I was recently given the opportunity to be one of the first GPS-bloggers to get my hands on the Columbus v900 Bluetooth Datalogger. (thanks to my friends at buyGPSnow.com) I spent the last month with the v900, evaluating its build quality, battery performance, usability, functionality and data accuracy. The v900 is a very cool little unit, featuring a 51 channel MTK chipset, an internal 1000mAh Li-Poly battery, Bluetooth, a microSD card slot and even a built in microphone for recording and geo-tagging voice memos. It's all housed in a very tiny, very sleek stainless steel & polycarbonate shell.

Form, Design & Aesthetics

Columbus is gaining a reputation for exceptional industrial design and the v900 is no exception. The Columbus v900 is VERY small. Sit the v900 next to any other GPS device on the planet and you'll instantly appreciate the engineering that went into getting all its functionality into such a small, elegant package.

The front face of the v900 is cut from an almost mirror-like glossy black polycarbonate plastic, housing three status LEDs and a giant circular waypoint button. The jet-black front face matches up perfectly with the matte stainless-steel backplate and helps make the v900 a very solid and robust little device.

On the top edge of the device you'll find a mini-USB port & the power button, on the side: the voice-memo button and finally, on the bottom: the lanyard attachment and microSD card slot. The Columbus v900 scores major points from me for being by far the most bad-ass looking GPS datalogger on the planet, hands down.

Features & Functionality

Looks may be the Columbus v900's strong-point, but functionality is where it really counts -and sadly, this is where the v900 looses a few key points. Let's begin with what's missing; the v900 has two major faults. The one and only way to download your data from the (max 2Gb) microSD card is by ejecting it and plugging it into a card reader on your computer. It doesn't download over Bluetooth, but more surprisingly it doesn't even download over USB! Big miss here, Columbus!!! This is by far the biggest “oops” that should be at the top of the list for a 2.0 release of the v900.

The next major oops for the Columbus v900 is its non-standard log file format. The v900 saves its log files in a modified universal CSV format, making it illegible to both GPSbabel and GPSVisualizer. You have to convert the CSV files to KML format using the TimeAlbum software provided before use in GPSbabel. (if anyone knows of any 3rd party conversion software that works with v900 CSV log files, please let me know) The silver lining here is that TimeAlbum is java-based, so it's cross-platform and it's surprisingly not a bad piece of software!

Columbus v900 features: An impressive list of features for such a small and compact device. Image courtesy of buyGPSnow.com.

That's pretty much all I have to complain about regarding the v900, so with that out of the way, it's on to the good stuff...

The v900 logs all the right things: {lat, lon, ele, speed, heading, hdop, vdop, satelites, ...} at roughly 1Hz. It has two logging modes: basic and advanced, allowing you to control which GPS properties are logged. The voice-memo feature is really slick. If you've ever stared at a map filled with Wayponts and POIs and forgotten what each of them meant then you know how valuable of a feature this is. If you do a lot of hiking, this feature is especially handy. The v900 saves each voice-memo as a .wav file on the microSD card and makes a link to it in the log file as a special waypoint. The audio quality isn't half bad, either!

TimeAlbum 1.5: The Columbus v900 conversion software is java-based and runs on Windows, Mac & Linux.

If you're running mapping software on your laptop or PDA, then you'll be able to make good use of the SPP Bluetooth connection. As I mentioned before, you can't download log files via Bluetooth, which is a little unfortunate, but if you're in the market for an all-in-one device, then the v900 does offer GPS-mouse ability through NMEA format over bluetooth. If you're on a mac, you can use gps2gex to pipeline the NMEA data directly into Google Earth, or any other mapping/navigation software. It's pretty basic, but its free.

The Columbus v900 has a fairly unique feature, called “SPY mode” which allows continuous standby logging for up to a month! The device will go to sleep for a user-configurable amount of time before turning back on, re-establishing a signal, dropping a waypoint and shutting down again. Smart stuff.

The v900 also offers a few other minor features, such as auto-on/auto-off car mode, overspeed alarm and USB charging. Its internal 1000mAh battery holds a 24-hour charge and recharges via USB in roughly 4 hours. All told, it's an impressive set of features, and puts the Columbus v900 right up in the league of some of the pricey Garmin loggers, but at a VERY competitive price.

MTK vs. SiRF III

The Columbus v900 is the first MTK-based GPS logger I've been able to spend any decent time with, so I couldn't resist a few head-to-heads with my other SiRF III loggers.

head-to-head: MTK & SiRF III-based data loggers @ 1Hz-interval logging through the Songshan district in Taipei, Taiwan on Google Earth.

The v900's MTK chipset uses an active (amplified) antenna, which seemed to give it a very slight advantage in TTFF over other passive devices, such as the SiRF III (time-to-first-fix), especially in urban environments.

In open sky, both MTK and SiRF III chipsets achieved a near-perfect 30-35 second TTFF (as expected), but in the most extreme situations (such as indoors, aboard trains or driving around in the middle of downtown Taipei) the MTK device performed slightly better, achieving its first fix (from cold start) an average of 7-8 seconds faster over the course of 5 extremely rigorous tests in challenging urban environments. The SiRF III chipset, however, appeared to handle signal reflections and position drift slightly better, and would stay an average of 2-3 meters truer during a sample set of 5 extreme urban situations.

Conclusions

I've come to greatly enjoy the convenience of the v900's internal battery over the rechargeable batteries I've become accustomed to dragging around with me for all my older GPS data loggers. The v900's 1000mAh internal battery is more than enough for a full day of logging and its USB charging is plenty fast. You can recharge your v900 in the car, using the 12v car adapter that's included in the box or if you have a solar USB charger or a mintyboost, you can even recharge on the go. Either way, you'll never have to worry about depleting the internal battery away from home.

The Columbus v900 is the only GPS logger that I actually prefer to keep safely tucked away in my pocket instead of bouncing around on a carabiner, clipped to my bag. It's by far the smallest GPS logger I've ever used, and it feels solid in the hand. At first, it seemed a little frustrating to have to eject the microSD card every time I wanted to download the log files, but it became easy to rationalize, as at least I wasn't fumbling with rechargeable batteries like I was with my old GPS units; besides, I keep a keychain microSD card reader attached to the v900's lanyard, so I always have a card reader nearby.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the Columbus v900. It quickly replaced all my old GPS devices as my primary GPS unit, thanks to both its feature-set and stunning design. You can order your Columbus v900 (+ free 1Gb microSD card) from http://www.buyGPSnow.com/ for a little under $100 US.

For more information, you can download the v900 manual (English) and TimeAlbum (v. 1.6, English) from the Columbus website (Chinese, simplified), or you can contact the folks at buyGPSnow.com for any product questions. They have been incredibly supportive with all of my questions during my evaluation of the v900.

And lastly, if you have any questions about the v900 or if there's anything I've missed in this review, you can always drop me a line in the comments section.