Practical comparison of portable navigation systems
On the one hand, navigation systems are still considered as a prosthesis for people who are too blind to read maps. On the other hand, almost everyone wants one now. Have they really become practical or will the purchase be followed by an exchange?? This depends a bit on the character of the driver and the device – in general, a navigation system increases road safety, but it can also sometimes lead to the opposite.
The best navigation system is an attentive passenger who not only looks up a map, but also pays attention to road signs and tells the driver how to drive. Unfortunately, these co-drivers are rare – women supposedly can’t read maps anyway and men are not much better in this discipline and rather tell the driver what a great blonde has just passed and only afterwards which exit has passed by in the meantime.
Mio Walker 269: Also shows the altitude above sea level
Above all, however, the driver is often alone in the car, especially in unfamiliar terrain, and can not pull over and stop every time to browse the map. If he tries to do this while driving, this is not explicitly forbidden so far, but it is much more dangerous than the rightly criticized handling of phones, cigarettes, PDAs or – yes – navigation systems while driving full speed.
On the other hand, if you stop every 20 kilometers to look up something in the road atlas, you won’t make any progress and may have already driven many kilometers uselessly after a wrong turn, but you thought you were on the right track the whole time beforehand. Here, a navigation system is clearly at an advantage: once programmed, it not only tells you how to exit, but also when you have missed the exit – for whatever reason – and automatically recalculates the route. Moreover, it usually does not need to be operated during the journey, unlike the road map. What can be quite inconvenient, however, is programming the device before driving off.
In principle, a navigation system works no differently than a passenger on a road map: it tries to find the shortest possible connection on the roughest possible fast roads. However, while the passenger is allowed to decide which of the available roads to choose by eye and experience, the navigation system uses mathematical guidelines. The result is not always optimal.
Even in the early evening it is difficult to see anything on the display of the Mio Walker 269
In practical tests, for example, the navigation systems typically send you along the Ammersee via several villages on the shortest way to the B2 when driving from Landsberg in Bavaria to Murnau, instead of choosing the officially signposted and much more pleasant way via Weilheim. Especially on short distances, navigation systems sometimes choose completely nonsensical driving variants, where you are sent from one place to the next via the highway, although a country road connects the two places directly.
Conversely, as a seemingly ingenious shortcut, you are sometimes sent on a path through the middle of a cornfield that is so narrow that two cars cannot pass each other, or through a previously tranquil little town. Not to mention the classic car ride, which was indicated by the navigation system as a bridge and led to the sinking of the car in the harbor, or the cab to the toilet. On the other hand, wrong directions in a traffic circle are still harmless and such errors are also shown by routing software without GPS connection.
Local knowledge is therefore better than any navigation system and if you only drive the same route to work or to the disco every day, of course you don’t need a navigation system. They are useful for frequent drivers who, for example, often have to drive to new, unfamiliar places as sales representatives, or for those who often travel at night and then find it more difficult to read the signs and road maps than they do during the day. With up-to-date maps they also help through the jungle of one-way streets in inner cities. It is important, however, to pay close attention to the zip code of the chosen destination – otherwise you could end up in the wrong place "Bremen", "Bad Soden" or "Landsberg", Hundreds of kilometers away, which would have caught the eye on a map.
In the past, the prices meant that only representatives bought such a device: a fixed installation of a navigation system typically costs 2000 euros extra to the already expensive new car, otherwise they are not available. If one wants to retrofit such a device as a fixed installation, often only devices in car radio format remain, for example from Blaupunkt, which then however block the car radio slot, but either offer no radio function at all or only a simple one.
The advantage of the fixed navigation system, however, is undoubtedly a coarse screen – the car radio bay models, however, lack this – and a coupling with the onboard electronics. The advantage of this is that the car radio speakers are used and the radio music is automatically faded out for the announcements, both of which significantly increase the intelligibility of the announcements. In addition, the speed signal from the speedometer can be evaluated: if the satellite reception of the navigation system fails, for example, because the driver is driving in a tunnel, the device can at least extrapolate the movement of the car. If there is an exit directly behind the tunnel or even in the tunnel itself, as for example in Munich on the Altstadtring, such a fixed device will notice the approach of the exit despite the loss of reception and at least warn the driver.
The portable navigation systems that are very popular today, on the other hand, offer a favorable price of between 200 and 500 euros and the possibility of using them in other people’s cars, on bicycles or on foot. However, if you are really thinking about using such a device regularly on a trip or on a bicycle, you should better choose a special model from an outdoor store. Normal models designed for use in cars can tell the driver where he is, but they can only navigate on the road and are quite useless on a bicycle path, in a pedestrian zone or even in a moving suburban train.
Pocket-Loox and Navigon Triceiver (on the right): Even with the Bluetooth module, two 12 V cables are still needed, which are plugged into the cigarette lighter with a T-connector. Not really inviting or safe cable tangle!
Even if you drive a company car, you can easily take your private device with you and install it. But there are other disadvantages. The speakers in portable devices are quite small and therefore sometimes just croak like a somewhat coarser cell phone. In a noisy car, you can’t hear them while driving at highway speed, and you can’t hear them when the radio is on.
If the reception is interrupted, for example when driving through house canyons or in the mentioned tunnel, the display stops and then jumps back to the current status when the reception returns. But then you have missed the right exit for a long time, especially since devices with older reception systems may need several minutes to find their satellites again after a reception failure. In modern devices with the so-called SiRF III chipset, this is much faster, but even here there are still a few seconds after the end of the tunnel "Blind flight" announced.
Another weak point is the sometimes disastrous ergonomics: in the case of the Mio device tested, it is so difficult to set the target that it can take as long as five to ten minutes to do this alone. If you are still at home in the living room, the device can not calculate the route until you leave the house and start receiving – if the chipset is slow, it may take a few minutes before you can finally start driving. If, on the other hand, you start driving before the device has even locked on to the satellites and determined your own location, it takes much longer for anything useful to be displayed, because the first location determination only works quickly when you are at rest. The problem of the display’s lack of anti-reflective coating, which is already known from modern notebooks, is just as annoying: If it can also function as a makeup mirror, it is hardly possible to recognize anything on the screen on bright days.
VHF antenna on the triceiver (Navigon GPS and TMC receiver) next to Pocket-Loox: One more wire!
The portable devices are available in two versions: as a PDA with additional navigation software and GPS receiver and as a ready-to-use device. The first one sounds more interesting if you want to buy a PDA anyway or if you already have one: then you only need to buy the navigation software and the GPS receiver. Sometimes there are such solutions also completely in the set, for example as a member offer of the ADAC or from PDA manufacturers.
However, the PDA as a navigation device has some disadvantages: the software from Navigon, which is mostly used for this purpose, is comparatively slow and complicated to start even in version 5, especially as far as destination input is concerned, PDAs are almost never anti-reflective, so that you can’t see much in brighter surroundings and, above all, they mostly show a picture in portrait format, while it would be more useful for navigation in landscape format. The same applies to the use of high-quality cell phones with navigation software, whereby here still in addition the display is very small and in the car little joy makes. In addition, even a short touch of the hardware while driving can result in a fine if caught, while a short tap on a navigation device to silence the announcement or change the lighting to night design is harmless.
In addition, the solution "PDA/mobile phone with accessories" involves a massive cable tangle: both GPS receiver and PDA have to be connected to each other (via cable or Bluetooth) and both have to be connected to the 12 V on-board power supply of the vehicle (in this case only via cable), since the built-in batteries in navigation mode sometimes only last for an hour, i.e. they are only sufficient for short trips in known territory, which is not exactly the strong point of navigation devices anyway.
Navigon triceiver with TMC-UKW-window antenna
If an additional TMC receiver for traffic information is added, the chaos is complete, although some GPS receivers have this function as well as an own battery and a Bluetooth connection (one cable less, but only as long as the battery lasts…) integrated. Such a solution with the Pocket Loox PDA from Fujitsu Siemens and GPS receiver, TMC receiver, Bluetooth interface and navigation software from Navigon turned out to be rather confusing even for technology freaks: in addition to all the cable mimicry, in this case an additional FM antenna has to be attached to the windshield in the car in order to be able to receive and decode the traffic information broadcast by the public traffic radio stations.
In addition, Navigon’s FM TMC receiver proved decidedly unresponsive in the test: it scanned across the entire FM band half the time in vain, failing to find a station good enough for it to receive. It is also questionable how great the benefit of TMC in the navigation system really is: it does save you from having to listen to the traffic radio, stop and manually set a route as a "locked" and it does not cost any connection fees in contrast to traffic information obtained via cell phone or even "online" navigation via cell phone.
However, the TMC information often comes very late and is not very detailed due to technical reasons. The successor system TPEG is supposed to improve this situation (TPEG: the more exact way to avoid traffic jams)?). The less common "TMC plus", on the other hand, is chargeable: here the traffic information comes from private stations instead of public stations and is supposed to be more timely. With the normal TMC receivers resp. of the associated software is TMC plus unfortunately not to receive and vice versa, so you have to decide which of the two systems you want before buying.
Somewhat low-contrast map display in Navigon 5
At least TMC can be useful in company cars, which for cost reasons do not have a car radio and are therefore regularly stuck in traffic jams: In contrast to a radio, TMC receivers do not have to pay broadcasting fees, and if the device is not permanently installed, but only occasionally mounted with a suction cup, it doesn’t have to pay twice.
In detail, the following were tested:
- Mio Walker 259 – a Belgian no-name solution based on a Windows CE PDA, but as a complete solution with Navigon-like software, which trades as "Mio Map"
- TomTom Go 500
- Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 420 with Navigon 5 software and GPS and TMC receiver "Triceiver" with Bluetooth and built-in second battery from Navigon
- Blaupunkt Lucca
The Mio Walker and the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket-Loox both use navigation software from Navigon – although this name does not officially appear on Mio, the similarity is very clear – which is considered to be quite good. In the practical test, however, it was found to be somewhat cumbersome, especially when entering destinations. The Mio Walker was very stubborn when a certain passage was not possible, for example, because a construction site was blocking it. Even if you have already driven 10 kilometers and hope that the navigation software will give you useful hints on how to continue on your way, in this case it will take you all the way back to exactly the one intersection whose passage is blocked. At least in the Mio version of the software it was not possible to program such blocked routes – and above all it is not possible while driving, so you hope that the software will accept that you don’t want to follow its instructions and calculate an alternative route.
This works better if, for example, the parallel country road is used instead of the highway: In this case, the navigation software usually notices that the user has chosen an alternative and, after a short period of consideration, continues navigation on this alternative. Only at the next intersection the system will try to send the driver back to the highway. If you already know your way around an area and therefore ignore the turn-by-turn instructions of the device, it can help you on alternative routes. There are, however, cheap devices whose software annoys you in such cases with constant "Your route is being recalculated" notices.
Also, the permissible maximum speeds are stored in all newer navigation systems, the warning limits are adjustable – good for forgetful drivers..
For a long time the market leaders were the devices from Tomtom. They were always designed as a stand-alone navigation system, although there are software versions for notebook, PDA and cell phone as well. For the most part, the "Tomtoms" are more suitable for use in cars than the PDA versions: the device is much thicker than a PDA, because it contains a more powerful speaker and therefore offers a much louder sound. However, the reception sensitivity of the device is not always convincing, and there are also shortcomings in navigation and ease of use, but overall you can not go wrong with a "Tomtom".
The more expensive Tomtom devices have maps of all of Europe on a hard drive and a Bluetooth interface, so they can also be used as a hands-free cell phone – quite acceptable with the decent speakerphone. However, the ability to play MP3s on the navigation system, as offered by Blaupunkt, is more of a gimmick than anything else – it’s not really an acoustic pleasure via the speakers, and the device is actually a bit too clunky for listening to music on the road with a headset.
However, you should always take your "Navi" with you when you leave the car, so that the windshield is not suddenly smashed and the device is not stolen when you return. And here is another shortcoming of the devices: their battery life is limited to one to three hours, as already mentioned, otherwise the familiar cable mess with plugs on the cigarette lighter and cables that wrap themselves around the gearshift after 100 kilometers at the latest, is required. In addition, the PDAs cannot simply be switched off and on again in the same place; they only go into standby mode without screen illumination, which nevertheless leads to a power failure after a few hours if the GPS antenna is activated. A device that suddenly starts chattering away in your jacket pocket ("You have reached your destination") can also be quite annoying during a rendezvous.
The Tomtom 500 shows the calculated route Munich-Hanover for the first time in the total Europe overview
Tomtoms can be switched off, although switching them on again takes a long time. The best device is the Blaupunkt Lucca, which actually has a blue dot on the front to turn it off. After switching on again, it takes about a minute until it is ready again, and the navigation has to be restarted, but this is far better than the behavior of the other devices, and also the reception starts again relatively quickly, once the device has completely restored itself. Also the input of the target is fastest with Blaupunkt, likewise the loudness is acceptable, although the device is relatively flat and thus also carry-friendly and the sensitivity is good, whereby Blaupunkt does not use SiRF-III, but as a radio specialist an own reception solution. The display is also anti-reflective.
Even though the "Lucca" is the first portable navigation device from Blaupunkt, you can still feel the manufacturer’s many years of experience with the far more expensive fixed installations and if you don’t buy the simple model for about 350 euros, but the "Plus" model for about 500 euros, which then also has a Europe and not just a Germany map built in, you get a clear added value here: a set of cables to connect the device to the car radio and a real, fixed mount, which does not only go by suction cup to the windshield and already at heavy braking (typical Tomtom problem) or at the latest in a traffic accident leads to the fact that the device flies around in the interior.
With the autoradio connection there is a multiple benefit: First of all, the device now gets its operating voltage via the wiring to the car radio, so you don’t have to worry about charging the battery anymore, and the tangle of cables around the gearshift and cigarette lighter is eliminated. Next, the announcements of the device are played over the car radio, which is of course much easier to understand than over the built-in speaker, especially since the radio program is faded out during the announcement. Thirdly, the speed signal coming from the speedometer, which automatically makes modern car radios a bit louder at higher speeds ("GALA"), can be evaluated by the Blaupunkt Lucca, so that even in the tunnel it still knows that the car is moving and insofar behaves with this installation kit just like a much more expensive fixed installation device. And finally also the TMC data are supplied by the car radio to the navigation system, if the car radio is switched on.
With the Blaupunkt Lucca, the 3D display of the route is also clear
The function of this cable is guaranteed only for Blaupunkt car radios, but the corresponding connectors are also available on many other car radios, only the TMC function is then omitted. Why no other manufacturer of navigation devices offers such a cable set is incomprehensible, since in this way the navigation device becomes really roadworthy and gives the impression of a provisional solution. After this connection to the car radio, the MP3 playback function of the "Lucca Plus" may make a little more sense, although most people would prefer a real MP3 player like an Ipod for this purpose. The only thing that Blaupunkt doesn’t have, although it would be very interesting if it could be connected to the car radio, is the Bluetooth hands-free function for the cell phone: if the cell phone could use the car radio speakers for hands-free talking, much better results could be expected than with the built-in speakers of a navigation device, and of course the problem of having to turn down the radio when an incoming call came in would be solved. But the Lucca is the first portable navigation device from Blaupunkt; maybe the next model will also have this function.
Of course, even with the best device, you must not forget that the map material ages and the device will therefore not know new roads after a few years or will sometimes send you over a bridge that has not existed for a long time. So you should check if there are map updates available for the planned device – and how much they cost. Alternatively, you can book services like Wayfinder Navigator: Here you can navigate for 99 euros a year on a central computer, which always has current maps and the latest traffic information, but without data flat rate for frequent drivers considerable cell phone charges and you are again dependent on cell phone or PDA. Other voices, from Boris Becker to religious, snappy to erotic, on the other hand, are not needed, but this too will surely be available soon in the Jamba Sparabo..