The Kaptain Plus
Well, this has been a post I've been meaning to write for ages, but with everything else that's gone on, the good old Kaptain has taken a back seat.
But yeh, I ordered it the Monday before last, and it arrived Tuesday but as I figured, it arrived when I wasn't home so I went down to the post office to get it. Brought it home and after quite a while, with the eventual help of the manual, I was able to work out what all the different USB connectors/cables were for; there was quite a lot of them and even now, there's a couple of things which I don't know what they are for. (It was discovered a lot later that they'd left the extra battery out which I'd ordered for the special price, so I got that yesterday).
After reading the manual for much of the night, I learnt most functions of Kaptain and I was very impressed indeed. The kaptain itself is so small and the receiver is built in which of course means one less thing I have to worry about when carrying it outdoors. Although I had great success with the trekker, I find it of course too bulky, too many things to carry and the actual unit didn't have a key lock which meant, as I'd keep it in my pocket, buttons would often get bumped and get me out of trekker even among other things within trekker I didn't want it to do. Also, I hated the fact I had to remember all these menus and when typing out a name of a POI (point of interest) and address of where I wanted to go, it would take forever, whereas with Kaptain, I just voice all my commands. The voice activation is pretty good too; not perfect but that's with all voice activated products why no?! Also, unlike the trekker, the Kaptain has train and tram information and buses are coming. So I can tell it where i want to go and it will advise me how to get there by train and where I connect to another service etc.
But if I had of listened to what people like H and B had told me, (bias because they prefer other GPS systems, gave this a go and hated it), I would never have experienced the wonder of Kaptain; it certainly works for me.
Kaptain comes with a pair of ear buds with the microphone on the chord but also a battery operated speaker and subwoofer with the mic on its chord.
Kaptain is also an MP3 player (which I haven't used yet) and an FM radio. I have listened to the radio on my way to work sometimes while it's telling me where I'm going.
Last weekend, B and I went for a walk to show him how it worked; he was impressed though not so much with the present accuracy (by about 20 metres we discovered) but we got a program to install on the PC which allows us to connect to the Capcys (not sure on the spelling yet as I haven't looked at it) website so we can update firmwear and stuff; in fact, the manual suggests we do it weekly for updates enhancing speed and accuracy. We can also do heaps of other things on there like share information and so forth I think; I will update when I've done this myself.
Last week, i figured out properly how to use the "map discovery". It's awesome; we can browse anywhere in Australia offline obviously.
At the moment, apparently we can't put any additional maps on the Kaptain; I don't think it's a limitation of Kaptain itself, rather a configuration of Australia's maps or something; I'm so hoping this can be rectified so I can use it when i go overseas.
Well, I've started work and it's reasonably busy so I'm off; more updates to come of course. :)
Til Next time, RdFreak
But yeh, I ordered it the Monday before last, and it arrived Tuesday but as I figured, it arrived when I wasn't home so I went down to the post office to get it. Brought it home and after quite a while, with the eventual help of the manual, I was able to work out what all the different USB connectors/cables were for; there was quite a lot of them and even now, there's a couple of things which I don't know what they are for. (It was discovered a lot later that they'd left the extra battery out which I'd ordered for the special price, so I got that yesterday).
After reading the manual for much of the night, I learnt most functions of Kaptain and I was very impressed indeed. The kaptain itself is so small and the receiver is built in which of course means one less thing I have to worry about when carrying it outdoors. Although I had great success with the trekker, I find it of course too bulky, too many things to carry and the actual unit didn't have a key lock which meant, as I'd keep it in my pocket, buttons would often get bumped and get me out of trekker even among other things within trekker I didn't want it to do. Also, I hated the fact I had to remember all these menus and when typing out a name of a POI (point of interest) and address of where I wanted to go, it would take forever, whereas with Kaptain, I just voice all my commands. The voice activation is pretty good too; not perfect but that's with all voice activated products why no?! Also, unlike the trekker, the Kaptain has train and tram information and buses are coming. So I can tell it where i want to go and it will advise me how to get there by train and where I connect to another service etc.
But if I had of listened to what people like H and B had told me, (bias because they prefer other GPS systems, gave this a go and hated it), I would never have experienced the wonder of Kaptain; it certainly works for me.
Kaptain comes with a pair of ear buds with the microphone on the chord but also a battery operated speaker and subwoofer with the mic on its chord.
Kaptain is also an MP3 player (which I haven't used yet) and an FM radio. I have listened to the radio on my way to work sometimes while it's telling me where I'm going.
Last weekend, B and I went for a walk to show him how it worked; he was impressed though not so much with the present accuracy (by about 20 metres we discovered) but we got a program to install on the PC which allows us to connect to the Capcys (not sure on the spelling yet as I haven't looked at it) website so we can update firmwear and stuff; in fact, the manual suggests we do it weekly for updates enhancing speed and accuracy. We can also do heaps of other things on there like share information and so forth I think; I will update when I've done this myself.
Last week, i figured out properly how to use the "map discovery". It's awesome; we can browse anywhere in Australia offline obviously.
At the moment, apparently we can't put any additional maps on the Kaptain; I don't think it's a limitation of Kaptain itself, rather a configuration of Australia's maps or something; I'm so hoping this can be rectified so I can use it when i go overseas.
Well, I've started work and it's reasonably busy so I'm off; more updates to come of course. :)
Til Next time, RdFreak