Telmap / Carphone warehouse Navigator - a few comments

[subwoofer]

I have recently got hold of a Blackberry curve 8310 which came loaded with the Carphone Warehouse Navigator (or Telmap Navigator), so I though I would share a few of my experiences so far, as there has not been much talk of this.

It is of no use at all unless you are on a data package; the maps are downloaded every time you use it. As my device is being used with a Blackberry Enterprise server it is on a data package so is usable.

It is far less flexible than a dedicated sat nav and is really address driven. You seem to have to specify an actual property even if you only want to go to a road.

If it thinks you are not on a road (such as being in a car park) it doesn't show your location and the direction you will need to go. Instead you get a big arrow saying go to road. When you get to the road, you will have to either turn left or right, but won't know which way you should turn until after you have. It then takes a little while to wake up to you being on the road before it comes to life (possibly tell you to turn around if you went the wrong way).

A useful feature is the fact it receives traffic information autmatically and adjusts the route accordingly.

This has resulted in some cheeky suggestions, as its route recalculation has suggested coming off at a motorway junction and coming back on again immediately to jump the queue. I assume this is because it finds the motorway average speed has fallen below the slip road speed so it suggests the little diversion.

On the blackberry, there is a security timeout you can only set to a maximum of one hour. After this time, it locks the device and turns off the display. Voice commands still continue, but I want to be able to check the map, especially at complex junctions. This to me is a major issue.

Other than that it has worked well, and in combination with tomtom running on a pda, has given me a well rounded source of information.

I would not rely solely on it, unless I found myself without any other option.

[bertmaster]

If it has anything to do with carphone wharehouse it will be rubbish, steer clear of it.

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