once again i need to agree 100% with chip and foreignRS.

i will agree that in some scenarios they will work, but also in some scenarios they will appear to work, they go horrible wrong in the middle of downloading a map, corrupting the map and leaving you calling the AA.

chip, do you remember when we were doing my saff and with the USB dongle and it corrupted it whist we were driving?!?!

PCMCIA serial adapters use HARDWARE to process the signals.

99% of USB ones use SOFTWARE to process the signals via a device driver.

also the new PCMCIA replacement, Exprescard ones again use USB (they are a usb devic e with an exprescard interface) so these are not the same as hardware/PCMCIA ones!