Review: Sygic McGuider Europe

McGuider is the latest software from Sygic and TeleAlas, and its purpose is to transform most Windows Mobile (reviewed here) or Symbian S60 devices into a navigational tool. Its name springs up images of Eighties TV show MacGyver, and the software would’ve sat proudly beside his trusty Swiss Army knife

The first thing you notice about the software is the price. At £60 you get a 4GB card with maps of Europe and plenty of space left over for storing your own content. It’s good value. Installation is beyond simple, and after running through a basic setup wizard the software will automatically detect your GPS receiver and you’re left to browse through the colourful interface. The latter provides a series of large, logically laid out icons that are easy to press with your finger, and more importantly we could grasp their core functionality within moments.

There was an occasional bit of lag with the above on our older P3600 device, but generally the interface performed well because the program doesn’t appear to take up a huge amount of system memory. Currently (with this release) you can’t navigate to destinations via your Outlook contacts, but you can still navigate via POI, postcode/address, GPS coordinates or from the map itself (save as Favourites).

Most destinations are entered via the standard qwerty keyboard, but to speed things up the software applies some Route 66-style ‘fuzzy logic’, which means you can search for destinations using parts of a word and results are automatically narrowed down to their closest matches. Best of all, you can even save your own custom POI and set alarms to go off when approaching them. Any POI you save will also appear on the map with a small icon of your choosing.

Route planning seems to be well catered for too, with a handy multi-stop itinerary option that allowed us to add a fair number of destinations (at least ten before we gave up), though the more routes you add the longer it takes to calculate.
Heading back into the main menu once a route has been plotted will also highlight the route icon.  This option provides plenty of ways to view your chosen route, including a simulator which – like the TomTom series – can be altered to run at different speeds.

During driving, initial routes were calculated in a respectable time and you have several route profiles to choose from, including a Pedestrian and Cycling mode. Re-route calculations could be a bit quicker, and if we were being picky, routes could be calculated more efficiently. That said, our position was tracked accurately and performance is generally down to the hardware/spec of your device, anyway.

Both the 2D/3D views automatically switch to Day/Night mode when required, and they were easy to follow on our test device’s 2.8” screen (in either Portrait or Landscape mode). Each view has additional driving aids in the form of street names, speed warnings (map dependent), lane guidance and transparent real signpost information relating to junctions (such as motorways). There was also the option to quickly view nearby POI.

Voice directions lacked text-to-speech support, but they did at least pronounce major ‘A’ roads such as the A5127, and the quality was loud and clear. TMC support is sadly lacking, but you do get a series of extra utilities on board, including a world clock, country-specific info, unit converter and a calculator. Better still, McGuider even comes equipped with a safety camera database as standard. Most cameras were tracked accurately, with plenty of customisable alarms and a nice little countdown marker symbol appearing on-screen to alert you to their presence. However, a couple of cameras were missing from our established test routes, but updates will be available via the website by the time you read this – or you can add any missing camera as a custom POI.

McGuider will be a fairly new name to most people, but it’s extremely well presented and has a lot of quality touches for the £60 asking price (slightly cheaper if you do some searching). Even MacGyver himself would be proud to take this software on his travels.

Operating system: Windows Mobile, Symbian
Map coverage: Europe
Price: £59.99
Web: www.mcguider.com

Verdict: 8

Review originally published in Smartphone & PDA Essentials magazine. Words by Brett James.

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