What am I going to choose?

bimmerpc · 01-20-2007, 07:17 AM

I have all hardware that I need for my car pc. I have a garmin portable gps with updated maps for late 2006. I really want gps in my car and when I switch to car pc with touchscreen in dash I would like to have resonably updated maps. Many skins I really like are optimized for iguidance or Destinator with freedrive. Someone said these two are several years old and new versions doesnt have sdk´s available. So If I value Gps highly, what car pc front end would be best and what navigation interface is updated and usable today with pc?

Thanks

Ruffy · 01-20-2007, 10:35 AM

Destinator is old and unsupported by the original company. the sdk is available and you have to mod it to make it usable.

Iguidance on the other hand is new, gets updated yearly, has patches, and is freaking great. I've tried every map program out there. It's practically made to be used in a carpc setup.

bimmerpc · 01-20-2007, 01:49 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Ruffy

Destinator is old and unsupported by the original company. the sdk is available and you have to mod it to make it usable.

Iguidance on the other hand is new, gets updated yearly, has patches, and is freaking great. I've tried every map program out there. It's practically made to be used in a carpc setup.

Thanks for the short answer. I was expecting the "don´t ask and go search the threads" answer..

Well I´ll go and find out what skin to use and what interface program I should use to make it usable with touchscreens in a skin.

So these route66, copilot etcetera does a less better job?

Ruffy · 01-20-2007, 02:41 PM

Didnt like route66, or destinator

Route 66 is for smart phones. Great for phones, but i would prefer a real touchscreen based system for a car.

Destinator is personally ugly and cumbersome. the maps look terrible to me. Without modding it with mapmonkey? or freedrive its practically unusable.

Streets and Trips and map point is OK, i like it's map and some of its usage, I like that it updates construction information. But its not touchscreen friendly, it's not really a program designed for giving directions with gps, it was designed first and foremost as a charting program. You sit down, you plot your drive and then get the directions. Road Runner Skins make it more touch friendly but compared to iguidance its still lacking in that.

CoPilot I really liked, I havent used it in the car since I only played with it at a friend house. It's alittle expensive ($150) but I liked the interface and map look. I'd have to try it out in my car to see if its really worth a damn. Screenshots of it here
http://www.alk.com/copilot/laptop_screenshots.asp
I do plan on testing it in my car sometime soon. Shame not more people do. The latest version seemed great. The previous ones I havent played with much as copilot always seemed like a handheld palm/pocketpc type of program.

Iguidance is current king here, and for good reason. Version 3 brought about a fantastic display mode for carpc/umpcs which works really well on a small screen. The menus are easy to navigate and control. It supports auto route and voice control, the voice it includes is actually really nice. With each release it seems more and more as if it will become the defacto gps program for carpcs. There is no SDK available. But people have modified iGuidance just fine by using reshacker.

turbocad6 · 01-20-2007, 03:48 PM

I'll second IGuidance as being tops on the carpc... copilot is decent to, but not as much front end support, & not quite as nice as iguidance...

if you really truely value your navigation & really do want the best, then integrate the new alpine voicenav into your install... this is really the best & everything else isn't even in the same league... it is totally sick, it uses an rsic computer for noise rejection & understands over 300 voice commands, you can enter addresses by speaking the street name & number, & it actually works almost flawless... the maps & data & the interface is probably the best currently available, including anything out there... this system is almost the same as acuras voice navigation, cause alpine built that too

drawbacks are it's around $1,200 online... it puts out a vga which is easy enough to work with a carpc, the problem really is that alpines unit is made to work with alpines touchscreen, & the touchscreen won't work on a pc display... the voice control & the great remote control they include almost make this still worthwhile....

it is 10 times better but costs 10 times as much....

it may be a bit extreme, but just throwing this out there incase your really looking for the best...

bimmerpc · 01-21-2007, 06:13 AM

I value gps but not that high. My garmin did cost about 800$ but it is ready to use out of the box (3 years old so it´s way cheaper today) since I was going to get touchscreen on dash I want to sell this one to earn at least some dollars back from this pc project that will eat alot of dollars in the end. I have just tried using destinator when I had my laptop in the passenger seat and It worked really nice with freedrive (apart from the ugly maps). The optimal solution I would like is where I can use a skin page for gps, that can be made out of the original front end skin I am using for the other things like radio etc. When using freedrive with destinator I have to have a separate skin (that is a part of freedrive) for navigation and a separate for the others..