Review by Dave Burrows

Introduction

Back at CeBit in January, Navman showed off their latest GPS Receiver incarnations.  The first was the 3450 sleeve, which is identical to the original 3000 and 3400 sleeve, and the second was a brand new Bluetooth GPS Receiver which Navman said would take the world by storm!

The new Navman 4400 will certainly do that.  Navman have decided not to go for the smallest size here, it is larger than similar Bluetooth GPS Receivers, and just a little bit smaller than the new iPAQ 2210 in width and length.  Every time I see this it reminds me of a  toboggan sledge off of the John Candy film "Cool Runnings".  Anyway, enough about that! 

Navman have decided rather than to go for size like other manufacturers, they'll go for pure unadulterated POWER!  The specs for this unit is pretty amazing, it runs on 3xAAA batteries and comes supplied with Energizer batteries.  Navman quote that this Receiver will run for 30 hours on 3xAAA batteries, which is quite simply staggering!  Navman also do supply an in-car power cable so if you don't want to mess around with batteries, you can just permanently supply it juice from the car accessory socket, and if you have one of these in-car that are permanently on when you take your key out of the ignition, then you'll never have to wait for a Cold TTFF again!

When you take this beauty out of the box, you do wonder how to get into it.  As you'll see from the photo above, there's a push clip either side.  If you hold both clips in and wiggle the base, the base will come off and you'll then have access to the battery case.  This takes a bit of perfecting as it feels like the battery compartment won't come off.  Wiggle it and it will.

One thing that did strike me is that all of the casing really does feel and look plastically.  Once all put together the GPS really feels as solid as a rock.

One thing that's starting to concern us with the new Bluetooth GPS Receivers, and many on the internet is that most of them do use Lithium-Ion batteries, and these have a lifespan charge of 400 charges (eg 400 days) if you're using it on a daily basis.  After this, your battery is near to useless unless you want to leave it plugged in permanently in-car.  Now most of the manufacturers are taking a line that in a year and a half you probably would have ditched the current model and traded up to the newer, better model, but that's just simply not the case all of the time.  You can change the batteries yourself, but getting hold of batteries may be an issue.  Why have a battery that's useless after 400 charges ?  This is something Navman asked themselves.  These aren't exactly cheap at £200+, so it's good to see Navman taking the bull by the horns and creating a GPS receiver which not only is great, but won't be as dead as a dodo in 400 days!  Well done Navman!  The one thing I do have a gripe with is, that if people want to use batteries in the Bluetooth 4400, then they're probably going to use rechargeable Ni-Mh batteries, and because Navman have gone for unadulterated raw power, you have to have 3 batteries.  This means that whenever you charge 4, you've got one that you don't use, most chargers will only charge in pairs of 2 or 4 batteries. 

If you prefer not to use the windscreen mount that comes with the Navman 4400, then you can just rest the GPS Receiver on the dashboard.

Navman have stuck a piece of soft rubber to the base of the battery compartment.  This allows you to place the GPS Receiver onto the dashboard and not have it slip around too much, and also keep your dashboard scratch free!

Box Contents

When you open the box you'll find

• Navman 4400 Bluetooth Receiver

• two CD's covering European Maps of SmartST Pro

• Lanyard for GPS Receiver

• Arm band for GPS Receiver

• Vehicle windscreen mount for GPS Receiver

• Non-Slip adhesive mount for GPS Receiver

• 3x AAA Batteries

• Vehicle Power Cable for GPS Receiver

• Quickstart Guide

Windscreen Mount

Navman have supplied a windscreen mount.  It comes in two parts, the left part (the suction cup mechanism) and the right hand part (the draw).  The 4400 then slides into this via rails and allows you to hang it off your windscreen.  The suction cup and the draw need to be screwed together with two supplied screws that come in the Navman 4400 package.

This photo is purposely upside down so you can see how the two parts join together.  We didn't test the windscreen mount, the rubber pad at the base of the 4400 is good enough to stop it slipping around the dashboard, and I think most people will prefer to have it on the dashboard rather than mounted via the windscreen.

Battery Life

Putting a brand new set of Duracell Plus batteries in and leaving the 4400 powered and connected via Bluetooth to an iPAQ 2210, we received a whopping 15 hours usage out of the Navman 4400.  Although this comes in at half the time that Navman quote, I suspect by putting a freshly charged set of NiMh batteries in will take you close to the 30 hours quoted.  Still 15 hours is very respectable if you compare this with the Emtac's, Sockets and TomTom Bluetooth GPS which all come in at around 5-6 hours usage.  When the battery power is too low, the blue light that flashes beneath the power button will start flashing red.

Shoulder Strap

Navman have supplied an adjustable shoulder strap with the 4400 receiver.  This has velcro pads and allows you to feed it through the rails on the 4400 and allow you to carry it over the shoulder.  Although a novel idea, I think I'd rather carry it in a pocket if it's all the same.

Wrist Strap

Navman have also supplied a wrist strap which I think will become more useful compared to the should strap.  It's nice to have the options of a shoulder and wrist strap, but if I have the option of having a several hundred pound GPS receiver either in my hands, safe in my pocket or dangling on a wrist strap or on a shoulder strap, I'd choose the shirt pocket any day.

No battery power a thing of the past!

Have you ever had that feeling in the middle of the night when you've thought something is not right.  Then in the morning you come out to find that your Bluetooth GPS or Pocket PC, or perhaps even the car battery is flat.  I'm always leaving my Emtac on by mistake and next thing I know the batteries dead.  Not anymore!  Well, at least for the Navman Bluetooth GPS.  I'm please to say that if the Navman BT GPS doesn't have an active Bluetooth connection after a couple of minutes it will power itself off.  So no wasting battery power ever again!  Coupled with up to 30 hours of battery use, this makes the 4400 really attractable!

Size Comparison

How does the 4400 compare in size ?  Compared with the TomTom BT GPS which is nearly identical in length to the Emtac/Socket BT GPS, the Navman 4400 is marginally larger in length and width.  It is also a lot more deeper which adds to the size of the receiver, but it's still the size where you could put it in your shirt pocket (albeit with a bulge).  You can also see the new 2210 in the photo below, the Navman is slightly smaller than the 2210.

External Antenna

The Navman 4400 like most Bluetooth GPS Receivers has a built in antenna.  You should be able to use the 4400 in nearly most situations, but if you are experiencing signal difficulties, or you have a vehicle with a heat reflective windscreen, or even one with a heater coil in the front windscreen, this can dampen radio signals in general and also GPS signals.

With that in mind, Navman as with their newer 3450 sleeve, have also chosen to include an MCX socket on the 4400 Bluetooth Receiver.  This means that you can purchase an optional MCX antenna and place this on the roof of the car and run the cable inside and to the Bluetooth Receiver giving you the best of both worlds.  You do want to try and stay clear of this on a BT GPS, as the main advantage is a cableless setup, and if you're thinking of powering it by the car accessory socket rather than batteries, and also using an external patch antenna, then is Bluetooth really for you ?

SmartST Pro and Bluetooth Connectivity

One thing that many of you know who read Pocket GPS on a regular basis is that Navman lock SmartST Pro software to their own GPS sleeves.  Now that Navman have brought out the 4400 Bluetooth Receiver, I was kind of hoping that as I already had Navman SmartST Pro installed, and it's on a Bluetooth connected Pocket PC, that I could just switch the Bluetooth receiver on, and connect and start using it without having to reinstall.  Sadly no, the version of SmartST Pro that comes with the Bluetooth Receiver is different from the Sleeve versions, as the sleeve version will not see the Bluetooth receiver, and there is no way of configuring it.

What do you get ?

Navman have thought of everything here.  They include the batteries, some companies wouldn't!  They give you a wrist strap, and a shoulder strap, and also a sliding tray mount that connects to a windscreen suction cup and screws together, allowing you not to have it sitting on the dash, but hanging from the windscreen if you want.  They also provide an in-car power cable for the receiver.  The only things they don't supply is a PDA charger cable (although most of you will have one by now), and a PDA mount.  The main reasons for this, is the 4400 isn't now tied to the iPAQ range of Pocket PC's, it will work with ANY Bluetooth PDA!  However, finding a mounting solution that is completely universal and will work with every PDA is difficult.  Arkon do some pretty good mounts, and Seidio do too, but Navman have omitted a PDA charger cable and PDA mounting solution from this package, so make sure you buy these separately!  Navman also include SmartST Pro with European Maps. 

Something we've started to see already in the forums, is that people are already thinking about purchasing the Navman 4400, but not using SmartST Pro, but using another product with the receiver.  Can this be done ?  Yes.  Just like the Navman 3000/3400/3450 sleeves, you can easily use other GPS Programs with the Navman 4400.  If you wanted to use Memory-map or Fugawi then all you need to do is set them to receive data on the Bluetooth COM port you have bound for incoming connections (iPAQ's are COM8), set the protocol to NMEA and the Baud Rate to 4800 and away you go!

Installing SmartST Pro

The first thing I noticed is the installer is different from the original SmartST Pro installer, you now get a SmartST Pro Desktop v2.3 icon and a Map Installer icon installed to your start menu on the PC.  Running the former basically re-runs the autorun on the CD, running the latter brings up the screen to the right.

I had some initial issues when trying to install the newer SmartST Pro onto a Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 2003.  The iPAQ 2210 I had, managed to install okay, activate but no maps could be installed.  After performing a complete reinstall and another re-activation, this seemed to cure the problem for me.  The iPAQ was a virgin iPAQ so I really couldn't see what would have been causing this problem.

The first thing you need to do is install the SmartST Pro Software to Main Memory.  Once installed, you have to make sure you are on a PC that is connected to the internet to enable/activate your software.  You have to do this otherwise SmartST Pro will not run.  We tried the activation on several PC's, using several different firewalls, one a network firewall Cisco PIX, which allowed activation successfully, however using a PC with ADSL and a personal application firewall, resulted in failure, so we had to drop the firewall for the few minutes it took to activate the install.

For any existing Navman 3400 / 3450 users, you will see no real difference in the user interface or maps with the 4400 version of the software.

Installing the Maps

You have several options when installing the maps.  You can either install by sector, or install the complete maps. 

This is now becoming a standard in GPS mapping software for the Pocket PC, and is welcomed that you can choose the complete maps and not have to worry about routing between map segments, or you can install a segment at the time if disk space is a major limitation on your Pocket PC. 

The complete UK maps come in at just under 100mb in size

Most of the segments average around 20mb in size, some smaller, some larger, if space is restricted, or you don't run any SD or Compact Flash Card storage, then you may find installing individual map segments better than installing the complete maps.

SmartST Pro Unlocked!

Something we've been badgering Navman about for quite some time is to provide an unlocked version of SmartST Pro that will work with any GPS hardware and not just the Navman 3000, 3400, 3450 sleeves.  I have great pleasure to announce that in the latest version 1.96.0015 of SmartST Pro which ships with the Navman 4400 Bluetooth Receiver, this is now completely unlocked.  Navman now allow you in the GPS Status screen to select any COM port from COM1 through to COM9 and also any baud rate ranging from 1200 baud through to 115200 baud.  This is amazing.  To do a test, I tried SmartST Pro against a Socket BT GPS and also a SysOn CF GPS and both worked flawlessly.  Unfortunately to get hold of the unlocked software you will have to purchase the 4400 package, but it will then enable you to mix and match between various hardware if you so choose.

Tutorial

Navman have chosen to do something special, although the manuals are on the CD, they've introduced a quick start guide / Tutorial when you start SmartST Pro.  This can be toggled on and off in the setup screen and gives you a head up of which hardware keys are mapped to which software features, and tells you how to tap and hold to bring up the context menu and also showing you the back and forward buttons.  This is a very good feature and helps you get up and running with SmartST Pro in the shortest time possible.  Come on, lets face it, everyone put up their hands who reads paper manuals ?  You only seem to read these when there's problems, so putting this on screen, does actually help and made us read it!

Time To First Fix Findings

TTFF's we recorded from the 4400 ranged from 53 seconds on a cold fix to 1 minute 19 seconds. 

All timings were very respectable and I don't think you'll experience any problems here.  Re-acquisition times were also very quick, signal strength compared to other BT GPS's seem to be slightly less at around 1-2 sats, but we never lost a fix under our tests until we ran our heavy foliage test.

GPS Status Screen

The GPS Status screen is nicely designed, and gives you 2D and 3D fix information. 

Existing Navman SmartST Pro users will remember this screen, and nothing has really changed in the software or the GPS Status screen since previous versions apart from opening up the driver database to all COM ports and baud rates. 

SmartST Pro Menu's

When you press your left cursor pad key you'll be taken into the Main Menu.  This gives you all the usual features you would expect to see when allowing for features like POI, Re-Routing and Voice Navigation.

In the Main Menu you'll see other sub menu's available.  The Quick Nav menu will give you quick navigation options like Return Trip and recent Navigations that you can select.

The Destination menu will give you options where you can create a route to a specific address (including door to door routing) allowing you to end a house number which is something that TomTom Navigator lacks at present.  You can also specify to create a journey by selecting an area by intersection. 

There is also a Points of Interest Screen where you can specify a Point of Interest you want to navigate to which is a very handy feature.  

I've always wanted to drive to a hotel and have had to enter either the road, or address and plot to this, with SmartST Pro you can now use the extensive POI database to create your journey.

All of the Destination Menu's will ask you to put in the area, then road, then house.  In Area you can specify both Country or City/Town which is invaluable. 

Sometimes if the area is foreign to you, you may not know if it's a Town or City, or Country you are visiting, and SmartST Pro is smart enough to recognise either, which cuts down on your route plotting time!

SmartST Pro also have a Favourite screen which allows you to select your Quick Nav saves, and also any locations you've added as favourites.

Finally you will also find a volume screen where you can set the volume of your Pocket PC speaker.

SmartST Pro Setup Screen

When you enter into the Setup screen you will see a plethora of options that you can select. 

In the first screenshot you can change the display from a day to night display that makes reading it easier at night, you can change the colour scheme of the maps, and toggle the Tutorial on and off. In the second screenshot you can turn Voice Navigation on and off, and select whether you want a UK male voice or UK female voice guiding you to your destination.  You can also change the distance units from Miles to Kilometers.

In the third screen, you can change your Routing Type by selecting the Quickest Time, and the Shortest Distance, and you can also tell it to Avoid Toll Roads (which will come in handy when the government start to introduce this in the UK), and Avoid urban Areas, which is good if you want to not take a motorway route, but likewise you don't want to be taken through town centres.  There is also an option for Automatic Re-Routing, and a Record Route option.  In the Fourth screen you'll see the POI (Points Of Interest) screen where you can toggle these on the maps, and manually select which POI data to see.

Maps

We've checked a couple of roads that have only been available in the last 8-12 months and these roads do show up under UK maps, so the maps do seem to be fairly up to date, however there have been comments already in our forums about some new roads not being on the maps.  Navman say they chose NavTech for their mapping company because they are currently considered the market leader in electronic mapping.  As with all maps, there will always be roads that aren't on the maps, however we weren't able to find any in the short period for the review.

The maps are very clear and precise, and all screens have a professional 3D style look and feel which adds to the prestige of the application.  Getting used to road names is a little difficult if you've used GPS Street routing software as with most software the road names are written within the road which mean you have to be zoomed in to around 80% before you see a road name, however Navman have overcome this by putting a red dot on the road and coupled with the road name displayed in horizontal form.  Although it takes a while to get used to this, you can see why Navman/Navtech have chosen this path, if you compare maps from other GPS software you will see that most are lacking road names at wider coverage levels, where as SmartST Pro still shows most of the street names.  This is great if you are travelling along a dual carriageway or an A road and are looking for a side road.  Directional turns, speed, distance to next turn and road name and designation are pretty much standard across all GPS street mapping software now, and Navman have made sure that all of these have been included.

No matter what type of road junction you chuck at SmartST Pro, it handles it very well.  Take the bottom right screenshot.  Not exactly an easy junction to follow, but SmartST Pro got it right first time!

Voice Navigation

Navman have added Voice Navigation to SmartST Pro, and this is a welcome feature.  However comparing this to other products, we did find that the way the words had been crafted, there were gaps at the beginning and end of each word, which when strung together made both the male and female voice sound as though it wasn't being read as a proper sentence.  Although the gaps on most of the spoken words seem to be only perhaps a couple of milliseconds, it was enough to notice the voice navigation was glueing words together.  One other problem we notice with the voice navigation is although it's more than adequate from a decibel level when driving normal roads, when driving motorways, and having background noise from the tyres on the car, and also having other distractive noises like a radio on, and air conditioning, or even a window open slightly, this seemed to drown out the voice navigation.  It would be good to see the sound files increased by about 10-15% in volume, which you could usually do yourself if they were WAV files, but Navman have integrated them into a data file, so attempting this yourself would be difficult.  We found the Voice Navigation to be a little quieter when compared to TomTom Navigator.

Navigation Safety Screen

The Navigation Safety screen, really does look sexy!  It's been well designed with a 3D look and feel, and gives you all the information you would need on following a route.  It gives you the next turn you need to take, and tells you in how many miles this will be, and also shows below this which road you are currently on.

Coupled with your current speed, and time, it will also show you an ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival), which is very much welcomed. 

The amount of times I have thought I would be late for a meeting, but I've been trying to work out the distance and time according to my watch. 

SmartST Pro does all the calculation for you on screen, so if it looks like you are going to be running late for that important client meeting, you can phone ahead and let them know!

Pocket PC 2003 Support

Unfortunately I've been experiencing some very intermittent lockups.  These lockups are almost identical to what other readers are experiencing with the 5400 and 5500's.  Navman New Zealand are investigating this and working on a priority fix.  The lockups were very intermittent.  Sometimes you would find no lockups within a 2 hour journey, then another journey 3 lockups would occur in the span of 5 minutes.  Strangely enough all lockups would freeze the iPAQ (although the BT and power lights still flicker, you can do nothing on screen apart from soft resetting the iPAQ), but even stranger is that every lockup I've had under the HP iPAQ 2210 is always when driving round a roundabout!   I've clarified this with several HP iPAQ 5400 users who find the same regarding roundabouts, so something very strange is happening in the software!

GPS Hardware TTFF (Time To First Fix)

Summary

The complete Navman 4400 and SmartST Pro bundle comes in at around £379.99 or €539.99.  The new unlocked version of SmartST Pro really makes the Navman offering much more attractive.  You can use the Navman 4400 GPS Receiver, and if you'd prefer not to and use a cabled mouse setup, you can.  This is something Navman customers have been longing for for nearly a year now, and I'm really pleased to see Navman have now unlocked their software.  You still can't purchase the software separately, which still will be a hurdle to overcome, existing Navman customers who have purchased a 3400/3420/3450 sleeve and SmartST Pro will have no upgrade process to this version.  If you want to upgrade, you have to pay the full price, which is a demoralising.  Navman could have sold the 4400 separately to their existing customer base and included a GPS Software Update/Patch that would then allow for support of the 4400 on existing SmartST Pro installations, and also allow for the software to be unlocked to choose any COM port and BAUD rate.  So existing Navman customers may be a little annoyed that there is no upgrade route for them.  The 4400 is a nice GPS Receiver, if you're not really concerned about having the smallest GPS Receiver then I think you'll like the Navman 4400.  It feels like it's been built sturdily.  One thing that hasn't really been covered in this review is a mount for the Pocket PC.  Navman do not supply a Pocket PC Mount, which means you are left a little high and dry, but don't worry, most people never stick long with the manufacturer mounts supplied, and there's a selection of universal PDA mounts available that range from £15 up to £45.  It will mean an added cost, but it means you can choose the right mount for your vehicle.

If you're looking to use this on a HP iPAQ 5400, 5500, 2210, 1940 or Pocket PC 2003 then I would suggest you hold off until a fix is announced as the lockups can become very annoying.

The software SmartST Pro that comes with the Navman 4400 will only work on Pocket PC's, but the BT GPS will work on any BT connected device with a Serial Port Profile. If you are looking to purchase the Navman 4400 for a Palm, go for the 4100 which is cheaper and doesn't include the software.

Durability

Windscreen Suction Mount Strength

Air Vent Mount Strength

not supplied

Car Power Cable Quality

Ability to plot route and follow

Voice Navigation Quality

Re-routing Quality

Map Detail

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