Hi Luke,

As for where do I get the time...shhhhh, I'm at 'work'....and I can type fast ;-)

I too would really like a bluetooth enabled traditional non-mapping handheld. They wouldn't even have to redesign the device, just add a bluetooth dongle to the GPS's connector, in the same way you can add a bluetooth dongle to a USB port on a laptop. That way you get the best of both worlds. Problem would be that the batteries power you get in a normal GPS would not be enough to run bluetooth for a reasonable amount of time. The only one is the Fortuna GPSSmart but that doesn't stand up very well in the reviews and is no match for a Garmin / Magellan 'proper' handheld.

As for the battery side of things, the new Delorme Earthmate has a cunning powerpack that gives you a user replaceable Li-Ion rechargeable or allows the use of AA batteries. It also incorporates bluetooth. Brilliant, I really like this product but it doesn't have a datalogger and I received a reply to my email stating that they have no plans for one either..bummer :-( They did say they'd pass the request on to their developers though so you never know. I really want a datalogger so that I can keep the PDA switched off when hiking because it is the PDA, not the GPS, that has the real limits on battery life. Some things are using Li-Polymer batteries now and I *think* these might have a longer life span than Li-Ion.

The other options are the manual recharger I mentioned in a previous post or a cheap PDA 'saver' that enables you to run from AA batteries if you need to.

I also rejected the iQue partly because of the battery life, but worse, the review I read stated that you couldn't use third party mapping software with it! i.e, they don't allow you to redirect the NMEA sentences through the serial ports so that they can be used by something like OziCE. So, once again you are tied to mapsource, totally missing the point of PDA navigation IMHO. I really don't like this commercial tie-in approach when it comes to what maps you can use. Plenty of solutions but none quite perfect yet. Fingers crossed.

BTW, the Dell Axim has built in bluetooth and you can buy a beefy battery for it but it doesn't have a built in CF card slot which rules it out for me.

I am keeping my eyes on the gpspassion web site as it seems the best for news and new releases.

Andy.