I was given a GPS by a neighbor who bought a new one. The one he gave me is a Nextar Q4-04 that has a manufacture date of Sept 2008. It is powered by Windows CE Core 5.0
The maps are out of date and they want way too much (70.00 USD) for an SD card with the maps (no download is currently available).

I was able to get the unit to take MioPocket 4.0 Release 68 and actually boot up. Now, here is where I need the help. Does anyone know of a decent map program for the GPS function? I need to plug in an address and get 'drive to' instructions while driving. Any help from y'all would be very much appreciated!

I love the software that came with my Nextar, way better than the Garmin or Magellan that I have. Mine's about 5 years out of date, I just work around the missing roads. It's not a big deal, it's not like they move the roads around every year.

Mine runs linux, so I don't know if the gps app would be the same as a winders base one.

At least Nextar has an update. Magellan declared my Roadmate 2200 obsolete the day they made it and never released a map update.

I can't stand the software that came with the Nextar, but this one runs on Windows CE.

I'd very much like to find a decent, workable GPS program for this unit.

Any other comments,suggestions, or recommendations?

Sorry, there was a wiki up about hacking the nextar, but it's disappeared. As I recall, no one ever got an alternate app working on it.

As I stated, MioPocket is on it, but I cant figure out how to get the gps app to work, or to find another one that will work on it under the MioPocket and WinCE

I'm not sure its worth the hassle/work required to make it work. There aren't any free GPS routing packages which are actually any good or have the required maps available. Your best bet for free maps would be something that used OpenStreetMap but there aren't any guarantees that the data is accurate.

If you do get a third party package which costs money then you might as well just buy a brand new cheap GPS unit...

If you really want to get it working and are willing to spend some $$$ then look into TomTom. They had/have a WinCE version.

I'm surprised that the original gps app won't work with miopocket.

I mostly followed the linux based Nextar hackery and, as I recall, there was something non-standard about the gps that made running a third party app difficult. They did get debian running on it ok. Unfortunately, I didn't save anything from the wiki when it was around.

The gps app you have looks different than mine, but still the same family. Try it for a while, I didn't like it either at first, but after living with it for a year, now I find Garmin and Magellan ridiculous. My next gps will either be TomTom or Nextar.

If it wasn't for the map update issue, I would try to stay on the original software/app

Have you progressed any further on this?

I had an interesting experience last week. I had about a dozen places to visit in LA and I usually look all my stops up on the GPS before I go. My Magellan, which has a newer database than the Nextar, only knew 2 of them. The Nextar, with it's 2006 database, knew them all.

The other cool thing about the Nextar is that it'll play mp3s while doing gps. The Magellan completely exits the gps app before it can do anything else...

I guess my point is, updated is not necessarily more complete, and I really like the Nextar software.