GPSWorld Reviews the ike305

"..the best GPS device I have ever seen or used..."   -Don Jewell, GPS World

GPS Insights - Early September 2008

Basically the ike305 is a commercially built, but militarily rugged handheld data capture and transmitter device that cleverly combines a GPS receiver, laser distance meter, integrated compass and inclinometer, a high definition digital camera. It’s all tightly integrated with the latest HP IPAQ handheld computer.

The ike305: I Like ike
What in the world is an ike GPS 305, you may ask. The ike305, and that’s how I will refer to it in this article for brevity’s sake, defies description in most respects and most naming conventions as well, because there is simply not another commercially produced device out there that performs all of the functions you find tightly integrated in this unique piece of GPS/GIS equipment. So, what to call it? I’ll let you decide after you read the review. Basically the ike305 is a commercially built, but militarily rugged, handheld data capture and transmitter device that cleverly combines a GPS receiver, laser distance meter, integrated compass and inclinometer, and a high-definition digital camera. All that is tightly integrated with the latest HP IPAQ handheld computer running Microsoft’s Mobile 5, operating system.

Now take a deep breath and read that again. It is a lot to take in all at once, but the great part is, bottom line up front, the ike305 really works as advertised.

Surveylab, a New Zealand company, which designed and now markets the ike devices worldwide, says it is”… the world’s only integrated GPS data capture device.” Now while I might, and indeed will, take issue with this statement, as I expect others will as well, when you consider all that the ike305 is capable of, the Surveylab folks may indeed not be far from wrong. More on this later.

All of the ike305’s various functions, like the laser distance meter, the 3.2 megapixel high resolution digital camera, the GPS, the electronic compass, the HP handheld IPAQ computer, and the inclinometer, all work perfectly well independently and you can certainly isolate them and use them that way. But it is the tightly integrated and seamless integration of all of them, along with some outstanding software, that makes this unit standout as a tool that is desperately needed by our warfighters and other government, municipal, city, and county agencies as well. In addition to our warfighters I can immediately see applications for firefighters, police departments, bomb squads, agricultural inspectors, and GIS departments in general...

Read the full review.