Well my turn to give my first impressions.
After reading the
previous posts,
I somehow got a bit of a mixed feeling out of them, probably even slightly
negative overall. So I guess I'll kick in by saying I personally am very
impressed by the program overall after a few hours of use. It seems a lot of
thought has gone into it and it definitely breaks new ground. Is it
perfect...probably not, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.
-
Navigation Info:
I'm partial to this but AT LAST a program that lets you display a flurry
of navigation info. Time, Speed, DTN, DTG, ETA, Heading, etc...Depending
on the navigation screen you're on you can display 1 or 2 of any selection
of these simultaneously. To select, just tap the description of what it is
and it will cycle the info. Again this is the first navigation program
that has such a rich and customizable navigation info. Big PLUS !
TomTom Navigator (Europe Only) offers quite a lot of navigation
information too, but is is much less customizable.
-
User Experience:
Overall very pleasant interface, you can drag the maps, tap and hold to
select, there's a convenient green arrow you can tap to go back to the
current position after you've scrolled the map. Scrolling is fast. I'd say
this part is on a par with Mapopolis, the current best in this category.
One thing that's nice too is that you can do a lot without using the
stylus, by using the navigation pad or tapping on the screen with your
finger. You still need a stylus to type in addresses obviously.
-
Routing
While routing appears to be on a par with other top contenders like CoPilot or
Destinator on my test routes, it seems that freeways or motorways could be
privileged a bit more often. I'll update this as my testing continues.
Also, one shouldn't expect routes to be
always perfect (see here for the reasons
why). A big plus is the routing from "anywhere to anywhere" as long as the
map is on a memory card see S.5. and W.2. for more details.
-
Map Data
Navman have chosen to use NavTech maps and that's certainly a good thing
for accuracy as these are considered to be the best maps around. You can
read more about maps here. As a reminder most
in-car navigation systems use NavTech maps while on the PocketPC platform,
only Destinator and Mapopolis use them too. It will be interesting to see
how the European maps of SmartST Pro compare to the TeleAtlas maps of
TomTom Navigator that have
come under some fire
for inaccuracies recently.
-
Map Management
Navman have certainly broken new ground here as there is
none of the "loaded map" concept that limits Destinator to
"in-map" door-to-door routing and forces other solutions to load "county
maps" in RAM.
I think they've done the best they could in view of NavTech policies
regarding the maps they provide. The absence of a highway map should not
be problematic under most circumstances.
-
POI's (Point of Interest):
Very good POI database and very flexible searching, you can specify a
category/subcategory/area or just get the whole list and type in a partial
name and it will pull up a list of matching results very promptly.
-
Compatibility with other receivers:
Update - Navman have confirmed that the current bundled
version of SmartST Pro will only work with Navman GPS Sleeve receivers.
It also looks like the software only version will not be compatible with
other GPS receivers. Now's the time to let them know whether you want that feature to be
added to the software only version!
Not a con if you already have a Navman sleeve or intended to by one, but
it *seems* that you will not be able to use other GPS receivers in spite
of what we were all thinking for some reason. Maybe because they've
announced a software only version. I've sent an email to Navman to confirm
this, but it's not looking very promising. Although it cycles through the
COM ports it does not recognize other GPS receivers set to
NMEA/57,600bps. Hopefully I'm overlooking something or maybe the
software only version will have other settings...but, no go for now and
honestly if I were in Navman's (a hardware company at heart) shoes, I
wouldn't be too anxious to make my software (especially if it's breaking
new ground) compatible with other receivers. It's a business call, but
if the assessment is that PPC Navigation is an untapped market as of
yet, it makes sense.
-
Design choices:
This is a tricky question, how do you cater to all potential buyers, the
"fiddlers" (who like a challenge and have enough experience to
know what to look for and fine tune to our liking) and the "newcomer" who's
maybe never owned a PPC and who's looking to get a good and easy
navigation program. Let's face it, if you want your business to be viable,
you can't ignore the second category...Nevertheless, I feel they've
achieved good balance in this respect. Here's an example, the level of
detail of the maps is tied to zoom level, while that seemed necessary for
programs like Destinator that have a rather slow display, after using
CoPilot and mainly Mapopolis that let you select the level of detail
independently from the zoom level, it would have been nice to have it in
SmartST too since the maps are displayed and scroll fast. There are other
similar examples and overall I'd say they've achieved good balance and
haven't found any "auto" setting that gets in the way like CoPilot's
Driver/Passenger screen toggle.
Actually some more testing shows that losing all road details at the 3
mile zoom level and above can be confusing if you're planning at a long
trip to see what it looks like.
-
GPS Sleeve:
The
thread
has a lot of horror stories concerning TTFF. In normal conditions (i.e.
in your car), TTFF was quite reasonable at about 1+ minute
from a cold start (initiated in CE Monitor) and 10 seconds from a hot
start. True, reception indoors is not as good as the BT GPS...but is that
a deal breaker?...Unlike the BT GPS you can't toss it in your glove box
and connect to it wirelessly, so
in my book that's fine. As pointed out by our kind host Dale, it works
better when held vertical than horizontal. Again not a problem when in a
car.
Note to the "testers", while CE Monitor is useful to set the GPS
"state", Cold/Warm/Hot, I've found that for some reason the fix comes
MUCH quicker in SmartST than in CE Monitor.
- Map transfer.
Need an ActiveSynch session to transfer maps. Please give the option to
save maps to a memory card via a USB reader or to a folder on your desktop.
This can only be inconvenient, but also very slow. See tip 3. below to
improve speed of transfer.
- Map Management and Memory Use:
More something you need to be aware of than a serious weakness,
but in the absence of a USA Highway Map this could be a problem for
some. While map management is very well implemented in that
you're not actually restricted to one area as in Destinator, I've found
that - as is to be expected - there is still some map data being loaded
in RAM when the program is launched. The amount of data loaded depends
on the number of maps you've transferred to the CF memory card...It
doesn't take long to figure that while the size of a CF card can be
increased, it's not the case for your PocketPC's RAM. I've used various
configurations to estimate the amount of data loaded to RAM based on the
maps present on the CF card.
 |
My current estimations are as follows:
| Memory used by main
program (no maps on CF) |
8.6 mb |
|
Memory used when loading maps: |
between 6% and 8% of
total size of maps on CF card |
|
| As an example, loading
maps 11, 12, 24, 22, 23 that represent a total size of 147.8mb
will require:
8.6+8%(actual observed)x147.8=20.4mb of available RAM |
|
I've also noticed that running the program (calculating
routes, scrolling maps, searching for addresses) can add about 4mb to
RAM use. |
| As a result of this the "hidden downside" compared with Destinator
is that you'll need several CF cards with areas that don't max out
your RAM. On Destinator you can put the whole US on one CF card if you
want t and then open each map one by one, including the USA/Canada
Highway map. |
Again, just something to be aware of
when you plan a trip. What this does mean though is that
you probably can't plan a cross-country trip unless you upgrade your RAM.
POI's
- No phone information for POI's.
- Previous POI searches don't get stored in the history for easy access
in the future. In response to this comment, Navman said they felt that the
POI menu in itself represented a shortcut and I must say I was starting to
think along the same lines when I was using it yesterday. Besides you can
save a POI as a Favorite if you need direct access to it in the future; you
will have to edit the name though as it doesn't get stored automatically.
Routing
- Can't save routes, but if you use the "favorites" or
"quicknav" option you can quickly calculate a route to that place.
- No intermediate waypoints to build a route
GUI quirks
-
As pointed out in the thread, when
you start the program it defaults to a blank "waiting for GPS screen".
While this does serve it's purpose, it can be confusing if you want to
start planning your route or you're playing with the unit indoors. Hit
the left "arrow" of the joypad and it lets you in.
- As mentioned previously you have to hit the US flag
in the "destination" menus AND type something if not the pull-down list
will stay blank
- I noticed that if you are zoomed out to 3 miles or more, no route
can be calculated and the program will show the same satellite icon as
when there is no fix. This can be a problem if you're
trying to navigate to a POI like an airport or a national park that
show at such a high zoom level.
 | Screenshots -
Click
Here
Courtesy of
skrotz,
PocketPCPassion forum member
|
| Tips
- "Hit the Left arrow when you start"
As pointed out above, when
you start the program it defaults to a blank "waiting for GPS screen".
While this does serve it's purpose, it can be confusing if you want to
start planning your route or you're playing with the unit indoors. Hit
the left "arrow" of the joypad and it lets you in. This will
also let you monitor the progress of the GPS position acquisition
process.
- "Zoom in to less than the 3 mile level to
calculate a route"
As pointed out above, if you are zoomed out to 3 miles or more, no route
can be calculated and the program will show the same satellite icon as
when there is no GPS fix.
- "Install Maps over an 802.11b ActiveSynch
session"
Since there are currently no other options than using ActiveSynch to
install maps, using an 802.11b connection will speed up transfers
significantly over USB for which reported speeds have been around
80KBytes/s while I'm getting speeds of over 210KBytes/s over 802.11b
which makes for fast transfers. To make that work with my iPaq I use the
MemPlug dual CF sleeve and a Semsons CF to PCMCIA adapter with a Lucent
Silver 802.11b card.
- "Folder renaming for long trips"
If you find yourself going on a long trip for which you can't load
all the maps at once (see W.2.), one option is to use several memory
cards, or to create maps that will fit in RAM on your PPC and
then rename the "SmartST Pro" directory to say "SmartST Pro 2", that way
it won't get loaded in RAM when the program is launched.
|
| Conclusion:
|
| Want another opinion?
| Pocketnow.com
review of the US version |
| PocketGPS UK
review of
the UK version |
|
 Still
have questions, go
here
|
