Fiero Carputer vs Pocket PC

I know a few guys in the club have put Mini Computers in their cars. Lisa and I used a laptop for a while, but it was getting bulky and having to charge it with the inverter was getting to be a hassle.   When my old cell phone phone packed it in, I did some research and found this on the Rogers network.   This has been the best investment I have made in a long time. I was considering installing a Mini ITX MB under the dash and building a full on PC in my car. However now, I am so pleased with this setup, I don't know how we lived without it.

Sorry about the pic quality, but here it is closed up and a few shots of the charge/USB/audio output jack.

Will post better pics and a breakdown of my "Carputer" LOL. Its a Pocket PC, running windows Mobil 6, loaded with assorted movie and music players, TomTom Mobil Navigator and such. Checks all my emails for me and because it is my cell phone, it can upload/download everything on the fly. Including running Internet Radio stations. I have a docking plug for it thats plugged into an external Mic and the Car Stereo to use it as a true car kit.

Its pretty cool, oh and it is a touch screen to boot.


Its a pretty slick little setup and we find ourselves leaving the laptop and Streets and Trips setup at home.   I currently have a 6gig Micro SD Card in it now and there are larger cards, or owning several 6gig cards.   I guess being solid state I never have to worry about drives crashing though. LOL   The cards just slide in the side so you can do it on the fly and they are hot swappable.   The Audio manager interface is very much like the I-Pods.    Sort by Genre and so on.   We just bought FieroChick an HTC Touch, which is basically the exact same device hardware and software wise, it just does not have the slide out keyboard and weighs about 1/2 of the Tytn.      The phone itself unfortunately costs more than some cheap laptops. When I got it, retail on it was around $700 however on a contract with my wireless Carrier it was only $250.      If you know someone looking to buy either one, make sure they do there research on the exact model that there carrier is selling. I have found some sneaky company's up here, that sell gimped versions of the phone IE Bell Canada sells there Touch with the WiFi portion disabled so you have no choice but to use their INTERNET Data Packages. Fortunately we are with Rogers and they don't gimp their phones. I was even able to update all the software myself to enable a few functions like Video calling that were not enabled by default.   

On a side note, I realize Laptops are the easiest way to set these carputers up. But this is so cool, as it can run Internet Explorer or pull data down to the phone anyplace there is cell signal or even call a restaurant directly from the TomTom directory.   


Open with Tom Tom Mobil Navigator running


Closed with the Windows Start Menu open


Audio Manager


Desktop with large Clock


Audio/Mic/Power splitter. Kinda like a docking station. The middle jack goes directly into my Stereo. The left and right are for the external Mic and the USB charging port. (I have a 12v to USB adapter in the car) This way I can use the music on the phone, or surf Internet Radio stations.



Better pic of the jack, aka Docking Station, without the dock.