Taxi Driver Online

New to the forum here, We are running mostly on samsung fame and Kazam models on cordic software.
Is there anyone who uses the software and could recommend a more reliable device?
Kazam models are famous for battery issues, They are handy for dual sim's but are not as reliable as I would have hoped.

All PDAs on a taxi circuit tend to eat up battery life because they’re constantly connected to the network rather like permanently talking on the phone so you can’t compare them with a personal device that only connected occasionally.
Inside the devices, they all use pretty much the same technology and all batteries are the same. Newer devices might be slightly more efficient on paper but in practice there’s not much difference.

How long the batter lasts depends on several factors most of which are obvious but the one that isn’t is your location.
If you’re in a well populated area, then the chances are that the mast that you’re connected to is very close and the PDA senses this and uses very little transmit power.
In rural locations however, masts can be quite distant and the device needs to up’s it’s power to reach them hence battery life reduces.

The bottom line is that they’re all much the same and you’ll be doing well if the hard worked battery last’s much longer than a year or two.

Bill

It's more GPS reliable devices I'm looking for Bill.
Our devices need to be plugged into power source to accept a job so they are always on charge.

Also worth pointing out you need to use an adequate charger. Standard 1 amp cigarette chargers don't cut it if your screen, gps and gprs are always on. You will need a 2.1a or above.

Weve used a lot of Kazam devices. Try the 551, Cordic have rubber stamped it as ok to use I believe.

Samsung have pulled out of the sub £100 range, their cheapest device will be the J3 which is around £125

There is also a couple of LG devices which seem to be performing well for customers.

Martin

Having to have your charger connected to accept a job is more likely to be a function of the software rather than a battery issue.
We also have an option where no charger indicates an out of vehicle condition so depending on how the company works, you may or may not get a job.

GPS reliable?? That's a completely different issue that's not really related to the batteries or chargers.
Most devices these days give reasonable GPS performance although some of the cheaper devices can be a bit slow at acquiring the satellites.
Last week, we tested some Kasam devices that quite a few of our customers use.
They were ok but not quite as snappy as more up to date units and the GPS was a bit slow to kick in but for about £70 they were good.

We've never come across a charger that won't provide enough charge for any device that we use.
It's actually the phone that determines the charge rate not the charger and most phones are set to charge at about 0.7 amp.
Don't get sucked into to paying for anything that claims to charge you phone faster, just use the one that comes with the phone and you should be fine.

Bill

Sorry I've not explained this correctly, the batteries of Kazam 4.2 are not as reliable, some of them just no longer charge even though the phones are only a few months old.
Speaking to SBE who are the repairers for them state it’s a common occurrence for the battery on them to no longer takes a charge.

As per the devices, I'm just looking at what's best for quickest GPS fix, some of the devices we have trailed before have been anything from decent to horrific.
You're right Bill, We set it intentionally so our drivers cannot accept a job unless they are plugged into the power source as 9/10 the driver will go for the hire immediately.

Martin

Right all understood now. Don’t really know what to say on that except we’ve seen exactly the same and just send out replacement batteries to get around the problem.
We’ve been using mainly Samsung devices for the last few years and batteries have always been a problem.
It’s all a bit hit and miss with some lasting for years while others last a couple of months or start to swell up.

On the GPS speed issue, this is normally only a problem at switch on and can take ages especially if you're indoors.
Kazam devices are normally Media-tek which means that the GPS functions are being done by the PDA’s processor rather than a dedicated GPS device.
It’s a cost reduction thing so they’re never going to be quite as good. Once they’re working, they usually see a few less satellites but they’re good enough for what we use them for.

Hope that helps a bit.

Bill