Satnav for c500

[Guest captain_newbie]

I have been thinking about getting a portable satnav system for my car, and read the, you know who 66, has it. I'm wondering if anyone knows if there is software for the c500 and does it work?

I haven't as yet seen anything listed, although I might have missed it.

c500, great phone.

Cheers out there.

Captain_newbie

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

I have both the Orange solution (not available yet) and Mapopolis (available now).

Both work pretty well, i'm using them with a Belkin (rebranded Fortuna) GPS ;-)

P

[Guest captain_newbie]

Thanks Paul

I will check it out. Interesting to know orange will be into satnav, I look forward to seeing it.

cheers

stanley

[Guest ddmf]

i was quite interested in orange's version, but when i went into the shop the woman's eyes glazed over for a second, then diverted me to the orange brochure!

as a funny note, i went into another shop asking about orange gps and they proceeded to tell me about the card available for my pc - i just nodded trying my best not to correct him (3g ain't gps!)

anyway, i've just got my fortuna clip-on, and with mapopolis it's grrreat, tells me how to get home from the pub! (40 yards ahead stagger to your left...)

:)

[Guest captain_newbie]

Thanks for the info, i will have a look @ mapopolis.

cheers

CN

[Guest zeflar]

Ive got a USB GPS reciever - would i be able to use that with mapopolis ?. - Do they do trial limited software

[Guest ddmf]

as long as your phone sees the gpsthen it should. Mapopolis gives you a 10 day free trial of the maps!

[Guest Djarid]

Paul,

Are you allowed to release any details on the Orange solution?

How does it compare to Mapopolis.

BTW Tomtom now have a smartphone solution out as well.

[Guest the_ugly_north]

So do co-pilot http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=115191

The Tomtom doesn't yet work on the C500

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

YEt being the main word, they are woring on a slution as we speak so hopefully it will not be long before the fix is released :)

Watch this space.

[Guest fozzie]

"]Both work pretty well, i'm using them with a Belkin (rebranded Fortuna) GPS ;-)

P

Is £115 a good price for one of those Paul?

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Very good price as I can get them for about £140 +postage

[Guest fozzie]

I saw it here for £115 incl. VAT & postage:

http://www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk/...?product_id=595

Grrrrrr, so do I go for this plus the Mapopolis software or this plus the CoPilot software (£240) or wait for TomTom Mobile (£184) to be updated for the C500? :)

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Wait for TTMobile hopefully it should not be long.

[Guest the_ugly_north]

Apparently the screen shots are better on the co-pilot and easier to read on the smaller smartphone screen than the Tomtoms........

[Guest rikwebb]

Having used CoPilot on the PPC, I am waiting for CoPilot Smartphone.

The PPC version is the best nav software I have used - in my opinion, better that Tom Tom.

Its gonna be £150 for the software only, as I have the Parrot CK3300 car kit with built in Bluetooth GPS, thats all I will need.

Mappopolis is a little wierd - it asked my to turn round while on the M6TOLL the other day, yet it knew the road. There are some quirks with it, but then again, it is still beta.

Hope this helps

Rik

[Guest fozzie]

Ta. Out of interest, what gives CoPilot the edge over TomTom's? Is there anything that TomTom does better than CoPilot?

BTW, CoPilot for SmartPhone can be found here for £135 incl. VAT & delivery. (Not yet in stock though.)

[Guest ajhard]

I have downloaded the Mapopolis demo maps for my C500 but can't get it to take any info from my Bluetooth GPS - any tips as to where i may be going wrong??

[Guest rikwebb]

Ta.  Out of interest, what gives CoPilot the edge over TomTom's? Is there anything that TomTom does better than CoPilot?

BTW, CoPilot for SmartPhone can be found here for £135 incl. VAT & delivery. (Not yet in stock though.)

Well its hard to say, Copilot just seems to be smoother and more refined. For me its easier to use, and has been better thought out.

BTW - Copilot was chosen by Compaq (then HP) for its sat nav system (rebadged).

Rik

[Guest rikwebb]

I have downloaded the Mapopolis demo maps for my C500 but can't get it to take any info from my Bluetooth GPS - any tips as to where i may be going wrong??

You will have to set the com ports of the C500 (com6, com7). Have a look at the mapopolis post in the forum, its quite long, but will explain all.

Rik

[Guest phil-t]

I've been very fortunate to get co-pilot smartphone from ALK on review.. they sent the software on 128Mb kingmax SD card, and emtac based GPS with co-pilot logo..

The brief conclusion for me is, 7/10, needs a little extra polish to make it great..

Specific areas of complaint are

1. The menu's are mapopolis style, i.e. just small font text.., I was hoping for something similar to TOMTOM's icon implementation, thus easy to see/use if the phone is at arms length on the dash.

2. Its confusing to use, you have 4 modes, Guidance, Navigation, Walking and Planning, which seem to offer the same features as far as useage is concerned, I still like the simplicity of TOMTOM/Mapopolis, in either having a navigation(guidance) mode and a map mode..

3. Address entry is not as good as it should be, postcode support is the same as TOMTOM, i.e. next to useless. And like mapopolis, if you select a house number first, then type the street name in, if that street does not contain house numbers in their maps, it doesn't show the street as an option to choose from..

4. The 3D view IMO is useless, it renders an image, then your GPS marker moves up the screen ontop of this, then when this reaches about halfway up, it redraws the next 3D image, and the GPS position is now at the bottom of the screen again.. TOMTOM's realtime 3D is IMO much better, to the point of being useful (Lets hope this is carried over to the smartphone, and so far from screen shots it appears to be)

5. When you are viewing in 3D map view on co-pilot, the directions are small, and not as clear as they should be, the main annoyance is the lack of roundabout symbols, showing which exit you need to take.. it just shows straight ahead/left/right arrows at roundabout.. yet the safety view has all this.. Also, there seems no automatic switching of safety mode like TOMTOM, you have to choose which mode to use and stick with it unless you want to fiddle with the phone on the move. I think the co-pilot safety screen and TOMTOM's are very similar, but from screenshots, the directions in 3D map mode look better in TOMTOM.

6. Things like adding favourites is awkward, automatically, any address entered is added to the favourites list, which is a pain for me, I like to have fixed favourites such as friends/family etc so if I finish a job early, I can nav to a nearby friend to pop in and see them.. but I have to keep reorganising the favourites list in co-pilot to remove all the unwanted entries. And setting your Home, Work addresses is just silly.. you need to add them as an imaginary 'stop' on a trip, then goto favourtites, and then select the address, then "menu->Set as Home", then ensure you select this address after this, then it becomes your home address..

7. Their is no map mode.. i.e. if you know roughly the destination by looking at a map, or having used autoroute to get the exact position from the postcode, you can't move around the map, and set a place as a destination.. it's just informational only.. bizarre.

8. The voice instructions are strange.. some people claim they are good, but then I suspect they ahven't used tomom.. Its all "in three tengths of a mile".. eh?? 3/10ths of a mile?? accurate maybe, but not as user friendly as "in 100 metres" or "300 yards".. Plus, I miss the "At the end of the road turn right".. all you get with co-pilot is "in 3/10 of a mille turn right".. this caught me out a few times, as once it was at the end of the road it was referring to, the next time, it was the road immediately before the T Juntion.. I had TOMTOM (PocketPC) running alongside, and although at times co-pilots instructions seemed slightly better, the majority of the time TOMTOM was far easy to understand, like when I had to turn right, but there where 2 right turns on top of each other, co-pilot just said turn right, I had to quickyl guess from the map which one I needed, TOMTOM said "Take the 2nd turning on the right".. and showed this much better on the 3D map..

9. THe GPS status part of co-pilot is also a little lacking. There is no easy GPS status overview, the only way of knowing the GPS is communicating is a to check the UTC field and make sure the time code is incrementing.. even mapopolis I think had a better implementation.. The BT GPS co-pilot sent just wouldn't work for me, it would pair with the phone, but not communicate to the software.. and it took 2 hours of fiddling before I realised.. My fortuna worked straight away..

10. Maps - I'm afraid, these are just like all the rest.. 99% OK, but still plenty of problems if you look.. The M6 Toll road is there, but then TOMTOM smartphone will have this, as its maps are upto date. My estate is fairly new (3 years), and both mapopolis and co-pilot have the same errors where they show the interconnecting roads as being seperate, when they are indeed all joined.. TOMTOM is actually correct in this one instance, all though its 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.. so I wouldn't make a decision solely based on map support..

OK.. this is a little critical.. and some of these issues may be being worked on.. The software, once setup did navigate, and was fast at routing/re-routing.. better then mapopolis, but to me, and the other 5 people who are trialling it, they all agree its nowhere near TOMTOM's ease of use.. if only TOMTOM would sort out all their niggles, and we could review TOMTOM smartphone on the C500, I give give a fairer comparison.. but judging by screenshots of TOMTOM smartphone running alongside TOMTOM PocketPC< they look identical in 3D mode, and the menu's are nice large icons, so I assume the ease of use of TOMTOM will be retained..

If you have any specific questions on co-pilot, since I have it installed, I can let you know..

[Guest the_ugly_north]

Thanks for the review very nice.

As you have said, is it really far to compare co-pilot for smartphone against TomTom Pocket PC? :wink:

You also haven't mentioned co-pilots traffic information over GPRS....

What we really need is a co-pilot /TomTom smartphone comparison. PocketGPS has one.

I suppose it is difficult when coming from a pocket pc (for either app) to smartphone. There has to be some comprimise; it really depends on what application compromises which features.

[Guest phil-t]

You are right its not technically accurate to compare co-pilot smartphone and TOMTOM pocketPC.. Although, looking on PocketGPS screen shots, with TOMTOM PocketPC, Smartphone and GO all side by side, its easy to see that at least the 3D view is the same on TOMTOM smartphone, and in the TOMTOM press release, the ICON menu system seems to be there..

Its not just about comparing PocketPC to smartphone, its about a just looking at co-pilot smartphone as a sat-nav package..

PocketGPS have not reviewed co-pilot or TOMTOM on smartphone, so any comparisons will not yield much, as its all theoretical on paper.. I am sure reviews will follow, but the ZDNet review of co-pilot was bizzarre, having been using it for a few days, I question if they actually used it at all, and if they've actually used any other sat-nav solution..

As for the Traffic via GPRS.. unfortunately this doesn't seem to work properly on co-pilot as yet.. I can send my position live to the servers, and people can track me fine, and send me messages, although I question its use, as I have been using TOMTOM's version of it, and have had traffic master in the car for a while, and tbh they never seem to spot problems until after they occur, the amount of times I've hit the tail of an accident, and then been warned about it makes me laugh.. I will get the GPRS traffic updates working, and see if they really are better then the rest.. so far I haven't hit any major accidents, and nothing was reported about peak rush hour congestion, it routed me right through the middle of Cheltenham at 5:00 on a friday...

The real difference in co-pilot is the ability to broadcast your position to their servers, which may be fine if you run a taxi company, etc, but the cost of this over gprs will add up, and for a normal business traveller/private user, its just a gimmick, first and foremost, I want a nav package that works well, is easy to use, and fits into my way of working..

I await TOMTOM smartphones review, I am trying to get a copy, since we have a large amount of employees that are being given sat nav, and being able to have this on a phone is so cost effective, we just need to find the right one that makes life easier..

[Guest fozzie]

Nice review and good to read your opinions on which things you think are good/bad. Thanks :)

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

the TOMTOM press release, the ICON menu system seems to be there..

It is

I await TOMTOM smartphones review,

Have a look in the News section for my TomTom Mobile review,

any questions just ask :)