I have gone through 5 different Bluetooth GPS receivers, and this one is the best so far for my Treo 680 with TomTom Navigator and SA2008!
Before commenting on the Qstarz GPS, I would like to share my experiences on various Bluetooth GPS receivers with Treo 680.
1. DeLorme BT-20
This was my first Bluetooth GPS receiver and I used this with my previous PDA (Palm T2) and Street Atlas USA 2008. Before this, I used "wired" DeLorme GPS receiver, so I loved freedom of wireless GPS. But shortly after I purchased Treo 680, and found this GPS was incompatible with Treo 680.
2. Freedom Keychain GPS 2000
This was nice tiny GPS receiver that you can carry on your keychain. I used 2 of them. The 1st unit stopped working after 1 year due to mechanical stress. Solder joint has gone bad and only worked if I press body of GPS receiver firmly. So I bought another one. The 2nd unit had short battery life, but I couldn't find replacement battery (very small) on-line. I called manufacture, but they don't sell battery only. So I just it with USB charger all the time. It stopped working after 1 year again (couldn't lock onto satellite signal any more). This was my 2nd best GPS receiver, except battery issue I had.
3. Palm GPS car kit
This came with TomTom Navigator I purchased. This was the worst one. Connection to GPS was intermittent. When it worked, satellite signal was weak.
4. GlobalSat BT-335
When my 2nd Freedom Keychain GPS died on the way to LA, I had to get other Bluetooth GPS (or I will be lost). This was the only bluetooth GPS I was able to found at F L Y 's. It worked fine when it worked. Takes long time to catch satellite. But the most annoying problem with this GPS unit was that it cause Treo 680 to hang many times. Even in a day, I had to reset Treo 680 few times to get it working with this GPS. VERY FRUSTRATING. When it stopped charging battery (either charging circuit malfunction or battery has died), I had to find alternate GPS unit.
5. Qstarz BT-Q818XT
This is the best Bluetooth GPS so far.
Pros:
a. Works seamlessly with Treo 680. I kept GPS on for few days, and whenever my Treo 680 came close to GPS with BT on, it connects without an effort. I tried to abuse it by turning off & on Bluetooth of Treo 680, or starting TomTom before truning on the GPS unit. It worked perfect - well most of the time. I only had to reset Treo 680 once in a few days. (This was acceptable since TomTom is a heavy application and I had similar issue with other GPS unit). Swithcing GPS programs on Treo (TomTom and SA2008HH) doesn't cause any issue.
b. Very fast to lock onto satellites. Thanks to new MTK2 chipset with higher sensitivity. Signal strength is at the best ever.
c. Long battery life. Standby mode works great.
Cons:
a. It's a minor issue, but Mini-USB connecter is located on the right side, not at the front (near LED). I kept USB charger connected in the car, and cable streching out from side of GPS makes it harder to position the GPS unit. I solve it with right angle mini-USB adapter.
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This Item  BT-Q818X: Qstarz BT-Q818X Bluetooth GPS Receiver (66 ch MTK2, 42hrs, 5Hz Hardware Switch, Dual USB/Bluetooth) MODEL # BT-Q818XT |  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | — | $109.99 | $168.17 | $94.40 | $29.99 | -16% $28.50 Typical: $33.83 |
| Delivery | — | Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14 | Get it as soon as Wednesday, May 15 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14 | Get it as soon as Wednesday, May 15 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 14 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Battery life | ||||||
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| Easy to use | ||||||
| Tech Support | ||||||
| Sold By | — | GPS City | MG Pilot Shop | Top Sports | FFB Tech | Amazon.com |
| mounting type | found in image, Dashboard Mount | Dashboard Mount | found in image, Dashboard Mount | Dashboard Mount | found in image, Dashboard Mount | found in image, Windshield Mount |
| batteries included | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| battery average life | 32 hours | 13 hours | 10 hours | 13 hours | — | — |
Reviews with images
A bit of a stretch - does job, but not so well
= = = = June 30, 2019 = = = =I will not get into much details - there are plenty of resources with specifications and reviews of this product, but I'll just share a bit of my personal analysis. I may add more as I do more work on this device.The main selling point for this GPS receiver is that it's "10Hz" - it produces position and dynamic data every 100ms. That is easy to verify and I did some simple testing in near ideal conditions: Bluetooth communications as good as one can expect - host (phone or PC) 3ft away from receiver, no obstruction - and clear skies (lock on 7-8 satellites), the receiver reporting a good lock, with WAAS enabled (DGPS). You can see the results (actual GPS timestamps) on the first image: out of 16,912 data points, only 16,293 we at around 100ms (10Hz), that's around 96.2%, while 3.8% of the time, the data was coming at anywhere between 200ms and 800ms (5Hz to 1.25Hz). The other image shows the stationary distribution of position (in meters). While it may seem pretty good (location confined over a 6x6 meter square area), it gets worse while moving.In the end, one could put this in the perspective of how much can you expect from an $80 product, but the fact remains that there are other similar devices that claim lesser sampling rate (e.g., 5Hz, like the iTrek M7) that provide similar if not better performance. While at any time the market has different products (you can't buy the iTrek M7 on Amazon anymore), the performance of this device needs to be kept in check at least with its stated specifications. From its own manual: "Position Without aid: 3.0m 2D-RMS; Accuracy <3m CEP(50%) without SA (horizontal), DGPS (WAAS, ENGOS, MSAS): 2.5m". For its stated racing purpose, those numbers would be great. The actual results - not good (and, yes - I did some dynamic testing with my own software).Conclusion: the performance of this device is very much on par with other similar budget GPS receivers, which is not enough for quality racing applications, without the assistance of some advanced data processing and sensor-fusion techniques (which I'm planing to explore hopefully soon).
Top reviews from other countries
Michele Lo Bianco
Di dimensioni contenute, il suo lavoro lo esegue egregiamente
Reviewed in Italy on April 21, 2023
