Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22828 in Consumer Electronics
• Model: M241

Customer Reviews

simple logger that works
I've had this for a few months, and it works. I take it hiking and use other software (GPicSync, free) to geotag the photos. Make sure you set your camera to the right time (get the "true" time from the logger). I seems pretty accurate, finds the satellites after a little while (< 1 min), and has enough recording options. I really like that it uses AA batteries; it will run all day on a lithium rechargeable (2700 mah) that I also use for my camera. When I'm away for a few days, I just bring extra AA's. It can store a lot of waypoints. It has distance and time logging options, can display speed, distance traveled, location, can be locked to avoid accidentally turning logging on/off. And it's been knocked around without complaining.

The USB and bluetooth work fine on a couple of computers (XP); it is important to install the USB drivers before connecting it. I find the USB much easier than the bluetooth. You can adjust the settings from the software, which makes life easier.

OK, some quirks: the software appears to offer geotagging, but does not; the GPicSync works great though. With the USB connection, you have to figure out which COM port it connects to; this is trial and error (COM6 for me), but it stays the same each time you connect it. If it runs out of power while logging, the file is lost (same thing if you accidentally turn it off); there is a low-battery indicator, but you need to be checking it pretty regularly, or have a good idea how long your battery will last. The battery cover feels pretty fragile. You can't tell it to start logging until you get a fix on the satellites, which means each time you turn it on you need to remember to start logging a minute later.

I think for money and convenience (AA, reasonable memory, accuracy), it's the best logging option - at least in March it was!

Positives and negatives
Cute little gadget. It is a comparatively fast and sensitive little Bluetooth GPS unit with a tiny display that can show Lat/Lon/Alt/Speed/Compass/etc. and has a backlight. It will also automatically or manually log waypoints and routes with a modest number of configurable options. It works great with my Treo 680 Smartphone and DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2006 Handheld Edition. In fact it is more reliable than my DeLorme Bluetooth GPS's. Running 12 hours on an alkaline AA battery is rather amazing. The fact that the accompanying software can export the saved waypoint and route data in a number of formats, including NMEA and Google Earth KMZ format is cool. The software is a bit primative but it seems to work. I hope they come out with some updates.

Now for the negatives.

The USB driver doesn't seem to work properly on XP!!!

It seems to work okay on Win2K Pro.

Fortunately it is possible to connect your XP PC and the data download software to the M-241 over Bluetooth and get the data off of it. Slowly.

And Holux Technical Support (email to China) seems to be strictly a one-way communication medium. You send them emails and nothing ever comes back.

Would I buy it again? Yes! It's cheap and works great as an amazingly sensitive and fast little GPS. And if you can negotiate the usual quirks and user hostility of Bluetooth, you can make it do everything that Holux promises it can do. However it sure would be nice if Holux fixed the stupid USB driver for XP!

-Christopher Erickson

This GPS works, but it is hard to use and battery life is terrible.
If you are a casual user, I would not recommend this product. If you are interested in actively figuring this product out, it could work for you. After 2 days of use, I have successfuly created and uploaded Google Earth files. This is really cool, and the reason I bought the product. However, I have also found the following: 1. This device eats batteries. I have reloaded the single AA battery twice in 2 days, having just used the product for a few brief periods. While indoors near a window, the product take a while to find the satellites. Because it takes a while, I set the unit down and then came back to it later only to find that the unit had timed out and turned off. Turning it back on started the process over again. The PC software is non-professional and is hard to use. It looks like a Windows 3.1 application. 3. The manual is minimal, at best. 4. The UI of the device is not intuative.