Navman N40i

Natty satnav

By equipping its "N" range of satnavs with digital cameras, Navman reckons it's revolutionised in-car navigation. T3's Hannah Bouckley put on her string-backed gloves and hit the road to find out the truth of the matter.

Revving up
Plotting a journey from Somerset to Bristol was a cinch. Route calculation was speedy, and instructions clear, while yellow icons and vocal warnings warned of impending "safety"-camera unpleasantness. Maximum speed alerts can be set up to a licence-squandering 120 mph, ironically.

Navpix
A trip from London to Bournemouth was a good opportunity to try out the camera. Hit the camera button and the screen switches to lens view, hit it again and it takes a picture. Snaps are stored as thumbnails, along with co-ordinates, street names and postcodes. I took a snap of Bournemouth Pier, then went back the next day by finding the picture and hitting "Go." Unfortunately, with no adjustable settings, pictures taken under the murk of England's winter skies looked dark and out-of-focus.

On foot
The 4.5-hour battery life means you can take the N40i out of your car without fear of it dying prematurely, but the lack of a pedestrian mode leads to detours if you're navigating one-way streets and the like. A search for a cash machine near T3's palatial offices took us on a ten-minute trip around the block before we finally reached our location - just across the road...

Mapping
Navman's SmartST application transfers European maps from CD to the internal memory or SD card. The 256MB of Flash memory is hefty enough to hold the UK, northern France and the major European road networks. Bag yourself a spacious 1GB card (£5-£30) and you'll have room enough for all of France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and the lion's share of Germany.

Customising
There are numerous points of interest, from hotels and petrol stations to mountain passes and "yacht basins". After the shortest route on a certain satnav took us via a field, it's good to see the N40i is more flexible. It offers fastest to shortest routes on a scale of one to five, with five being a high-speed ride through pedestrianised areas, shopping centres and school playgrounds.

NavPix Online
Register at www.navman.com/navpix and you can download pictures and GPS data for points of interest left by other members - or upload your own favourite restaurant or badger sett. The database is limited so far; we couldn't find any pictures for sleepy hamlets like, erm, Bristol and a search for 'Dining' in London was dominated by Eat sandwich bars. It's also not Mac compatible. Oh, the shame.

Life is but a fleeting thing, and much too short for lengthy analyses of satnavs. The short version of this review is: "Consider a TomTom or Garmin instead." The extended remix is: this sometimes struggles to pick up a signal in urban areas, and there's no pedestrian mode for traipsing around on foot. NavPix is cool, if inessential, but this has solid core values like simplicity and fast route-finding too.

advertisement