Spy Review

The BlackHawk GPS Tracker finally represents what location trackers should be like! A realtime accurate tracking device with a portable receiver with map.

The GPS tracker itself is housed in a black rugged waterproof housing and is about the size of a mobile phone. It’s a complete GPS tracking device, exploiting GSM and GPRS technologies to transmit the location details to the supplied PDA. The handheld PDA has a visual mapping system giving location tracking accurate to 5 metres, and there are no messy subscription costs either. The location details are received on the PDA via SMS message, so that’s the only cost involved.

The GPS tracker charges in just 2 hours, but can run without another charge for up to 5 days. It comes with strong magnets so that you can attach it to the underside of a vehicle too. The PDA also allows you to track multiple trackers at once!

There are 3 downsides that I can spot with this gadget though. Firstly the PDA does not appear to come with any mapping software, despite being compatible with Tom-Tom. Secondly, using SMS to transmit location data can get expensive. So a decent mobile phone network (e.g. Virgin Mobile) that has cheap text messages between sim cards of the same network would be advised. In the case of Virgin Mobile, its 3 pence between Virgin Mobiles, but 10 pence to any other network… i.e. 70% cheaper!

Oh, and the third point… at a cost of nearly £2000, its very expensive. There are plenty of GPS trackers that are available for a fraction of this cost.