Review: Pocket Navigator 8 Europe

With more and more PDAs integrating GPS as standard the SatNav software industry is thriving at the moment, yet with each new release comes an extra incentive to tempt you away from the competition and Pocket Navigator 8 is no exception.

The software arrives on a lonely DVD, which not only provides a useful setup utility for stress free installation/updates, but it also contains an extra piece of software called Map Explorer. This is a PC based program that works with or without a GPS receiver to provide you with access to the supplied maps from the comfort of your chair. In use we found it easy to find places, plan routes and view tracks recorded using a NMEA file extension (a feature supported on the PDA software itself).

Unfortunately there is no export feature to transfer planned routes from the above to Pocket Navigator 8’s own route planner, however we were told of a manual workaround which does the trick, but it’s still not an elegant solution.

As for the PDA interface itself this provides several screens of large icons that for the most part function well enough, but we did find that Pocket Navigator 8 does have its own – long winded – way of doing things.

For example the route planner is a little disjointed, so unlike other software that allows you to pick addresses from the planner itself, with Pocket Navigator 8 you’ll need to head to the main menu, select from a previous/favourite or a new address and then set them as either destination, departure or waypoint before they are then added to the planner.

Likewise when adding favourites you will first need to go through a process of creating and selecting a group before they can be saved.  When searching for address’s the software will automatically narrow down the results as you type, however we did find this a touch laggy at times (depends on your device) and we also noticed that when searching for certain city/regions it could find them, but then we couldn’t enter a street/house number as it would skip straight to the ‘navigate to’ page.

To compensate you can search for destinations via the map, postcodes, POI, several GPS coordinate systems (e.g. GB National Grid) and import databases directly from xls, dbf, Access, ArcInfo, MapInfo files and ODBC sources.

Sadly browsing to destinations from your phones contacts is missing and a few of the included POI were slightly out of date, plus you can’t dial them either.

The software can support vehicle tracking (works alongside directions own VTU devices) and the onboard odometer can be utilised to monitor your mileage, however we found as soon as the latter picks up GPS activity it will start working, regardless if you’re driving or not.

During our road tests we found that the initial route calculations were relatively quick, but we can’t say the same for the re-route calculation performance, which did seem to take a while to kick in once we had gone off our chosen route.   Voice directions are best described as direct, for example it will state “roundabout take 3rd exit” instead of ‘at the roundabout take the 3rd exit’.

They also appear too frequently for our liking (especially on straight roads) and when mixed in with the space invader style camera alerts, can get quite annoying.

As for the main map display this provides a choice of 2D/3D views, a handily placed front mounted volume control and good use of transparency effects, with a large directional icon to the side clearly indicating your turn, real-signpost information, adjustable motorway signs, landmarks (select cities) lane guidance and a scattering of POI symbols.

However even with the transparency effects in place the portrait display can get a little cramped, plus on rare occasion some of the text at the base of the screen can get cut off and real-signpost text a little squashed.

Running the software in VGA or landscape mode produced no issues, but switching to landscape is not possible from the software itself.  Finally you do have TMC if your receiver is compatible and the supplied safety camera database was accurate, with all the cameras detected on-route and the annual subscription being respectably priced at roughly £9.

Pocket Navigator 8, along with its Map Explorer software, still has its merits, however the two programs could work more seamlessly together and it does need an injection to boost its performance.

Price (as reviewed): £69.99 – upgrade £45
Web: directions.ltd.uk
Map coverage: Europe

Verdict: 6

Popularity: 1% [?]