Navman GPS500
I bought this item to be an In-Car satellite Navigation System on the cheap. In particular some of my journeys to relatives require quite complex routes across multiple A and B roads. I had a vision that I could plot an ideal route off line and then be able to follow it on the road without having to consult a map whilst driving. This proved not to be possible because you have to accept the computed routes on the basis of a choice of Quickest or Shortest journey time. This may not necessarily coincide with one’s own opinion of the best route. However I am still pleased overall with the purchase so read on to find out more! The Navman comes bundled with two pieces of software: SmartPath Trip and SmartPath City. SmartPath Trip is designed for guidance between towns in the UK; Smart Path City is designed for street by street guidance within more defined areas
SP Trip
Initially this was a disappointing package, as it has some bugs. The most inconvenient of these is that you can create your own favourite locations (places you travel from/to regularly); however these are lost every time you exit the application! Also you cannot save a planned route to recall at a later time.
Similar problems exist with other options that the software fails to save on exit:
1)If you want distance shown in miles rather than kilometres
2)If you want your GPS location to follow the route
3)The choice of whether you want to display your GPS location
4)What type of Palm you are using
5)Planned routes are not saved after exiting the application
However, after using the product for some time I have a more positive view. In particular:
1)The number of towns and villages contained in the data is exceptional.
2)It is very easy to use and quick in response times.
3)You can use the software to get you within 10-15 miles of your destination and then swap to SP City to get you to your precise location.
SP City
This is a much more impressive application, suffering none of the frustrations of the SP Trip software. If you are visiting a precise address then you can plan the route in advance, from your point of arrival on the local map to your final destination. When restarting the application the route you have planned will still be displayed. This makes it practical to use SP Trip until you are within 10-15 miles of your destination and then swap to SP City to get you to your precise destination.
SP City has detailed maps for the whole of the UK and the accuracy and detail is most impressive. SP Village would be a more appropriate name as it contains details for nearly all the villages I have searched for. The maps themselves are about 20 miles square, but can in some instances be larger than this: The Greater London Map is about 26m x 23m and the London Area Map contains the whole of the M25 and is around 36m x 32m.
Route Instructions
The turn by turn instructions at the bottom of the display are generally too small to read whilst driving. It is therefore necessary to interpret the turn instructions from the highlighted (in blue) route on the map itself. As the map always maintains the orientation of North being upwards you have to be comfortable understanding whether you have to turn left or right depending upon your direction of movement across the map. (ie: You have to be able to map read easily)
This occasionally can have its limitations. The map continually pans to reflect your current position. However this could mean that your next turn is just off the currently displayed map view. Thus you will be right on top of the junction before the map updates and you can see the next turn. This has led me to overshoot required turns on occasion. There is a distance countdown on the bottom left of the screen, but as stated earlier it is quite distracting to read this whilst driving.
The Hardware
At first I found establishing the GPS signal to be difficult. However once this was found I have subsequently had no difficulties and the unit has always re-established position lock very quickly after switching back on. It is useful to download the GPSINFO application from the Navman support site to troubleshoot this process.
Battery consumption is high (about 1.5 hrs with GPS device connected), but the device does come with a 12V in car power lead to overcome this issue.
The suction mount is superb and very stable. I have had no problems whatsoever, even in a car with very “sporting” suspension.
One reviewer complained about needing memory expansion. I bought a 64Mb SD Digital Card for the maps and this is highly recommended; maybe even a 128Mb card depending upon the amount of maps you would like to keep on the Palm. It is NOT necessary to store the applications and the map data on the card, as you can use a utility called MS Mount to load the maps successfully on the card whilst the application is in the Palm main memory.
Other Points
I will be looking at other software options in the near future. In particular there is one application which allows you to plan your route from town to town offline on a PC and then download a fully detailed map for the whole journey.
