I have used several GPSs over the years and this one takes the cake. It went on a trip to Ireland the Scotland with me and performed so well I am thinking of new ways to push it to see where it might fail.
First it locked on just about anywhere, inside airports while in my luggage, inside the overhead bin on the plane while inside my luggage, inside cars while in my pants pocket, in buildings, in hotels, in pubs large and small. It locked on everywhere, and when it did not it just kept me in the same location until it did find a lock, meaning it did not show me bouncing all over the place when I was really just sitting still.
Secondly the software is OK, I did use it for downloading the data, setting up the GPS, exporting to GPX and Google Earth, and some preliminary review of the days events, but really that was it. So I cannot talk to how it does anything else, nor do I much care. It does what I needed it to do very well with no problems or complaints. I ran it on XP SP3 on 2 machines and it had no issues of any kind.
Thirdly it lasts FOREVER. I left it run almost 2 days, nearly 42 hours, before it died. 42 hours. That is amazing. Plus since it charges via USB I can charge it ANYWHERE. I can charge from my laptop, desktop, car charger, wall charger, even from those little engergizer 2xAA battery thingies. I even made a charger from a USB cable and a 4xAA battery holder. So I can charge this from rechargeable batteries as needed without connecting to my laptop.
Forthly it stores a lot of info. I have easily almost 2 weeks of time, in 1 minute increments about 10-16 hours a day, stored on here. You cannot erase from it , it just overwrites the old stuff, so I can see all the way back to when I first got it still, plus the 9 day Ireland/Scotland trip, plus all the flights to and from, plus misc playing around with it. It is all still on there. Amazing.
The one thing you really really really do have to do though if you plan to geotag photos, and I know you already know this but just listen anyways, is to sync the camera clock to GPS time (in your home timezone if possible). My camera time drifts, I had synced it before maybe 6 months ago when using the Garmin GPS around home, but I was 5 minutes off, which would be fine except that my shots of a given church were blocks away, my shots of the Cliffs of Moher are geotagged from the parking lot, etc until I corrected for the drift. There is no way to tell what time this GPS thinks it is, but since all GPS receivers use the same time it is a simple matter of syncing to any GPS or just to a reputable Stratum 1 or 2 time source online. Q-1000XT: Qstarz BT-Q1000XT Bluetooth Data Logger GPS Receiver (66 ch, 1-5Hz Update Rate, AGPS, 400,000 Waypoints, Vibration Sensor)
During a recent trip to Colorado and Wyoming I compared the BT-Q1000x with two other GPS Data Loggers. It's truly an amazing piece of equipment!
The good:
1. The GPS chipset is very sensitive. It even tracked my flight when placed in a pocket in my backpack that was in the overhead bin on the plane.
2. The battery life is advertised to be 40 hours. I tested it up to 20 hours and it still worked when two other units died due to exhausted batteries.
3. Moreover, the battery can be user-replaced as it is a standard Nokia cell phone battery.
4. There is a switch that you slide to switch the unit on and not a push button. No problem with accidental disconnections.
The bad:
1. Qstarz Travel Recorder software hangs a lot on my Vista 32-bit laptop computer.
2. QStarz Travel Recorder software is not very well designed as opposed to @Trip PC, a wonderful and mature product by a competitor that makes the IGotU units. Please note that it is very easy to export the tracks from Travel Recorder to the *.gpx format and import them to @Trip PC.
If someone found a better GPS Data Logger than the QStarz BT-1000x, please post in this thread.
The Software is good, Installs and Loads OK, nice features including showing path taken on Google maps (nicely integrated with internet on-line maps and satelite pictures), and speed during the trip (Can click on speed vs distance graph, and it shows where on the map speed limit was violated). However if I leave the software running on my PC for an hour, Windows says it is taking too many resources, and it hangs/freezes.
Program allows pictures to be tagged with location and elevation, with an adjustment if needed for Camera and GPS times being offset.
The accuracy is good, It generally shows the exact parking space I was in, and which lane I'm driving on a wide street. However, If it sits in one spot for a few hours, it has occasional drift in calculated position, and looks like it is moving around the size of a soccer field, with an occational spot several blocks away, even with a view of the clear sky and good signal lock.
The device has a nice feature to save data space, with option to only record points if they exceed a certain distance or speed from earlier points. Data point entries can be also programed for variable time between points. Battery life is over 24 hours. Minor incovenience is the upload of the data log is slow, takes several minutes.
Blue Tooth allows this to work real time with my palm pilot and PC map programs when I'm driving. In addition to logging the route for later playback. The size is small and easy to fit in a pocket. Comes with USB cable, AC wall charger and 12V DC car charger. Printed documentation is OK but tiny font and black & White pictures, Better to read the documentation on the Disk (easier to read on the computer and is in color).
All in all, I'm glad I purchased this device. If they have software upgrades in the future to address consistant accuracy and S/W hanging, it would be 5 stars. - Gps Logger - Geotagging - Photography - Geo Tagging'
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