QStarz BT-Q1000P

QStarz BT-Q1000P was just announced last month and we were lucky enough to receive a sample product for review. The BT-Q1000P is first off a dual function device: It can be a bluetooth GPS receiver to pair with your PDA or smartphone or you can use it as a standalone travel recorder. BT-Q1000P is already available for pickup from Amazon for $100 and it seems to receive good reviews from other users on the internet.

When we first picked up this bluetooth GPS receiver we charged it and put it in our vehicle. That’s all. We decided worry about the software later. We pretty much forgot about it for the rest of the day and were happily surprised to see it still blinking away about 12 hours later. That is actually normal – for it says it can last up to 32 hours on a single charge.

The software installed without any problems on our Windows XP machine and successfully started Google Earth and showed our recorded track very precisely. You configure QStarz BT-Q1000P with this software because the hardware only has two buttons. One to switch it between off, log, and log + navigation mode, and another button to record your immediate position. The software lets you configure the tracking by time, distance, or speed, and you can even set the frequency of each one to record a waypoint.

As far as hardware, the ‘P’ at the end of the BT-Q1000P says it is the ‘platinum’ version which means it can record up to 200,000 waypoints instead of 100,000. It uses a 51 channel MTK GPS receiver chipset which got a satellite position fix in less than half a minute during our review. BT-Q1000P has a high-friction padding on the bottom so it sits on your dash without the need for a mount which was a nice touch.

Now that we’re done with this bluetooth GPS receiver there’s a good change we’ll give it away to a Navigadget reader ;) Keep reading.

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