The Dual GPS Navigation and Battery Cradle is an accessory which adds proper GPS navigation to the iPod Touch. You slide in the iPod and it gets full navigational functionality, just like the iPhone. For the past few weeks, I have been testing it.
The iPod Touch is often thought of as a phone-less iPhone, and although that’s true, it’s only half the story. Aside from the lack of phone functionality, the Touch misses out on a camera, always-on internet, a compass and a GPS chip. The Dual cradle adds this last back in, letting you use the iPod as a GPS tracker for geo-tagging photos and as an in-car, turn-by-turn satnav system.
The Dual comes with a lot of accessories. First, the cradle, which plugs into both the dock connector and the headphone socket. It more than doubles the thickness of the iPod, but also adds a beefy battery pack which powers the GPS or recharges the iPod. A three-way switch on the back lets you choose between GPS or battery, or to switch it off. There is a mini-USB port in the bottom which will let you charge and sync the iPod while in the case, but you need to slide the switch to “Battery” to make it work. There is also a speaker (with volume switches) and a pass-through headphone jack.
Also in the box is a windshield-mounting kit: another cradle which attaches to the glass with a suction cup. This hooks up to the car stereo via 3.5mm jack and to the cigarette-lighter socket via included cable.
I don’t have a car, so I used my bike, and my good friend Francesc modded the bracket to fit my handlebars. I also ignored the free NavAtlas GPS application that is made by the same company for use with the unit: it is USA and Canada-only, and therefore useless outside those countries. Fortunately, an iPod in the cradle just passes the GPS info direct to any GPS-aware app. You can use anything that works on an iPhone.
Out on the sunny Barcelona streets, I fired the cradle up. It can take a while to get a fix, and you’ll need a very clear view of the sky to get one. I had to wait for a few minutes each time, and found that moving slowly along on the bike seemed to speed things up. One the unit is locked on, it stays locked on, though. In fact, once it gets going, the GPS tracking appears to be flawless, holding on even in brief jaunts through tunnels or indoors.
On the bike, the audio is loud enough to hear, as long as you aren’t on a busy road (and the speaker is quite a bit louder than the iPad’s own, making this a good way to listen to podcasts while cooking).
The battery is long-lasting, with a 1,100mAH-rating. Dual claims ten hours when used in GPS mode. I didn’t get anywhere near this time in my testing, but the four-LED battery indicator never came off full even after a couple hours. This is good: The iPod battery itself drains scarily fast when tracking with the screen switched on, so you will want to use the cradle’s battery for a top-up at journey’s end. Many apps will let you track with the iPod display switched off, however.
In use, there isn’t much to fault with the Dual cradle. It does what it says it does, and build quality is fine. The trouble comes with the size and the price. The kit costs $200, double that of rival TomTom’s car-kit. For that price, you could buy a standalone GPS and never have to worry about your iPod’s battery life.
That choice is up to you, though. If the price and features of this cradle seem good to you, then go ahead and buy it. It works great, and does it without fuss.
Dual XGPS300 [Dual]
Photo: Charlie Sorrel
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