Windows Phone Thoughts: Road Trip Revolutions: The MyGuide 500 Navigation System Reviewed

OnCourse Navigator 5
Overall, the MyGuide hardware design is well suited for its role as a navigation device. But even with the best hardware design, a navigation system is only as good as the software. Fortunately, the MyGuide comes with OnCourse Navigator 5, a product whose previous version I found good enough to become my choice for personal use.

OCN 5 is very similar to OCN 4, with some differences that I’ll point out as I cover them.

Installation
Installation is simple. The installer runs automatically from the SD card the first time you run OCN 5. It guides you through the process of going to the OCN website to provide a device ID, and an activation code is immediately sent to you.

If a hard reset is required, the installation process will run again upon first use of OCN 5. This could be useful when on the road… however, an Internet connection is still required for activation.

Maps
With most navigation software, the first thing you have to deal with after installation is deciding which maps to bring with you. Not so with OCN as installed on the MyGuide… its entire set of included maps (continental US, in this case) is installed on the SD card. As a result, OCN 5 provides seamless navigation from any point within the continental US to any other point. Separate maps for Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico are also provided.

Different versions of OCN 5 provide maps for Canada and Mexico. Other versions offer seamless maps of nearly all of Europe.

Since seamless maps for entire countries or continents are available, the corridor routing feature of earlier versions of OCN has been dropped.

Setting Up Routes
When setting up routes, you encounter another of the more significant changes in OCN 5. Recognizing that people with varying levels of experience with the product or varying comfort levels with complex technology will be using OCN 5, it now provides two user modes – Standard and Extended. While Extended mode offers full functionality of all OCN features, Standard mode simplifies use by hiding more advanced features. I’ll show the main navigation screens in Extended mode first and then I’ll show the same screens in Standard mode to illustrate the differences.


Figure 4: Main screen (Extended mode).

Figure 4 shows the main navigation screen in Extended mode. Tapping on the Navigation button allows for a variety of options for single destination routes. Routes with multiple stops can be created by tapping on the Route planning button. The Show map button shows your current position when not in Navigation mode.

OCN can store a home address and you can set up a route to that address in one step by tapping on the Home button. The Voice Command button on the upper right can set up a route to any destination for which you’ve set up a voice prompt.


Figure 5: Choose your destination (Extended mode).

The screen shown in Figure 5 is presented to you when you tap on the Navigation button on the main screen. The following options are provided:

* Address – enter an address for a destination;
* Point of interest – select a destination from a list of points of interest (POIs - restaurants, accommodations, etc.);
* Select on map – select a destination directly from the map;
* Recent destinations;
* Favorite destinations;
* Contacts – select a contact to route to that address.

I’ll go into more detail on these choices in just a bit, but let’s stop and look at the same screens in Standard mode.


Figure 6: Main screen (Standard mode).

Note that in the main screen in Figure 6, the Route planning and Show map options are missing. This screen is limited to the simplest route choices… favorite and recent destinations, as well as Home and Voice command. For more options, tap on the Navigation button.


Figure 7: Choose your destination (Standard mode).

The options to enter an address and select a POI are available here. In Standard mode, this is as complex as it gets.