06.25.07
Nokia 770 is the Woot! of the Day
Woot : Nokia 770 Internet Tablet
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If you’ve been waiting to get one… today’s your lucky day as Woot is offering a new 770 for only $129!
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06.01.07
GPS Road Testing - Nokia Navkit Head to Head with the N95 and TomTom 510
The only real way to gauge whether a GPS works well or not is to put it on the road and see how accurate and quick it is to assist. As readers here know I’ve received a Navicore Navigation kit for review and I’ve been putting it through the paces. This (30 min) video is a side by side road test of the Nokia N800 Navkit with the N95 and a TomTom 510 GPS.
The package includes a great windshield mount, the Nokia LD-3W GPS, a car charger, memory card and necessary software. You can see the unboxing here in case you missed it previously. In general, it’s a solid piece of kit, though there are a few issues I should bring up right away…
For starters, it’s seriously slow at doing lookups for where you might want to go. I don’t know whether this can be fixed in future updates, but for now it takes several minutes to find a place or address. This is something that is both frustrating and disappointing. When compared to stand alone GPS systems or the Nokia Maps application it seems as if something is wrong with your tablet. As you can see in the video above, my Tablet has a few issues with locations… the slow, locking issue and also a write error with the memory card - which does not prevent you from completing a task, but is disconcerting at best. I believe that my memory card issue occurred while I was trying to update the software via Parallels. I can’t seem to fix the error and have decided to simply leave it for now since I can still use the software effectively.
Less critical, but equally annoying there is no way to change the orientation of the map do that you are driving up. Instead North always finds its way back up which can make a quick scan of your surroundings tough at times.
Once up and running, the Navicore display is pretty solid. You can see (and read) the road you are on as well as the next turn. There are time and distance indicators to help predict your arrival or next move - pretty standard stuff and just good to see that it’s there. There are options for voices and language and accents if you like. I tend to lean towards british women on my GPS systems.
Compared to the N95 Nokia Maps option, I would lean towards the tablet (even with the mentioned issues) since you will be able to take advantage of the larger touch screen and with the full US loaded on the SD card, there’s no need to worry about being out of cellular coverage which will most definitely prevent the N95 from locking in on your position. No cellular = no downloading of the local map view when the GPS is acquiring a signal. As I’ve said in the video, I would probably still choose to use a standalone GPS for the car and not my Tablet. I found my TomTom to be easier to work with, much easier to read and it is considerably more adept and figuring out my path if I choose a known shortcut — which GPS systems never seem to offer.
PS - This is the longest video with the most editing I’ve done. If it’s too much, please let me know…
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