On a recent trip to San Francisco (interviewing has enabled the hidden traveler in me!), we rented a car and requested the GPS option from National. I expected and nice, large screened unit, but what I received instead was a Nextel cell phone! A cell phone as a GPS device? Well, I had thought about this possibility ever since carriers began offering e911 services for locating users along with cell phones with Java run-time engines built in, but didn't know that this technology has already been married.
The Nextel GPS system required the user to call-in the address or location of interest to a centralized service, which then sent directions to the phone. The phone offered turn by turn navigation along with voice guidance which worked well, but lacked a map. National charged $10/day for the service. When I returned to Chicago, I looked into whether there was a similar service available on my Sanyo MM-7400. Lo and behold, there was Garmin Mobile, a $10/month service on Sprint that also requires you to have a compatible Vision web plan (an additional $10/month). I have used the service extensively for about a month, and here's what I have to say. First, the application is amazing. It displays real-time Navteq maps on the cell phone screen. I though initially that the screen would be too small, but it really works quite well. The menus are straight forward, enabling you to search from a reasonable database of POIs housed on a central server, search by addresses, or manage and add addresses from the internet on your computer. Once you select an address, the phone takes about 30 seconds to calculate a route, which is then displayed both in map format, or in an alternative turn-by-turn format on the screen. Voice navigation is good, and GPS reception is fair from the cell phone. The system will re-route you if you wander off course, and will also tell you which side of the street your destination is on once you arrive.
This is far from an ideal system, however. First, the system does not inform you of how far your saved destination is from your current location, unless the saved destination is categorized with at least one other destination in the Mobile Manager. The maps take some time to download from the servers and are constantly re-orienting on the screen, which is kind of a pain when you're catching only glances of the screen while driving. The map screen shows the direction of your travel, and the next turn along with approximate distance to the turn at the top of the screen. However, it won't tell you from this screen is the next turn is a left or a right, which kind of forces you to select a middle lane and be caught by surprise when the turn comes. On freeways, notifications for turns are given ¾ of a mile in advance, too close for NYC traffic. On other streets, notifications are ¼ of a mile in advance, far too close if you're on a busy street. If you go off course, re-routing takes 30 seconds, so by the time the re-routed directions are on display, you're further off course. GPS reception in the city is too easily lost amidst buildings and sometimes even with completely clear skies.
There is no doubt that there is utility to the system; for a casual GPS user in a new place, it works reasonably well. But for anything more robust, you really should look into one of the more full-featured portable units from Tom Tom, Garmin, or Magellan. But for emergency or ultraportable use, or just to impress your friends, there's nothing quite like Garmin Mobile. Rating: 3/5 stars.
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It Sounds Cool
Written by Guest on 2006-01-17 20:48:46
But iam still worried about the small cell phone screen it is not comparable to the big navigation screen in a car. |
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