The Pulse is a bargain but...

[Guest martoto]

When I was considering to buy a new smartphone, the main propose is to use it as a sat nav in my car, because I really hate my garmin’s device. I was looking for Windows Mobile, because I had tested iGO before and I had amazed how good this navigation software is. However, I didn’t want to pay a fortune and I ran across the T-Mobile’s Pulse offer. And I was tempted, especially when I discovered that there already were a couple GPS applications for Android. I bought it for £137, and I still think this price is unbeatable. At the first days I was really happy, because the device has everything as a big capacitive screen, WiFi, 3G, Compass, dedicated hardware buttons, hot swap for memory card, big battery etc. Also it is true that Android is a nice user experience and all Google services work really well. There were a couple issues but I thought that for this price I could live with them, but...

Why the Pulse cannot replace the shitty garmin? Well, there are a couple issues concerning using Pulse in a car. The main problem is that I have tried four GPS applications and no one is usable in reality. NDrive lacks basic features; Sygic’s Mobile Maps has weird behaviour in terms of rendering map when the car moves, iGO MyWay is awfully laggy and is not as near feature rich as iGO for WM. I thought that CoPilot would do the job, because it has a lot of features, worked well on the move, and with a little hack I had managed to import speed camera database on it. However, the problem is that it was so buggy and the biggest issue was constantly freezing. When it stops working, I had to stop the car and restart it. And this repeated again and again in the whole journey. I have tried the CoPilot support but it is awful and more than a week I have not any answer to my ticket.

I also have struggled to find a good car holder. And on top of that there is an issue with charging in the car. When CoPilot is running, the power is not enough and the device is not charging. That means you have to charge it before you go anywhere, because there is a risk to remain without juice on the road. Put here the fact that charging time at home is more than 3 hours, and you’ll end up with a need a very careful planning when go out with the car.

Well, at least for me it is obvious that the Pulse cannot be used as Sat Nav replacement. Sadly I have to return again to my garmin, and there still remains wasted money on car holder and navigation software. In addition of this disappointment I can add the issues with call quality – very often the sound in the speaker is too loud to make a normal conversation and I cannot use the Pulse even as a phone. I really considering to get rid of it and return to WM + iGO :D

PS: I forgot one more issue: Sometimes the Pulse fails to connect to satellites. It is in random occasions and is really strange because in general it has a lock very quickly – for about 10-15 sec. I cannot explain why this happens, but one more reason why I cannot rely on it its GPS.

[Guest freexe]

Well using a really low powered phone as a sat nav was never a great idea, for less money you could have got a tomtom which work way better than the crappy garmin.

However, the new version of android is due out next month and could easily fix some of the stability issues you are having with the CoPilot so it might be worth holding out until then.

[Guest Daz555]

TomTom is not available yet on Android and until then I have to say that if you want Sat Nav, a dedicated TomTom device is still the way to go. TomTom was rock solid on my last two Nokias and you'd hope they would make just as good a job of getting it working on Android when they get round to it - issues with car chargers and the Pulse aside of course.

TomTom on Android: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/26360/tomt...ray-application

Edited February 22, 2010 by Daz555

[Guest JimNu]

I use CoPilot a lot on my Pulse and have not experienced any of these bugs. Certainly never had to restart it during a journey. Had a problem re-opening CoPilot if I got a call but I found an app to replace the camera button with CoPilot and CoPilot remembers where it was going so that's OK now. Have a very good holder from halfords (detailed in a post somewhere) and have a fairly standard usb charger which does what it needs to.

IMHO the Pulse is more than up to being an in-car sat nav.

[Guest]

You'd be hard pushed to find a device that is brilliant at everything - especially at £150.

[Guest Jan M]

I use CoPilot a lot on my Pulse and have not experienced any of these bugs. Certainly never had to restart it during a journey. Had a problem re-opening CoPilot if I got a call but I found an app to replace the camera button with CoPilot and CoPilot remembers where it was going so that's OK now. Have a very good holder from halfords (detailed in a post somewhere) and have a fairly standard usb charger which does what it needs to.

IMHO the Pulse is more than up to being an in-car sat nav.

agreed...and iGO for android is fresh off the burner so I expect it to get polished in the coming weeks/months

[Guest Bakes]

Martoto, have you tried any of the custom roms? They sometimes improve stability issues.

[Guest SoundSurfer]

There's also NDrive

[Guest michlaustn]

Where can I get the satnav software listed in this thread? I can only find ndrive and copilot live in the market place, the other two I can find no mention of. Thanks

[Guest Jan M]

Where can I get the satnav software listed in this thread? I can only find ndrive and copilot live in the market place, the other two I can find no mention of. Thanks

google is your friend :(

http://www.google.com/search?q="iGO+M...ndroid™"

[Guest bas-r]

Never had any problems with Copilot Live freezing. The phone and I went for some long journeys...

I'm running it on the 1.7 Vanilla Modaco rom.

[Guest Totyasrác]

I have purchased Sygic Mobile Maps about 2 days after receiveing my phone - has been working with factory ROM, before and after the "Dec. update", and also with MoDaCo Custom ROM 1.7 and 1.8 Beta. No issues at all, quick fix on sats, working properly. Also tested CoPilot for a couple of days with no problems.

Martoto, what version of the sw are you using? Sometimes a cracked verion may show these symptoms ...

On the car charger issue: I've purchased a 1000mAh car USB adaptor, and using a microUSB datacable with it - no problems with charging. I was warned however that not all of the microUSB cables will charge the phone - try another one (nokia ca-101 sure does the job)!

Edited February 23, 2010 by Totyasrác

[Guest Neron]

Got to agree with everyone Pulse plus Copilot is awesome had only one issue with Copilot which was when a call was coming in and having to switch back.

I love running CoPilot and Spotify together via the AUX in on my car stereo! :(

[Guest martoto]

Thank you for your opinions guys

I am using the Paul’s 1.7 custom ROM. I do not know why CoPilot freezes, it happens mainly on long journeys, it shows zoomed out map and stop responding. Only program restart helps and it is not safe to do it while I’m driving. Regarding the satellite lock issue, yesterday I experienced the same with google maps. However, after device restart, the lock occurred after 10 sec. This makes me to think I have a software rather hardware issue.

Concerning in-car charging, maybe I should try a 1000mA charger, but this is not the biggest issue here.

I cannot agree that I shouldn’t expect to use £140 device for sat navs. For example I’m not sure if the HD2 for £500 would be issues free regarding GPS hardware. There is not direct relation between the price and capability of doing a specific task. Actually, the main problem here is not the hardware as the lack of good GPS soft for Android. If once the Pulse managed to find satellites, it keeps position very accurate, without GPS lag and stable. So, I think for £140 I definitely have a capable hardware for GPS navigation.

[Guest michlaustn]

google is your friend :(

http://www.google.com/search?q="iGO+M...ndroid™"

I cannot find a link anywhere to actually buy it though

[Guest Misticdw]

Never had any problems with Copilot Live freezing. The phone and I went for some long journeys...

I'm running it on the 1.7 Vanilla Modaco rom.

Same here, Been using it for about 2 months now. I am actually surprised how well it works, considering how many other things go wrong with the Pulse

(1.7 Vanilla Modaco rom)

[Guest Jan M]

I cannot find a link anywhere to actually buy it though

don't think its available for purchase yet...but you can 'try' it

[Guest steelgrey75]

I have found copilot to be very good on the pulse myself, have used it a number of times and its never frozen on me once. However I prefer to use an actual PND for navigation as they do work better. My advice is to get a PND that has Windows CE OS built in, then download and install any satnav software you like onto it. The one I bought came installed with TurboDog (terrible software) but I have installed iGo, MioMap and Tom Tom onto it with no problems. In the end I opted for Tom Tom, but the PND only cost me £40 off ebay so it was cheap enough.