REVIEW COMMENTS: SmartST Pro vs Navigator

stburch

A very insitefull review as I have a 3420 navman I think your review is right-on. Your overall rating I would reverse the order because.

SmartST has less mistakes( like you said the 3 most important thing in buying a map is Map Company, Map Company, Map Company)

Less MAPPING mistakes Navman

Showing road names Navman

I would reverse the ratings

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Sterling T. Burch

Dave

It does depend on the features you consider most important. If routing between maps is essential then Navman SmartST Pro or CoPilot Live will be the best ones for you. CoPilot Live offers customisable Points Of Interest too.

Rattle

Hi there!

I'm new here, as planning on getting a GPS system and new trying to make up my mind what exactly to buy - not an easy one considering all the stuff lying around as configuration options seem almost infinite Smile

Anyway. My concern is the inter-map routing, as I'm currently located in Munich, Germany and travel a lot throughout Europe. I've heard that TomTom the Second doesn't allow routing across maps, which looks like a large downside to me. Now, what about Navman? Haven't noticed anything said about that.

Cheers,

Rattle

Dave

We have several things in the pipeline at present. The reason I say pipeline, is because they're not going to appear soon, but we are looking at both providing a complete review system where you can choose which features are important to you and see which application comes out best. Second of which we're looking to cross review all products in each category like Street Routing, Topographical etc, but this does take time.

afstcklnd

A re-release of this review was discussed at the end of last year but hasn't been forthcomming as yet - any news on this?

Have Navman sorted out the 'via' and 'manual-correction' issues?
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Regards

Andrew

adamsp

Hi - have an old Navman 3000 and want to upgrade the software to one of the big 2. Questions I have and would be most grateful if anyone knows....

1. The old Navman s/w came in 2 bits, routing and city maps. So you has to swap programs if you did a long journey arriving at a city (rubbish).

Do either of the new systems have this problem, or is the s/w all in one package?

2. Do either systems allow for postcode entry to find your destiniations?

Many thanks....

navtrav

Enjoyed the review. As a SmartST Pro user, my comments on it:

Flaw 1: The automatic re-routing only works successfully locally. UK example: London to Newcastle, it takes you M1, M18, A1. If you miss M18, it keeps trying to redirect you back to M18, even up to where the M1 joins the A1. If you followed the Navman at that point, it would be an extra 100 miles (50 back to M18, 50 back up the slow A1). This is because it does not recalculate on-the-fly the route to the final destination. There ought to be an option where after, say two miles off route, it recalculates the entire journey.

Flaw 2: The turn line at the top of the screen often gets the wrong road name. Example: A1(M) turning on to M66. It tells you the M66 is the M1. In fact, after leaving the motorway, it still thinks you are on the M1 (sometimes, the M6). The map shows the correct name.

Flaw 3: Minor really, but sometimes the voice tells you to leave a roundabout at, say the first exit and to join the motorway – when there isn’t a motorway for miles around.

Flaw 4: Sometimes the map background turns completely blue.

Flaw 5: The POI do not include the most essentail one - car parks

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Tim
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Samsung Galaxy S4, Galaxy Tablet S, TomTom. Osmand+ and Sygic. Ex-TomTom Go 1000 Live, ex-TomTom Go 700, ex-TomTom truck, ex Navman/Ipaq

Dave

You can run TomTom Navigator on the Navman 3000 sleeve. You can also run a second GPS receiver, eg the the Leadtek 9531 mouse which TomTom supply enabling you to use other products like TrafCam on the same Pocket PC.

entropycity

Thanks for the info Dave, it was most useful and yes, I will be pleased to see any additional pics you may post up here. Once again, thank you for the trouble you are taking.

I see from a discussion forum (Beginners GPS from RichDem 15 Dec last) that it appears to suggest that the Navman sleeve may be able to be used with the Tom Tom system? That is, to use the more convenient Navman case with its aerial rather than use the Tom Tom case and aerial? Would this be possible and if so, I suppose that both the Tom Tom and Navman systems would have to be purchased making the idea very much too expensive!

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Thanks,

Geoff

Dave

Thanks Geoff. The Navman sleeve would be easier if you're looking to go out walking with it. TBH, I don't find the excess cables on the Leadtek GPS receiver that TomTom supply a problem. I tend to put the receiver on the dashboard near the drivers side window (it has a suction cup to suction it to the windscreen to help it from slipping). Today I've just re-cabled my car, and I run the cable down the rubber seal down the door, along under the drivers seat, and I then have a 4-way accessory socket extension lead from Maplin that it plugs into under my seat, the end of the extension block cable then comes out the other side, around the moulded plastic and into the accessory socket.

The cables fold away neatly when not in the car, or not using the GPS system, the only thing you will have is one cable coming out of the bottom of the Pocket PC when it's on the dashboard, but I've wired this through the door seal too.

I'll take some photos of the new wiring over the next few days and post them up here so you can see. From a TTFF (start) point of view, the Leadtek receiver is much faster, but you are then tied to the car (although you can rig up various battery packs, but some aren't that mobile).

With a couple of items from Maplin you could make your own battery pack. Check out Peter's home-made battery pack.

entropycity

Thanks for your reply Dave which was most useful. Thanks also for spending the time at this holiday period: Happy New Year to you!

One final point is that the Nav sleeve has the in-built aerial/antenna whereas the Tom Tom seems to be shrouded in cables. Do you find this a problem? I had thought of using the system out walking through forested areas as well as in the car and thought the Nav would probably be easier to use in that situation. What do you think

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Thanks,

Geoff

Dave

Check out our Voice Navigation article as this will give you a couple of samples, these are the original WAV files and can be downloaded to your Pocket PC and heard through there. All we've done is strung a few together to make it sound like you're out on the road receiving the voice navigation.

TomTom Navigator has the loudest Voice Navigation out there, and really is of loud enough quality even with a car that has a tuned sports suspension and a lot of road noise.

There are still problems with both products, Navman is a real memory hog, has lots of minor routing issues, and doesn't let you do a complete zoom out of a map, where as TomTom has map inpurities, some locations aren't in the database, none of these sort of problems have been updated by TomTom or Navman.

My preference is TomTom, because I purchased this (and prior to Navman), I find TomTom more user friendly compared to SmartST Pro, although SmartST Pro's interface is slick, you're locked to the Navman sleeve.

entropycity

Hello Dave,

Thanks for your reply. The demo for the Tom Tom I have seen on line is the Tom Tom site http://www.palmtop.nl/ce/demo/ttnav_uk.html but this is heard through the PC speakers. What I would like is to heat it through the Compaq.

Is there any change in the preference for Tom Tom or Navman since your October report?
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Thanks,

Geoff

Dave

Getting a demo of the product is difficult. What I've been thinking about for a while now is to create an AVI file from the Pocket PC so you can see the product in motion. Unfortunately I haven't found any software yet to do this. It would need to be able to capture screen's, probably one or more a second, and also full audio coming out of the Pocket PC speaker. If anyone knows of software on the Pocket PC, please let me know as I'm more than willing to create visual demos of the products we review.

There are many companies, specifically GPS companies like GPS Warehouse who will do in showroom demo's providing you phone ahead of time and let them know that's what you'd like to see, but I'm not sure of any around the Leicester area.

Dave

Hi Ted, it's something I had thought about doing if I received the upgraded CD (which I have). We do have a lot of other software and hardware in the pipeline, the comparison is certainly one I'd like to cover, but I'm not sure if it will be immediate.

I guess it depends if we went for the approach of starting a fresh and did the reviews from the ground up, or whether we just compare the enhancements/fixes ?

My Navman suction cup has had it now, falls off 3 times a day, luckily these last few days I've received two more Arkon mounts so I now have 3 Arkon mounts in-car to play with, so doing a comparison shouldn't be too much of a problem for me now.

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