Glider flight software on non PDA devices- soon.

Lots of us run flight software on a PDA and complain about the dim and
hard to read screen and can't help noticing those big bright GPS's we
get to drive around with. It looks like SeeYou Mobile will soon run on
some GPS platforms and it's now in beta running on the HP IPAQ 310
(Travel Companion) family.

These are available for $180 factory refurbished or for $225 new.
There are a ton of reviews to google and I'm not going to repeat that
information here, but a few things- the overall size of the 310 is a
little smaller than my IPAQ 3970 but the screen is a little bigger.
The 310 is a landscape only display and measures 94mm wide by 58mm
tall.

Screen brightness- The 310 is 4x the brightness of the IPAQ 3970 and
the same brightness as most other automotive GPS’s. There are other
advantages to the 310 over a PDA, the anti reflective coating is state
of the art so no aftermarket glare film is needed, and those cut the
light output by at least 16%. The crispness and contrast of the
screen, which is off the charts, help a lot. And the easy to adjust
mount combined with fair off-angle viewing allows the unit to be
adjusted to an angle that will minimize glare.

Other news of interest: already an outfit in Europe has connected an
HP 310 running SYM 3.1 beta to FLARM via a serial to bluetooth
adapter, there is a link to a video of this, as well as a link to a
comparison photo of SYM on a 310 and a PDA on the Naviter forum site.

PocketFMS, PDA flight software for powered flight, is ahead of
everyone else in this game and have a longer list of PNA's that will
run ported software. This will give a clue as to which PNA's are good
candidates for this conversion in the long run and what attributes
they'll have. The firmware (I think that is the limitation) of each
PNA's version of WindowsCE determines some of the features. (I don't
know much about operating systems and am on shakey ground here,
corrections invited) For instance, The 310 display runs in landscape
mode as opposed to PDA's portrait, and for flight software it seems
like portrait is better. The firmware (or whatever) of the 310 does
not allow it to be run in portrait, other PNA's will. The PocketFMS
people use the bluetooth connection to integrate ZAON traffic alerts
so this is another possibility for gliders.

Brian