooth app that works with the new 2006. Any idea where I might find it. Setup looks great by the way.
July 19th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Maemo Mapper can connect to the bluetooth received by itself. But you probably mean the bluetooth taskbar applet that is available for the 2005 OS. I haven’t found that for 2006 OS yet. I would also be interested in that. It’s good when you use something like gpsd that does not automatically connect to the bluetooth receiver.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:46 am
Hi,
I would appreciate if you could do a posting within a few weeks, about your real experience with the 770 and the GPS receiver, I am really curious !
Currently I am a happy 770 user.
Cheers, Jan
August 10th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Hi Jan…
I’ve been sort of experimenting Maemo Mapper on my two week summer holiday so I haven’t had time to write to my blog. I did take some video material of Maemo Mapper in action during my holiday, but haven’t yet looked through it if there is anything I can put online. But I’ll write something about my experiences soon.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:38 am
Have you tried gpsdrive yet? It is supposed to work fine, but I don’t have a bt gps…
November 1st, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Hi!.
To preserve your current installation can’t you just plug the 770 into your computer (USB) and use dd to make an image of the internal flash? I don’t have one of these gadgets yet, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting my hands on one too soon. But I look forward to it.
Thanks
November 27th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Hi,
I’ve just got my Nokia 770 with 2006 OS and trying to install gps drive software from here:
http://www.elisanet.fi/tapio.tolvanen/nokia770.html
When trying to install any of these packages, I am receiving error saying that OS is unable to install those. I know that a lot of people were successfull running this app. on Nokia 770. Am I doing anything wrong ?
Thanks.
November 28th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Hi Eugene,
The software you are trying to install is not for 2006 OS. That works only on 2005 OS. You might want to check Maemo Mapper. It has been specifically built for Nokia 770 and works like a charm. You can find it from http://gnuite.com:8080/nokia770/maemo-mapper/.
December 4th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Hi;
I was wondering how well does the Nokia 770 GPS kit works??
Windshield
Repair
March 12th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
http://nfilm.info/topics/show.php?id=1208
Dead Man’s Chest II trailers\fotos and some copy (920Mb)… how can it be? Released?
July 5th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Where can one find a USB-based GPS unit to use on the 770? They are much less expensive than the bluetooth versions.
July 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Hi Sardy,
I doubt that you can use USB based GPS unit on the 770. Or at least not very easily.
- Teemu
July 20th, 2007 at 10:53 am
You can get a Bluetooth GPS for well under $50.
http://www.semsons.com/stealsofweek.html
September 24th, 2007 at 4:21 am
I think you just convinced me to buy a n770. I have a few questions though, and if you could email me an answer I would really appreciate it. My main question is would it be possible to connect this to an external usb hard-drive full of mp3ś to play? This drive would be powered by an inverted hooked up to the car battery. And if so how difficult would this be?
Also in general what is your opinion on the GPS software compared to a garmin GPS device or something similar?
Anyways..Thanks for posting all this info, it is really interesting to see, and has given me tons of ideas.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Hi,
I think you should consider buying N800 instead of the N770. It has some features that N770 does not have and N770 is not even officially supported anymore. Also, I think that there is a new model coming out late this year, so I’d recommend waiting a bit before buying anything.
I think this external USB hard drive is doable, but it might require some hacking. Also the GPS software is probably not at the level of commercial software yet, but it is being developed all the time, unlike the commercial ones.
- Teemu
September 25th, 2007 at 1:53 am
To be honest the n800 does not impress me for the price. I can get an n770 for $125 whereas the n800 is $350. For $225 I get a bit more speed and SD card usage. I admit I would love both…but for the price…
I don know though I have never actually had the chance to try these out, I plan on using it for GPS and MP3’s do you think I will be needing the extra speed?
Anyways, thanks again.
–The Fool
September 25th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Hi,
Well, it’s true that you can get the N770 with a very good price nowadays. You can definitely use it for GPS and MP3’s, but since it is not anymore supported you might not get all the latest applications on N770.
- Teemu
October 19th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Was considering the N770 precisely because I hope that obsolete software not being a problem, because it uses Linux.
Was also hoping for turn-by-turn GPS directions as good as TomTom.
Check out Navicore Personal 2007.
November 1st, 2007 at 12:17 am
Navicore on the 770 is pretty good for the price. I liked the directions, particularly as it effectively goes to sleep when there’s a long way beteween turns. My only complaint was that it doesn’t allow you to exclude motorways, which I like to do if not in a hurry. Sadly my 770 display died - a common fault I gather - so I’m left with the GPS kit and nothing to use it with, unless I can find a cheap 770 replacement. I don’t think the 880 is worth the money. You can get a reasonable GPS/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth PDA with Tomtom for that price, like the Mitac Mio range.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Hi, just got the N95 8GB from http://www.allukphonedeals.co.uk/ and I want to use my copy of tomtom on it. Currently it’s on sd card for my XDA exec. Anyone know how to get it installed and working for my N95? I’ve read that it won’t work with the built in gps but i do have the bluetooth jobbie I used on the XDA.