Vittel

Just tested this software from Essex to Cornwall (With Haicom 203e USB unit, with XP Pro) - using "fastest" mode for crossing country it routed quite well on the way there - bizarrely, on the return leg it decided it wanted to send me all the way up to Birmingham and then back down - I think it weighted Motorways too highly and so ignored the A roads (A30/A303 to be precise) - I tried fettling with the slider settings (Prefer/Dislike to put some 'weight' on A roads but it didn't really work particularly well) - with all sliders in neutral position I'd have expected it to navigate along the obvious A roads rather than going 100 miles out of the way just so it can use a Motorway (Even the estimated times of both routes showed that the A roads would be far quicker - strange glitch in the algorithm no doubt) - naturally I ignored it and used the A roads, it was quick to recalculate a new route and did so adequately.
Whilst in Cornwall it was invaluable for navigating around, using "Shortest" mode I was able to get to locations by diving down small local country lanes that I would never have tried using before with a conventional map (Indeed some of them were not even marked on my paper map!), so in-town navigation was very good and saved me a good few hours hunting for places!
Overall I'd say it didn't "know" about 4 junctions that had been newly constructed - the display showed me crossing fields that were now slip roads, so the map information is probably about 6 months old.
Refresh was a good once-per-second which is more than adequate, voice guidance worked very well, giving plenty of warning about upcoming junctions etc (Although the "Continue straight ahead in xx Metres" was a little overused, not sure why it said that so often, it's not as though I was going to take a random turning!) Small local roads were not really catered for verbally, it did not tell you to take turnings etc and you have to watch the screen to see what roads need to be taken - quite an oddity.
Map rotation (For driving direction) was good for close zoom views, very easy to visualise what junctions etc to take (The required road flashes) - for an overview, North rotation was best to give best indication of where you are.
A feature I would have liked would have been an auto-zoom of sorts, so you can set the zoom levels for different speeds - e.g. zoom right in close for sub 10 mph speeds a bit further out for sub 20, further out at sub 50 etc etc - would be a very useful feature. (I found I was zooming in and out a bit manually)

For the price I am very impressed, I got the USB GPS unit and the software for £98 all in (Covering GB & Ireland) - software alone is only £30.

Digressing slightly, I have read that PowerLoc Destinator does not cover all of UK in one map, therefore making it impossible to navigate from one end of the Country to the other, this sounds like a severe limitation for Software of that price, I can understand this limitation on a PDA device, but rather than doing a straight port and enforcing all the PDA limitations on the PC version, they should have at least tweaked things like that to make use of the PCs capacity etc! Anyone confirm if this is the case? Infomap is too fussy for 7" touch screen and I want Destinators GUI (Plus I've use the SDK to make a spangly integration with my MP3) but I don't want that crappy map limitation!

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blicky_1

I purchased the InfoMap Navigator and USB GPS last week for £110 from Action Replay. After a weeks trial I am very happy with the results in the UK. I live on a brand new estate and although it did not find my road on the maps it was in the postcodes and got me to within 50m of the destination.

I have been all over the place this week and given it a good test, it has made my life easier and safer getting me to destinations without the hassle of stopping to ask directions and getting out maps!

Now all i have to do is to get it off the laptop and into my carputer (under construction, awaiting 7" touchscreen) with all the other gadgets.

http://www.action-replay.co.uk/Mobil...s/NavGBUSB.htm

Steve

Ricky327

Ive posted about the infomap navigator in here a few months ago. I got it for £30 or so for UK map.

I just found it so buggy, most of the time the software is confused. One of the funniest thing was when I was driving on a oneway street and it say something like "you may be going in the wrong directions...please turn back". I used it once and must have binned it straight after

Having tested Route 66 Pro 2003, Autoroute 2003, Mappoint 2004, Alturion 5 Pro PC and PDA, Destinator 2 PDA, Infomap navigator and some oher freeware stuff.

..Ill say I still rate Tomtom 2 , shame its only for PDA though.

Yup look like Destinator directly came from PDA converted for PC use. I dont have the laptop version to try out so I cant say much. It is a shame destinator dont use the full potential of the PC.

Alturion 5 use alot of power, nice 3D graphics, lots of POI. Its nice to see pizza hut logo on the map if you feeling hungry or see a petrol station logo floating around on the 3D map..speed cam even, very handy

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