REVIEW COMMENTS: NAVMAN PIN 100

[Dave]

Earlier in the year we reviewed both the SmartST Pro V2 - Pocket PC and Navman's SmartST - Palm. Navman also announced the PiN 100 back in April 2004 but it took a little while to surface and for a review sample to arrive.

Tim Buxton (one of our moderators) has already written a review for the PiN 100 and here I will extend on his review with a full blown look at the PiN 100 and SmartST Pro V2. This review here will concentrate on both the PiN 100 and the SmartST Pro V2 software.

The full review is available here.

[pello]

I purchased my Navman PiN back at the beginning of July, it was an exchange for a faulty 5550 that was not much use for my purposes as a mainly GPS PPC. I was immediately impressed with all the points highlighted in in your review except for the Smart ST software which I have never been that impressed with. As a long term user of TomTom I had V3 on a 3950 & had a spare activation so I installed it on the PiN. This combination with a 512MB SD card is superb & after the recent upgrade giving almost instant address lookups in TomTom 3 I don't think things could get much better. I particularly like the convenience of arriving close to a customer site & being able to take the GPS with me to complete the journey on foot or alternative transport right to my destination. On a recent trip to Gibraltar, within ten minutes of getting off the plane I was finding my way around La Linea to the hotel I was booked into & on a recent trip to Detroit, with the addition of some industrial Velcro & Mapopolis I was, as a total stranger to the area, able to navigate my SUV directly from Detroit Metro to Madison Heights without a single wrong turn. You just can't beat this unit for portability! Battery life is excellent with careful use & the only negative point I can think of is the lack of accessories available in the UK i.e. leather flip-case & extension antenna etc. I have used the PiN for about 10,000 miles worth of UK business trips in the car without any problems & if anyone is looking for a truly versatile PPC/GPS I would have no hesitation in recommending this unit or one of it's derivatives.

Peter

[uffe73]

Great review. However, since I'm using SmartST V2 today and know how that works I would also be very interested in an in-depth review of the PIN 300 with SmartST V3 including the new features for POI handling etc. The beta unit of iCN 510 that was reviewed a couple of months ago was apparently missing some of these functions.

/Ulf

[sfi1]

Dave

In my opinion you’ve identified the major problem with smarst – the routing algorithm (in the way you describe). It doesn’t only happen on motorways though it also happens on main roads. What navman have never been able to explain is the vast difference between a pre-planned route (using smarst) and the roads it tries to take you down on the actual journey if you try and follow the pre-planned route exactly. I’ll be eagerly awaiting a review of v3 to see if this problem has been overcome – any news on that front ?

[Dave]

Guys, I can say that I have been testing an old iCN 630, new iCN 650, PiN 100 and iCN 510 all in-car at the same time. 8O

Obviously the iCN 630 and PiN 100 are using the V2 software and the iCN 510 and iCN 650 are using the new V3 software and the routing is much better.

I will hopefully have a PiN 300 arriving sometime very soon and I'll report back on this. A review is already complete for the iCN 650 (currently in editorial) and the PiN 300 review will commence this weekend all being good.

[uffe73]

Besides the routing algoritm I've noticed that SmartST V2 often gives me wrong information at roundabouts. This happens in roundabouts where the incoming and outgoing lanes for a road are separated - SmartST then tends to count both of these lanes as roundabout exits. Due to this I've learned to always have a quick look at the map before I enter a roundabout in to see which direction I will go.

I'm curious to see if issues like this one has been solved in SmartST V3.

/Ulf

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