Medion PNA 100

CC · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 31, 2004 Posts: 3

Went to Halfords to see Medion MDPPC250 and spotted Medion PNA 100 Pocket PC/GPS. Quasar959 provides more info on News and Latest Info. Review please.

philkime · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 11, 2005 Posts: 6

Just bought one from Halfords and tested it quite nicely by having to drive the next day from Zebrugge (car ferry) through Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland to Zurich, all at once.

The night before, I was researching GPS systems having never used one before. In the end, I narrowed it down to these:

Navman iCN650
Navman iCN510
Medion PNA 100

I needed full street-level Western European maps so the 650 was attractive but overpriced - seems to be mainly related to the fact that it has 2Gb of memory so it can fit all of the (included) EU maps in at once. Hardly worth the extra few hundred since the chances of needing them all loaded at once are fairly minimal but it does let you set destinations across maps (presumably), which is nice but hardly worth paying the extra for. So, I ruled that out.

The 510 is nice and self-contained but you have to pay an extra £150 for the full EU maps, plus a 512Mb SD card (about £50) to put the ones you need on. Also, the 510 isn't a pocket PC you can use for anything else so I decided against it.

The Medion PNA has everything though. It's not a powerful PDA per se but I really only wanted a GPS system and the rest is just bonus that I probably won't use much. The Medion system is great for these reasons:

* Full Tele Altas Western EU street level maps included (this is amazing in itself).
* Car mounting kit, bike mounting kit (with waterproof jacket)
* 12v cigarette lighter power supply
* Mains power supply with nice swappable pins for UK/EU outlets
* Carry case
* USB docking station
* Medion Navigator 4.3 software

I spent the night on the ferry to Zebrugge using Medion's nice MapExport software to chop down the Switzerland map so I could fit all of the EU maps I needed on one 512Mb SD card. Map exporting takes a couple of hours to run so it was useful to do it the night before.

The car mount is a suction pad which stuck to my side window like concrete and never moved at all, despite being clobbered several times when opening the door. No complaints there.

I first turned the GPS on on the deck of the ship and it found me straight away and showed my position in the North Sea, moving along a known marked shipping lane! That was reassuring somehow.
When I got in the car, I programmed in an address of a friend I was stopping to say hello to in Brussels, route calculation took a few seconds and the voice instructions started the second I left the ferry ramp. Got me there with no problems at all. The auto zoom was good, the 3D view amusing but not very useful. My car is loud and so I had to turn up the volume on the speaker so I could hear the voice instuctions which were well-timed and easy to follow. I was relieved to see that it understood that I was driving on the right and had its right and left lanes correct in the instructions.

The sun was bright and I had to turn the screen brightness all the way up because I had it positioned quite high, near the steering wheel top. Not a problem really.

The real fun started leaving Brussels with its nasty spaghetti junctions. No problems at all, after encountering lots of closed roads which it re-calculated easily and quickly. It would be nice if such software had an override that let you say "don't try to make me turn round and try again if I miss a turn" because most misses like this are because you can't get down a closed road, not because you actually missed a turn. The blocked road function on the software is off the screen and down another menu, which is impossible to get to in traffic.

When it got dark, I switched to night mode with darker colours, easier on the eyes. A nice touch. Because I was going across two map boundaries (Luxembourg into France and France into Switzerland), I had to set destinations at the border controls on the edge of the maps, navigate to them, cross the border and then switch maps. Very easy and the saved, hacked about Switzerland map I made with MapExport worked perfectly. It's so easy to do this, I wouldn't pay hundreds more for a system with all the maps already there, it just isn't worth it.

I got lost about 10:30pm in the middle of the French countryside when the road I was following stopped in a field because it was being repaired. I was made to go back around through a (lovely) villiage and try again, which I did, just because I thought I might have missed something. But no. So I turned off the route on purpose, away from the junction completely and it recalculated in a few seconds and found a way round and back onto the proper road in about fifteen minutes. This was marvellous - it would have been a nightmare with a paper map at this point.

All the way to Zurich without problems until I encountered a closed road which needed more recalculation. Trouble is in cities, the recalculation with all the one-way roads etc. takes just a fraction longer than it takes you to drive past the turning it has recalculated. This happened several times until I stopped and let it catch up, then, no problem and I found the route. This is a problem with all such systems though, nothing to do with the Medion Navigator software which I found to be pretty flawless overall.
With ETA, distance to arrival, time/distance to next manuever with graphics of next maneuver etc. the display is fine. You can switch from North at the top to direction of travel at the top, zoom in and out by hand or trust the autozoom to do what's appropriate (customisable anyway), show the streets and turnings for the whole route, take addresses out of your pocket PC outlook contacts (not that useful because of the idiosyncratic address formats of most navigation systems), choose destinations by address, pointing at the map, POI etc.

Best thing about the PNA 100 is that it has a built-in receiver, which works very well (about 9 satellites on average all the way across Europe), so you can go walking with it, cycle with it etc. (subject to battery limitations ...). A real step-up from the older Medion models with powered antennae which you therefore couldn't use anywhere except in the car. If you have a pocket PC GPS system, it has to have a built-in GPS receiver really. The Medion PNA 100 has a port for an external antenna for people with heated windscreen problems etc. It's a fairly basic Samsung 266Mhz PC with no wireless or bluetooth (has infrared though) but as a portable GPS system, it's hard to beat at the price. Full Western EU maps included is a huge bonus; well, it was for me seeing as that was specifically what I needed.

Completely delighted with it. Worked perfectly, pretty much out of the box (Navigator software comes on an included 256Mb MMC card as well as on CD). It saved me hours of messing about on unfamiliar roads. Highly recommended. Cost £350 from Halfords. You'll need a 512Mb SD card if you want to use a few of the EU maps though but since that's another £50 or so, that makes it about £150 cheaper than the Navman iCN510 after you've had to buy the EU maps and SD card, and with the PNA 100, you have a respectable pocket PC too.

staib · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 6:05 pm Post subject:

Hi - I'm new to GPS and have been hunting around here and on the web for more info on the current Medion GPS handhelds, and have just read what I consider to be an excellent review (thanks philkime Smile

)

Does anyone know what the extra £50 that Medion themselves charge over the Halfords item actually buys - I mean is it worth it? As far as I can see the only real difference is the newer (2003) MS software running on Medion's latest version (PDA with GPS Navigation Assistant MD95025).

Any input appreciated - thanks.

Nick

The current Medion item is here.

MusicMan01 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 22, 2005 Posts: 1

Hello PhilKime,

I just met a fellow at the Media Mart in Zürich Switzerland. He
recommended to me the Medion PNA 100. It is exactly what
I need.

I tried to buy at the Halfords but they only deliver inside the UK.

Do you have any pointers how to deliver by post of this excellent
product into Switzerland?

The web shopping page for medion germany doesn't even offer
the medion PNA 100. They only deliver to Germany and austria.

Kind regards,
Charles Cavanaugh
charles.cavanaugh@hispeed.ch

CC · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 31, 2004 Posts: 3

Hi PhilKime

Just read your reply and agree wholeheartedly with Nick. Your review was very interesting and informative and has certainly helped narrow down my choice for my first PDA.

Many thanks

Colin

philkime · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 11, 2005 Posts: 6

Mr MusicMan01 - it was me that you met in the Zürich Media-Markt ...
Small world.

scrumble · Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 7:32 pm Post subject:

Thanks for an excellent post. I had been floating between the Pna 100,Acer N35 and Mitac Mio, but the fact you've used it through France and Belgium clinches it.
Thumbs Up

Myron · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 23, 2005 Posts: 44

Good review and comment. Got a PNA100 and I'm delighted. Only thing I have noticed is that around town os where there are many turns close together it's better to slow down a little to give the Nav software time to re-calculate the route.

I tried it today and I got three annoucements back-to-back telling me to turn right in 100 yards, to be ready to turn right and to turn right as I was actually turning right.

Now. Got a question......

I got the Medion Navigator v4.4 software installed and the UK mapping.

If and when there is an update to the novigation software, what's the procedure to get the update? Would it be at some cost or a free update?

As to mapping. Same thing. From where and how can one obtain updated maps? Would it be at some cost or a free update?

Here is something I may have fell for if not. The sales person at Helfords where I purchased it mentioned that I do to the Medion web site, find the right page, enter the unit's serial number and I can get any updates. This `page` has eluded me.

DavidrC · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 3

Me too - (map upgrades, that is)
The PNA100 is excellent value, but as new roads etc are added, and errors are eliminated, how do we get to upgrade maps?

Also, is there a software upgrade route, when they produce an improved interface eg for 'blocked road ahead' ?

DavidrC · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 3

Me too - (map upgrades, that is)
The PNA100 is excellent value, but as new roads etc are added, and errors are eliminated, how do we get to upgrade maps?

Also, is there a software upgrade route, when they produce an improved interface eg for 'blocked road ahead' ?

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