Review: Medion Go Pal PNA 515 satellite navigation system

The Medion GoPal GPS got the ultimate of tests: could it guide us from the UK across Europe to the bottom of Croatia’s Adriatic coast and up the other side of the country, via several planned stop-offs?

The unit is pretty easy to use from the start. Its functions and features are, with a few exceptions, intuitive and it has four key buttons on its casing controlling volume, power and Bluetooth.

The 515 is top of the GoPal PNA range (cheaper variants are available) and synchs with your phone via Bluetooth, allowing you to make and receive hands-free calls when driving.

It also comes with the now obligatory mp3 player built in, TMC traffic routing, and an extensive range of points of interest. Its integrated Navteq maps cover 31 European countries, principalities and city states on a 1GB SD card.

Our round trip with the Medion would cover over 2,500 miles and eight countries. The initial address, Eurotunnel, proved tricky to find in points of interest (as it did in France on the return trip). We did eventually find it, but it was one of the few times the GoPal lacked intuitiveness.

Directions are clear and given with plenty of time. On motorways we were told between one and two kilometres before we needed make a change, and for most roads it tells you the speed limit.

It guided us carefully through some of the complicated junctions we encountered in countries such as Belgium and Germany, telling us our next move well before and at the point of change. And every time, it was spot on.

In Germany, it took us directly to our hotel for which we had a name and town, but no street address, guiding us from France without fault.

Our only complaint was that the hotel name and the GoPal listing were slightly different, which necessitated a regional search for all hotels, rather than being able to just enter its name.

Our first stop in Croatia, a village on the outskirts of Zagreb, wasn’t named on GoPal’s map, but on arrival we could save its location, and it did have most of its roads on it.

But if you scroll to an unnamed town or area on GoPal’s map that you want to visit, annoyingly it won’t save it or offer directions from your current position (even though you can see the roads on its map).

This highlights our only real criticism of the GoPal’s mapping: for some countries the maps became less detailed. Several towns on our trip in Croatia weren’t even listed.

Clearly the Navteq maps need updating, and a warning in the otherwise thorough user manual explaining that, in some countries, the maps are not complete, would help.

As good as this GPS was, we hit a few problems. On occasion in Slovenia and Croatia its instructions if followed would have sent us the wrong way.

And in the UK, it mystified us by sending us off the M20 only to tell us to drive parallel with the motorway and then guide us back onto it at the next junction.

But resolving these few glitches, along with the need to make saving planned locations and searching all points of interest easier, would only serve to make a good product even better.

Most users will never drive outside the UK, for which its routing was generally excellent.

For those who want a GPS to cover west or east European roads, this is a great device. Testimony to its instructions is that in over 2,500 miles of driving, there were no cross words about directions.

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Amazing value for such a solid, stylish and feature packed sat nav device.

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