Review: Navman Travelassist GPS

Navman’s Travelassist package, available for Symbian 60 smartphones and Pocket PCs, brings the Navpix photo navigation system to your handheld.

In addition, the supplied Bluetooth GPS receiver offers SirfStarIII navigation and you’ll find eight-digit postcode searching in addition to POI or Navpix selection.

It’s a fairly basic package, but we were very impressed by the speedy time-to-first-fix and stability of the Bluetooth connection to the receiver. Maps are fairly basic but very clear considering the relatively small screen on mobile phones and PDAs.

Unfortunately the refresh rate here is very slow, around a screen per second, which does cause problems at busy junctions and interchanges. The software also seems over-reliant on motorways; it preferred to direct us quite a way off-course in order to join one, even when a more direct route was available.

This is particularly frustrating because of the erroneous time-to-destination information you’re given onscreen. We found this to be wildly inaccurate, often over an hour out, and when you’re considering taking a detour, you really need good information so you can see how much longer it’ll take you to get there.

There’s also no night mode, which is quite distracting as the clean white maps can look quite dazzling. You are provided with free traffic updates for a year, but in practice the lack of information provided on a journey, or waypoints on the way, means they are of limited use.

A fairly basic set of features omits many of the more useful aspects of a dedicated device, and for the price we were disappointed not to get a bit more control over the journey. If you’re a big fan of the Navpix system you might enjoy having this functionality on your mobile.

For most people, the limited features of a mobile solution together with the drawbacks of the Travelassist package means that aside from portability and convenience there’s no reason to buy this over a dedicated GPS device.

Alternatives such as Route66 offer a more user-friendly solution, and while basic functionality and stability with the Travelassist is good, it’s ultimately frustrating on longer journeys. If you plan to use it a lot, you’re better off looking elsewhere.

Also consider:
Route66 Mobile 7
Not as easy to use as standalone sat-nav systems, but a good alternative if you want GPS on your mobile

Destinator 6 with Trafficsam GPS software
A decent satellite navigation option for those who already have a compatible PDA

Map24 Mobile mapping software
Mobile Map24 works well and is a good application to have on your phone, but the mobile data charges will put people off using it extensively

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