CoPilot 6 Review

[Skippy]

[neil01]

The PPC version only has a tick box for 'Display POIs' in Options | Map

[PONDEROUS]

CP 6 has the POI on/off options described by Skippy for CP 5 Smartphone.
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Dell Axims X50v & X30 (both WM 2003 2nd Edition). Copilot BTGPS3 and Fortuna Clip-on BT receivers. Jabra BT 250 audio headsets. Welltech 40032/AF32 BT handsfree audio. Copilot 6.0.4.110. TomTom Navigator 5.21. MS Autoroute/Pocket Streets 2005

[ahenry]

I just got back from a trip to Northern France. I've got the UK-only maps with CoPilot 6, but it also includes the A16 autoroute from the channel tunnel in Calais for about 30-40 miles. After that, you get the location pointer with the trail, so I then dug out my old PocketPC.

I hadn't noticed the height measurement before. The absolute value for the height seemed to be a bit out, but it did really well at picking the highest points at the brow of a hill.

I had a traffic warning on the way back about the hard shoulder being out of action for road works. Accurate, but not serious.

The route that it suggested was fine. One problem is that when I get to my home town, it tries to take me around the bypass and then through a narrow wiggly road with a 20mph limit. It would be good if it had a penalty for the number of junctions and wiggles in the route selection, rather than just basing it on the length of road and its classification.

[iankb]

Since you do have to pay to go on a ferry, they might classify ferries as toll roads. I certainly know of at least one case (the Cowes, Isle of Wight chain ferry) where you have a choice of either paying for the short cross-river ferry, or driving ten miles round.
_________________
Ian

iPaq 2210
Globalsat BT-338
Seidio G2500 Amplified Vent Mount
CoPilot 6, GPS Tuner 4.2, Navio 3.01
BMW 330ci Sport

[PONDEROUS]

Although he did not say so, I believe that iankb was responding to my post concerning the routing effect of changing the Toll Road settings when he wrote:

[pdriver]

neil01 & PONDEROUS

Thanks for the advice, really helpful.

Paul

[neil01]

My pleasure

[BigH]

Well here is my initial view on CP6 - I was one of the lucky ones who got a free copy at the GPS event in Basingstoke. :D

Having used CP5 for some time I had high hopes of CP6.

I am running it on a IPAQ 4700, Holux GPSlim and 512MB hi-speed SD card.

Installation - on the PC (laptop) no problems, however when I tried to create a data download and send it via ActiveSync 3.8 that old chessnut of not seeing the full capacity of my 512 MB SD card reared its head and would not let me download to an empty card (reported only 72MB available and required 100+MB). I formatted the card and tried again - no go, same problem. At this point I was forced to install on my desktop (has multi format card reader) and then download directly to the card - this worked without a hitch. Installed the SD card in the 4700 and the installation kicked of automatically and proceeded without problems. Started CP6 and then went through activation without a problem. Once started I then configured GPS, this went without a hitch, it saw the Holux over bluetooth and linked up no problem.
All was well at this point.

I now spent sometime setting up profiles - nice to see road preferences and speed adjustments at last, together with multiple profiles which can be selected during route planning if desired.

I next checked the GPS status, this is when I saw the first real bug, the satellite view was clearly corrupt - see pic below

[img]
[img]

As you can see the satellite signal is out of line with its coresponding number. When you scroll down it gets worse (see second pic). Also note that it can't count either - its says six sats when there are eight!!

Whilst this is not a show stopper and does not effect navigation I did notice a system freeze when trying to exit this screen on several occasions lasting several seconds.

Support for portrait mode and VGA screens is not satisfactory, clearly optimised for portrait mode with the basic screen arrangement remaining the same whatever mode you select. See pics below.



I was able to switch between aspect ratios without stopping CP6 without any apparent effect.

I was hoping for better use of VGA and portrait mode quite frankly.

Visually the displays are slightly improved over CP5 but I had hoped for a slicker implemenation - still no scales shown on the maps which I think is a major ommission and long overdue. Visually maps are unchanged which is a pity. The feature of centring the display using the stylus with zoom has disappeared. I also don't like the fat finger typing screen used to input text, it is not querty in format and consequently is slow to use, an option to use the stanadrd typing screen would have been nice.

I tried the 7 digit post code and it appeared to work OK, however this was not an exhaustive test.

Routing was reasonably quick and gave acceptable results. I tried a short test route and ignored routing on six consecutive occasions and the system quicly suggested an alternative and kept going. A similar test on CP5 normally caused a freeze. Time will tell on longer more complex routes in the future.

Voice guidance (TTS) was the same as CP5 as far as I could tell - ie a Dalek on steriods. The annoucements were timely and audible so no problems apart from the quality.

I did notice the odd road missing from the maps, one cu de sac 100m from my home was missing, previously shown in CP5 - what is going on!! I wonder what else is missing from the maps.

To summarise - some useful new functions but alarmingly new bugs have appeared. I only hope that performance and stability is better.

I'll be interested to see the official pocket GPS review sometime soon - I believe that hold up is that ALK have yet to provide a review copy (as of yesterday at least) to Pocket GPS so don't hold your breath folks.

Regards BigH

[BMWBiker]

I have just returned from a 2500 mile motorcycle ride on major highways in eastern USA (Philadelphia to Miami), using newly installed CP6.

As I have said before, in spite of the annoyances with some features I find that CP always gets me correctly to my destination, with very reasonable time estimates at least for the major roads. My amazement and delight in this technology still hasn't worn off.

Briefly, I am pleased with new changes:
-Fat finger buttons. I can use all of them wearing gloves!
-Menu layout is more functional, especially while driving.
-Routing profiles, but haven't made real use of this yet, just a couple of quick tests. I don't see my hoped-for option of expressing a preference for small country roads (BTW, the roads I look for have no inhabitants). The smallest road class is called "local streets", I hope this can be understood to be rural and not necessarily urban.
-Shortest route: there seems to be improvement. At least CP6 will select the very nice and small Route 402 for a route going north out of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where CP5 seemed to avoid it unless I put a waypoint at each end of the desired stretch.

Not improved:
-Selecting destination from Contacts: still often fails to match (user must edit address), and produces an off-road straight line route in the final leg.
-In planning mode, I am still frustrated in trying to produce a very simple straight and short route through the countryside. Some roads are straight, short and reasonable while others are not. When I try Avoid Roads feature to remove the unwanted roads, the route just gets more complicated. And the displayed route gets out of sync with the Itinerary list. Admittedly, I was trying this in Planning Mode (and why shouldn't it work?)
-the distance scale (was last in CP4.5) is missing from the maps. I don't find the "mileage marker" feature (only seen in 3-D display during Guidance) a good substitute.
-POI database: I have always been disappointed with the paucity of gas stations, and the plethora of apartment buildings and cemeteries.

New bugs:
-Double-tap on the PPC map no longer makes that point the center of the display, when Box-Zoom map mode is chosen. This makes review of the length of a trip on the PPC very difficult, and you really have to choose "Drag-Map" mode instead of Box-Zoom now.

-On desktop, selecting from the Contact list by partial name matching no longer works (acknowledged bug).
-On PPC, choosing Avoid Roads feature (in Itineraray Display, and while in Planning Mode), while using a personal routing profile, resulted repeatably in a shutdown and soft reset of the PPC. True, the Help explains that Avoid Road is only to be used in Guidance Mode, but this behavior is bad.
_________________
Doug
CoPilot 6.0.1.24 (USA)
Compaq iPaq 3970, with PC2003
Navman sleeve (3400)
Blue Tooth GPS

[peterweg]

Thanks BMWBiker. As a biker myself I need a route planner to select 'Bike roads' as opposed to car roads. Scenic not motorways. Aside from the fat finger buttons, CP6 doesn't seem to have much improvement for bikers, unless I need to find a cemetery.

[sirhardi]

Found a nother shortcoming.
Went to a client today, had to do it on the flyt due to cell only instructions, couldnt write it down.
Found that after selecting city, than street, the names went as far as the letter "N", no way to scroll further, i had to type the avenida out than start with letter "R" to get the street displayed....
What a waste of brainwreckage that was.I donot understand why CPL6 cannot guess that it is included in a street name rather than the First name.
Determining new route takes wayyyyyyyyy to long for my taste.
And oh yes, i can also confirm, that the 1GB SD card was also not downloadable to again !!

[BMWBiker]

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