Home   Features   Tour Samples   Equipment   The Process   Contact Us   Associates Section		Pocket Tours Equipment   Industry Standard Equipment     When it comes to devices for self-guided tours, many tour development companies provide custom-made, proprietary equipment. The result is that you are locked-in to purchasing new and replacement devices from that supplier. If the company discontinues the equipment, you could be faced with the need for expensive upgrades. Even worse, if the company goes out of business, you could be stuck with a large inventory of devices that are virtually worthless! Pocket Tours uses only industry standard electronics. Pocket Tours are developed for Pocket PCs, running Windows Mobile®. Pocket Tours can acquire the equipment for you, or can advise you on the purchase or lease of suitable devices from the supplier of your choice.   A Superior User Experience     One of the great benefits of using Pocket PCs with a touch-screen is the user interface. Audio tour devices require your visitors to use a fixed set of buttons to navigate through the tour. With an audio tour, many visitors, especially those who do not have a great deal of experience with electronics, may need to read instuctions or seek help from your staff. With a Pocket Tour, buttons, volume controls, menus, and any other tour controls are simply graphics on the screen. This means that they can be virtually any size, shape, or color. The tour controls can have text printed on or beside them to indicate their function in plain English (or Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Arabic, Swahili, etc.). Your Pocket Tour can also include an ever-present "Help" button which displays printed help or assistance in the form of audio and video. The main menu for your tour can also include a segment that explains the use of the device through spoken words and on-screen graphics.     Quick and Easy Deployment     It's quick and easy to provide Pocket Tour devices to your visitors. The following steps explain the procedure:     Step Click any of the images on this page to view a larger version 1. Remove from charging stand Simply lift the device out of its charging stand. 2. Slide device into the foam-lined carrying case. The Pocket Tours case makes it convenient for the visitor to carry and use the device. The case also helps to protect the device and covers the buttons to ensure that the touch-screen is the only control that the visitor can access. 3. Close case Close the Pocket Tours case using the Velrco® strap. 4. Plug in headphones The devices use a standard headphone jack, allowing you to utilize virtually any off-the-shelf headphones or earpieces. Pocket Tours recommends lightweight headphones with enclosed "cans" (ear pieces) for tours of cities or potentially noisy environments. 5. Ready to go! Press the power switch and hand the device to the visitor. The visitor can now enjoy a fascinating, entertaining, self-guided tour.     All of the preceding steps can be completed in under ten seconds!     Switching Tours     If your organization requires a variety of self-guided tours, or you want to offer the same PDA tour in various languages, it's easy to switch the tour in the device. Each tour is stored on a standard SD (secure digital) memory card. To change the tour, just remove the memory card from the top of the device, insert a card containing the other tour, and restart the device. It's easy to remove one tour... ...and insert a different one Alternatively, Pocket Tours can provide larger capacity memory cards and have various PDA tours on the same card. When the device is started, a tour selection menu can be displayed and a member of your staff can select the applicable self-guided tour for the visitor.       Recharging     Battery life and recharge times will vary by manufacturer. As an example, the Dell devices shown on this page come with a standard or extended-life battery. The standard battery will last for about three and a half hours of continuous use and will fully recharge (from empty) in about an hour. The extended life battery can be used for almost seven hours and will recharge in about two hours. Pocket Tours recommends the purchase of two batteries per device and charging stands with an extra battery slot. This way, the second battery will recharge while the device is being used. When visitors have completed their self-guided tours, you can swap the battery. This way, each device can be in constant use during your hours of operation. A device and an extra battery in a charging stand
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