Pocket PC GPS head to head

The Navman GPS 3400 and Travroute Copilot get put through their paces.

Price: £429

Manufacturer: Navman / Travroute

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Verdict

Although the interface of the Navman took a little getting to grips with, and re-routing didn't always pick the most logical route, it responds fast, and the inclusion of European maps is most welcome. But it's advisable to invest in a CF card so that you can store all the data you need.

The Copilot CF module is sluggish, but many may find that the voice instructions make up for this. It's easy to use and the diversion function is useful. But ultimately, for a system including only motorway-level mapping across Europe, Copilot's price is its biggest problem.

Nigel Whitfield, Personal Computer World 21 Jan 2003

Britain is a small place that is hard to get really lost in, but when you're driving in strange areas some help can still be useful.

Both the Navman GPS 3400 and Travroute's Copilot are software and hardware combinations for Pocket PC, offering global positioning system (GPS), route planning and voice guidance so that you don't have to look at the screen to see which way to turn next.

Navman's GPS 3400 is a jacket designed for the Ipaq series, while the Copilot unit we tested was a Compact Flash (CF) module, which means you'll also need a CF jacket for the Ipaq (though there's a dedicated jacket version which should be available by the time you read this).

The Navman was supplied with a CD containing a loader application allowing you to select which areas of the UK to download to your Ipaq. The South East alone takes up over 20MB, so you'd be best advised to buy a CF card to slot into the jacket's expansion port. European maps will be provided in the package when it ships too.

Installation of the Copilot was even easier, since it came with a 128MB Secure Digital (SD) card which could be used in place of the CD. Both packages come with power adaptors and mounts.

As with any GPS system, you'll have to wait for it to determine its location when you first switch it on; that can take a few minutes.

Planning a route is fairly straightforward on both; on the Navman SmartST software you need to find an address, show it on the map and then select it as your departure point, then find another address to navigate to. The software allows you to enter partial names and have them completed, which saves time, though you can't use postcodes.

Copilot does allow postcodes to be entered, and you can type both departure and destination into the same screen, and include waypoints too.

However, when we tried a journey from Winchester to London, via Alresford and Guildford, we found that after passing Alresford Copilot just sat trying to plan a new route. It took so long that we gave up and entered a simple start and end, so that we could get the voice directions back.

Both offer favourite and recent trips, and Copilot has a few other features; it can record a 'track', allowing you to see where a vehicle has been, and it has detour buttons that you can use either to highlight a road in a planned trip and tell the system you don't want to use it, or to tap when you're driving to help find a way out of traffic.

These systems will also recalculate the route on the fly if you deviate from the plan. We were slightly happier with the recalculations of the Copilot, while the Navman seemed to spend a little longer trying to persuade us to turn round and go back to the previous route. But both will certainly get you where you want to go.

While you're driving you really shouldn't be looking at the screen, so both systems provide a display that you can take in at a glance.

Copilot features text-only in driver's mode, except when you've slowed to a crawl or are approaching a junction, while Navman shows the text at the top of the screen, with a map that scales automatically according to your speed, though you can opt for text-only if you prefer.

The Navman GPS receiver is unquestionably more accurate; when you're on a roundabout, for example, it can tell you when you are approaching the right turn off.

Copilot is sluggish and sometimes still displays the instructions after you've gone past the roundabout; but its voice instructions do include street names and road numbers, which some may find more useful than a simple "take second exit".

We found the female voice of Navman easier to hear above engine noise. The forthcoming Copilot Ipaq jacket may address some of the accuracy and performance issues, too.

Out of the two packages, Navman feels as though it's more reliable to use, although it lacks the more detailed voice directions. The package price also includes European street-level mapping, which makes it better value, even allowing for the additional cost of a CF card to hold map data in the GPS jacket.

DETAILS
NAVMAN GPS 3400

Price: £380 (£323 ex VAT)

Contact: Navman
www.navman-mobile.com

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Ipaq Pocket PC

Pros:
Speedy and accurate GPS positioning
Automatic display scaling
Street-level mapping

Cons:
No road numbers on speech output
Extra memory card needed to store more map details

Score: ****

TRAVROUTE COPILOT

Price:£429 (£365 ex VAT); external antenna £34 (£29 ex VAT)

Contact: Teamwarrior 0870 420 2722
www.travroute.co.uk

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Pocket PC with CF card slot
Ipaq jacket version available for £449 (£382 ex VAT)

Pros:
Voice instructions include road names and numbers
Postcode search
SD card installation

Cons:
Sluggish performance at times
Ungainly appearance
Confused by multipoint routes

Score: ***

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