i-gotU GT-600 GPS Tracker Review

If the name of this particular product sounds familiar, that’s because I reviewed its precursor, the i-gotU GT-120 GPS tracker from Mobile Action Technology, last August. The full review is here, but here’s the quick recap: the GT-120 is a super-small, super-convenient and durable GPS tracker you use to log your outdoor adventures, then play around with them in cool ways like including geotagged pictures or uploading the files to Picasa or Flickr for sharing with friends and family. And at a retail price of $70, it’s one of the most affordable GPS gadgets you’ll ever come across.

Near the end of last year, the folks at MAT contacted me again to test an updated GPS tracker called the GT-600, and for the past couple of months, I’ve been using it for hiking and cycling as well as running. It has some definite improvements over the GT-120, but carries a higher price tag as well – so it’s a question of whether the upgrades are worth it.


For starters, the GT-600 is compatible with Windows 7, whereas the previous device only works with Windows XP and Vista. The new version is slightly larger than the old one, but is still small enough to fit comfortably into a pocket or key pouch, and light enough (only 37g) that you’ll barely notice it. The casing is water resistant, so there’s no worries if you get caught in the rain.

The GT-600 also features improved accuracy, efficiency, and versatility over its predecessor, thanks to hardware upgrades and an improved software package. Hardware improvements include a larger battery – which explains the slightly increased overall size – with a minimum operation time of 80 hours, so you can take it with you for several outings before needing a recharge. The battery recharges completely within a few hours via USB cable.

Another cool upgrade is motion detector technology in the GT-600 that automatically goes into sleep mode when movement stops for a prolonged period of time. This not only improves overall accuracy of your data (not factoring the time for rest breaks into your average speed, for example), but saves battery power as well. The GPS starts logging again automatically when motion is detected, so you don’t need to worry about pausing and restarting over the course of a long day. Memory capacity is a very generous 64MB, with storage space for more than 260,000 waypoints.

On the software side, the GT-600 comes with i-gotU Suite 3.0, featuring three different programs: @trip PC and Where I Am, similar to those used with the GT-120, and a new Sports Analyzer that provides in-depth activity data. All of these programs are fully interactive with Google Earth mapping, and download route information within seconds from the GT-600 when connected to your PC.


@trip PC (sample photo above, click to enlarge) is the same program described in my GT-120 review; it allows you to geotag photos & share 2D or 3D trip maps on Flickr or Picasa. If you’re so inclined, you can further share your files on social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter … but if you know me, this is the part where my eyes kind of glaze over. However, if social media’s your thing, I imagine this feature would be pretty cool. You can see an example of an uploaded file here (click on map view or 3D view) I did as part of my previous review.

Where I Am is another nifty program that allows you to place your current location on map from Google, Yahoo!, or Bing Maps, then get directions to nearby points of interest as you would when using these online mapping services ordinarily.


Sports Analyzer (see above, click to enlarge) is the GT-600’s new program, and combines Google Earth mapping with multiple route statistics including time, speed, distance, elevation, and calories burned (based on body data you enter beforehand). It includes an activity calendar that can be used as a training log, and multiple chart views for each workout including any combination of altitude, speed, or pace on one axis vs. time or distance on the opposite axis. Like the other two programs, the Sports Analyzer is extremely user-friendly and is a very nice addition to the GT-120 software.

Clearly, there are a lot of upgrades that make the GT-600 a very cool and convenient gadget to take along on all kinds of adventures. The price tag for this version is $120, which is quite an increase from the $70 GT-120, so whether the upgrades are worth the extra cost depends on how extensively you plan to use it. The less-expensive GT-120 is available here from Amazon.com, and the updated, more dynamic (and Windows 7-compatible) GT-600 is available at Amazon.com as well as other online vendors.

*Product provided by Mobile Action Technology
**See other product reviews on sidebar at right. If you have a product you’d like reviewed, contact me at info@runningandrambling.com.

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i-gotU GPS Tracker Review

Let’s say that you’d like to create some maps and review GPS data from your workouts, but don’t feel like investing in a wrist-mounted or hand-held GPS unit. Or maybe you have a wrist GPS but it seems like you need a math degree to use all the features, or you struggle with the software programs to download your trips to your computer.

If that’s the case, you’d really benefit from something simpler; if that’s the case, you’d love the i-gotU GPS tracker.

i-gotU’s GT 120 GPS tracker, manufactured by Taiwanese company Mobile Action, is an ingenious device that not only tracks your trip, but lets you add geotagged photos (more on that in a second), display your journey in 3D on Google Earth, and upload it to a webpage to share with others. And at roughly $70, it's a very affordable and user-friendly way to create maps of all your adventures. I’ve been using it for running, hiking and biking over the past several weeks, and I have to say it’s a pretty cool little gadget.

At first glance, it doesn’t seem like much – just a tiny 20-gram box about the size of a 9V battery. There’s a single on/off button, and an outlet for a USB cable. That’s basically it; this is probably the most uncomplicated GPS device you’ll ever see. You press the on button, tuck the device into a pocket, and turn it off when your trip is finished.

The purchase pack also comes with a USB cable and mini CD that loads a software program called @trip onto your computer, and that’s where things get fun.

When you come home from your trip, you connect the i-gotU device to the computer, and trip information is downloaded in a matter of seconds. Speed, distance, and elevation data is plotted onto a Google Earth map, like on this screen grab of my regular Tuesday morning 12-miler:

(click to enlarge)

On the computer, a route tracer (a little car or bike icon) will then trace out your course, even speeding up to reflect increased mph, or slowing to reflect decreases.

You can also upload “geotagged” pictures to your trip, so that photos you take along the way are added to the file at the correct location and time. As the icon tracer approaches each photo spot, the photo pops up on the screen. On a recent bike ride with my son, we took a photo at the top of a long climb, which shows up on the screen like this:

(click to enlarge)

If you click the photo as the tracer is there, an enlarged version shows on the screen. The GT120 is compatible with every digital camera and camera phone on the market today – all you have to do is make sure your camera’s internal time stamp is accurate.

Finally, you can upload the whole file to a website to share with anybody you’d like. Like a Picasa album, your files can be private or public, or you can embed them into your blog. When a visitor goes to the file’s webpage, he can zoom and shift the screen like a Google Earth map, view the geotagged pictures, and adjust the data readings like the graphs in the lower right corner. As an example, I’ve created a file from the Tuesday morning run shown above:

Tuesday morning “Three Bears” run (Follow the link, click on "map view" or "3D view", and wait for the icon to start rolling.)

Pretty cool stuff, huh?

Its small size belies the technology packed into the GT120. There’s a built-in GPS patch antenna, and a SiRF Star III low power chipset which allows a super long battery life – up to sixty (that's right: 60; six-oh) hours on a single charge. The whole device is water resistant, so you don’t have to worry about getting caught in the rain or sweating on it excessively.

All of the applications I’ve tried are extremely user-friendly, and I’ve had a lot of fun using this tracker over the past several weeks. There are only a few drawbacks worth mentioning:

* There’s a moderate delay between turning the device on and when it locks onto a satellite. For example, the run map I included above started and finished at the same spot, but the GPS track didn’t pick up for a good half-mile or more. If you give yourself a 3 or 4 minute cushion, you should be fine.

* Since there’s no display, you can’t access data until you get home and plug the device into your computer. On the plus side, this prevents the dreaded “run around the parking lot a couple of times so I can round up to the next tenth-mile” syndrome when you’re staring at the numbers in real time.

* The synchronization of times between GPS device and your personal camera is tricky. For example, in this same screen grab from our bike ride, notice that the photo was taken at the top of the climb, but the tracer location on the profile map at lower right shows the geotag as about a quarter-mile down the other side.

(enlarge, then look at profile line - should be at top of hill)

The GT120 gets its time stamp from the satellites, but since there’s no display on it, you just have to estimate what time to put in your camera. You’ll probably be off by a couple of minutes on your first guess. There's an adjustment button on the @trip screen to dial in the precision of the camera with the GPS tracker, so this glitch is fairly easy to fix.

* In narrow canyons or under heavy tree cover, the signal doesn’t track real precisely, but I’d say it has the same degree of error as a wrist-mounted GPS in similar circumstances.

GPS devices don’t come any simpler than this. The i-gotU GT120 is a very convenient, easily portable, ridiculously easy to use GPS tracker, and a more affordable option than most standard GPS units. It is available from Amazon.com for $69.95, and similarly priced on other websites.

See other product reviews on sidebar at right. If you have a product you'd like reviewed, contact me at info@runningandrambling.com

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