Adding iWare 8801 GPS into our arsenal of food mapping

For the last few months, almost all of our family weekend has been spent on looking for a new place to live in. During the searches and wandering through mostly unfamiliar territories, we noticed then that most of the houses on rent in Denpasar aren't listed in any newspapers! Hence why making our trip becoming more a safari like where we travel to certain hot spot areas with hopes of sighting the rare beast that we're looking for. We wish there is a centralized information board that inform house seekers like us about the most recent house on market for rent/selling; this would be a great time saver especially for new settlers like us.

And an idea come up to our mind; with all of the places we visited and scouted, why don't we start a list ourself? Well it's a pity that our journey hasn't been well documented, and all that's recorded from each house scouting was a mere "yes" or "no" conclusion. We only remember vaguely which houses we have scouted, and which streets we have traveled through.

Then I remember about the gadget a friend brought with his visit to our place a while ago: a pocket sized GPS device. I wonder if I had one of those, then I can record all of the places I visited with a simple click on the device? I guess so; though just based on common sense and educated guess.

Interestingly, after a quick search we found out that we can have such GPS device without spending a fortune, and after some time thinking, we're seriously considering of having one of those because it will also be a very useful device to help us track and record eateries into the Bali Food Map. Not to mention that it will make our address searching easier.

And so after a quick scouting, we decided to buy the iWare 8801 from a local shop at Jl. Teuku Umar; "Fast n' Cheap", mainly because I am quite familiar with their online store, and I could not find any Denpasar based store address on its competitor website; the original model we want.

A little disappointment to find that the price for iWare 8801 is about 100K higher than we expected, and it has not included the scratch resistance film for its touch screen, but we bought the thing anyway as we're too curious and would not want to spend extra time looking for other sellers; especially when we don't know where those other sellers are.

Well the initial look of the iWare 8801 device looks promising, sleeker than its competitor the Super Spring, and turns out that it was not just a GPS device but a multi-functioned device based on dual-core processor Windows CE 6.0 system capable to play music and video, reads document, receives FM radio signal, and it also has the AV in port, and a micro SD card reader; so it's basically a PDA, a very affordable one!


As we found out later, this iWare 8801 device has three GPS software installed; the Papago, Amigo, and Garmin XT. Amigo seemed to excel over the others as it has a quite easy to use interface and a detailed map of Denpasar pre-installed. And indeed it has made our place recording easier, as we can add the current place we're at into its "favorite" folder with just a tap of our finger, then it's ready to be retrieved anytime we'd like. And it's route finder has been really useful too; with the voice instruction and earphone plug, I can put this device into my shirt pocket and use it while riding on my motorbike. I think I'm into GPS from now on.

Should you are interested to acquire one, you can get one of these iWare 8801 with IDR 1.099.000 and IDR 75K for the scratch resistance film. iWare store locations (in Indonesia) are available at its online website here. (byms)

8 comments:

Unknown said...

jadi beli ga yu..??

Oke banget?
dibanding si http://electronics-gadgets.dinomarket.com/ads/7987157/Jual-GPS-Navigasi-Mobil-portable-SUPER-SPRING/
gimana??

bayuamus said...

Gw ndiri gak bisa nyoba compare side by side, cuma kalau liat spec nya sepertinya lebih kenceng dikit processornya Super Spring man. Dan dia garansi lifetime ya? Sementara iWare cuma setahun.

Kelebihannya iWare tampilan luarnya lebih cakep, dan games bawaan Amigo nya cukup menarik. Muter video agak patah-patah, suara juga ya standar kalau buat music playing.

Yang paling disayangkan default PDF readernya dodol; text display sering amburadul even di 100&, sebagian file PDF gak bisa dia buka, dan default installationnya ternyata nggak nginstall font Arial sekalipun. Juga ternyata di embedded Win CE nambahin new apps sulit banget, dan core fonts nggak mungkin karena selalu kehapus tiap reset device.

Gimana Super Spring memuaskan?

ranan said...

i saw this gps in mal ambassador jakarta; can other countries maps be loaded or is it only for indonesia?

bayuamus said...

Hi Ranan,

I don't know if mine included maps for countries outside Indonesia, but you can download maps for most countries of the world for free online; and they're updated from time to time so I guess it's pretty much needed on regular base anyway.

Anyway my 2.5 y.o. kid now uses it more as his own entertainment device than I am using it for GPS, since it also plays music and movies quite well.

bayuamus said...

By regular I mean once a year or every twos.

Martin said...

Hi bayuamus
I recenttly bought IWARE gps at wtc surabaya opposite surabaya plaza hotel and worked well there.So i recently moved back home to Africa only for it not to work because it lacked the east african map.so please assist with where possible I can get one.please post for me a url for direction.email martiningure@yahoo.com

bayuamus said...

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately most resources I encounter for East Africa maps are commercial thus requires purchase.

However there are "evaluation" version shared on GPS forums like this one which you might want to try out: http://www.navitotal.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?60-PDA-PNA-Smartphone-Navigation

I'm not sure what version of iGo, Amigo, or Garmin XT your iWare has (and which one is your fave), so you might want to check it out first to avoid downloading wrong map, since they're usually very big sized (100 MB +)

The other source would be, your local/regional GPS users forum; they usually have local maps available free of charge which they develop themselves, and sometimes are more accurate since it's an aggregate from their members' individual input.

Good luck.

Semarang said...

I bought Iware GPS at Horizon Near Ciputra in Semarang and it cost 888K IDR only,it is very useful, I travelled from Semarang to Yogyakarta, it will guide you to find Hotels, Restaurant and even Near Gas Stations shall be informed.
Even I am out of way, it will automatically recalculate where to pass and the nearest road to your destination. As I evaluated this "Excellent" tool for non-familiar on places you may travel. Highly recommended.

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