Well, I've now tried the thing out (in fact I'm now on the train home to my parents), as with lots of things, theres good and bad.

It's actual ability to track where I was going and mark specific places was pretty good, and it could give lots of reports of where i was going, which direction, even stuff like speed. acuracy depended on how many satellites were in range, but on average there seemed to be 7 or 8 around at any particular time, which gave a fairly good location rate.

I was also impressed at the amount of things already in it's database, ---- hotels, pubs, restaurants, even bank branches (which is a bit of a godsend sinse I'm always looking for a bank)). I'm especially looking forward to having it in unfamiliar locations.

Once I'd put in a route t a place, it did the job very bwell, though I'll have to practice with following it's directions, ---- it actually took me a route back to my flat I didn't recognize, so i got practice with it in an unfamiliar environment. My lack of spacial coordination got in the way slightly, ---- sinse it called a street with a slight turn right "streight on" where as my guts would've said I'd turned right, , ----- but the machine was deffinately good enough at picking me up when i went wrong that I'm fairly certain this will improve with practice. Even with people (including my dad), who've used sat navs in their cars, it's taken a while to trust the thing and get used to it's instructions.

That was all of the good stuff.

On the down side, while some of the speak keys and menue navigation was about what I was used to from using Hal, I wasn't impressed with the control system, which is one of those numeric keypads using letters on each number the way a mobile phone sends text. i'm fairly certain I could get used to this given time, but it struck me as a rather clumsy way around things. Also, while humanware sell bluetooth wireless keyboards, sinse the trecker's satellite pick up goes into the bluetooth end of the pda, you can't use one, and the chap wasn't certain whether or not plug in keyboards would work.

the reason i worry about this is because of what struck me as the main trouble with the trecker, ---- the search system for route destinations. you have to type in the street name using the number pad (not a nice proposition for someone like me who's got a liberal atitude to spelling), you can also brouse by catagory, eg, personal land marks entered by you, restaurants, pubs etc, but there are many entries in the list and no way of skipping through them, ---- or so the chap thought.

he did admit himself that while he demonstrates the treckers, he's not overly familiar with all their ins and outs, and is getting their usability chap, ---- who I met at sight village to ring me tomorrow so tht I can ask these questions of him.

My main worry is if i'm out with my friends, need to get back to the station, but then have to spend ages finding the route with the trecker, ---- that stil hasn't shaved off much time and I might as well have taxied.

That's why i want to speak to this chap, who not only works for humanware, but is visually impared himself and uses a trecker dayly.

also, sinse the software is being updated regularly, maybe the slowness of interface issues will be fixed in the future.

I'm especially hoping for plug in keyboards, sinse the pda part of things which does E-mail, web brousing, text file reading etc, I'm guessing would be a bit of a pest using a numeric keypad for text. That's just an extra though. it's really the Trecker I'm interested in, but if I'm paying that sort of money, i might as well get a functoning Pda out of it, ----- and apparently when not using the trecker, you can use a bluetooth keyboard.

so, the jury is stil out on this one, ---- though i was fairly pleased with it on a practical level, I'll want to know a bit more about the interface before I actually spend any dosh on the thing.

the useability person should be phoning me tomorrow, so I'll report back after I've had words with him.

well keyboard wise, given that pda folding keyboards are fairly tiny, and I tend to cary around a shoulderbag with umbrella, ultracane, and mp3 player in anyway, I don't particularly object to carrying a keyboard. I did speak to the useability chap, and he said that it's actually possible to directly switch bluetooth output devices from the trecker itself, ----- though also it supported streight infra red keyboards which wouldn't take up the bluetooth output. Either of these options sounds good to me, andI'd certainly rather have a keyboard on hand if I'm writing e-mails, text documents and what not.

As to searching, it actually turns out that there are many much more efficient ways of destination searching with the trecker, sinse you can set a lot of parameters. For instance, you can tell the trecker to search for restaurants within 1 mile of your current location. apparently as well, you don't need to type in the entire address of a destination, just the first few letters, then tell the trecker to search for all entries starting with those letters in the current location, ----- which sounds much faster.

In november, the next software update is also going to include the ability to backtrack routes, so once you've walkd one way, you can tell it to reverse the other, which sounds pretty good. apparently the manual is on the bhumanware website, and I'm going to look over it, ---- though as you will guess, we've had problems with the wireless hub bit of the home hub here, hence the long absense.

Well, to be honest I wasn't planning on getting a pda, but if i'm getting the trecker anyway, i might as well have the meistro as well. While certainly I'll want my laptop for propper internet access, the Meistro might have it's uses now and again when I don't happen to have my laptop around. Certainly there have been times when hanging about at train stations (with their free wireless networks), that I could've done with something interesting to do, and as I said, if i can have a litle keyboard, all the better.

the meistro is an extra