Windows Phone Thoughts: Road Trip Reloaded: OCN All in One GPS Reviewed

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Friday, February 4, 2005

Road Trip Reloaded: OCN All in One GPS Reviewed

Posted by Doug Raeburn in "HARDWARE" @ 10:00 AM



Figure 13: Two instructions in quick succession.

Figure 13 shows how the display appears when you have one instruction following another almost immediately, such as an exit from a highway and the turn from that exit onto another road. The first instruction is shown in the larger box on the left, and the second instruction is shown in the smaller box. This makes it easy to see at a glance what turn you have to make after you exit.

As for voice instructions, I have to say that the very clear instructions provided by OnCourse Navigator along with the very high volume of the Mitac provide probably the best voice instructions of any software/hardware combination that I've tested. Not to mention the most polite, in that it precedes most instructions with "please".

There were many things to like about the voice instruction implementation. For example, when you turned onto a road and would be on that road for five miles before the next instruction, OnCourse Navigator says "Please follow the road for five miles". This helps you to get your bearings, and to know that you'll be cruising on this road for a while or that another turn is coming up soon.

When traveling on a highway, OnCourse Navigator gives you ample warning when a turn or exit is approaching. Traveling at 65 mph on a highway, it gave me this advance warning: "Please exit to the right in 2 miles, then turn right." That's the instruction shown above in Figure 13. I appreciate that much advance warning, because if traffic is heavy, it gives you plenty of time to prepare for the maneuver, such as moving over to the correct lane to take the exit. Other products give you a shorter advance warning, which sometimes means you have to hustle to get into position if you're not prepared. So I value this feature a lot.

The distance at which advance warning occurs varies with speed, being greater at high speeds and less at lower speeds. For example, on a rural road traveling at 40 mph, the next turn instruction was conveyed as "Please turn left in 1200 ft", which is plenty of warning at that speed on that type of road.


Figure 14: Route List

In lieu of viewing a map, you may wish to view a list of the instructions for a route. OnCourse Navigator supports this functionality. However, it falls a bit short compared to many competitors here. OnCourse Navigator is limited to either the map view or the route list, while other products offer these two modes plus a hybrid mode that shows the map along with the list of instructions.


Figure 15: 3D view

No contemporary navigation program would be complete without a 3D mode, and OnCourse Navigator doesn't disappoint. This mode can be particularly helpful in the city, where it can give the navigator a better feel for the more complicated mapping scenarios with many side streets. However, you lose access to other icons and information, such as ETA. Some people like this mode and others don't… I generally place myself in the latter.

The quality of the routes was outstanding… probably the best I've seen from any navigation product I've tested. Some other products will sometimes generate a fairly indirect route, using back roads and lots of turns when a reasonable route that's more direct is available. And when that happens, the settings, such as quickest vs. shortest route, don't seem to have much effect. With its standard settings, the routes that OnCourse Navigator created always seemed to make sense, and in using it to map to familiar locations, it often created exactly the same route that I would have taken myself. The excellent overall navigation performance with OnCourse Navigator gave me a great feeling of confidence when using it.

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