Copilot L5 v Garmin

HytheMan · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 26

i am a lorry driver and have used garmin mapping for the last 2 years, then i decided to sell my garmin SP3 and get a pda hp 4700 with copilot live 5 after the pocket gps review on the 30/4/05, i did a route from hardly roundabout southampton uk near hythe to Butlins minehead uk on both systems to see the result as i wanted to show my frustration, the garmin took me down the A326 to the A36 to Salibury(Very Good) , the copilot took me down the A326 then i turned off at the next roundabout to the B3054 to beaulie down the B3056 and on to the A337 then the A36 to Salibury(Crap + 25 Mins to Journey), then from Salibury the garmin took me up the A36 until Wilton down the A30 to the B3089 and on to the A303 (Very Good), the copilot took me straight up the A36 and on to the A303 (Adds 20mins to journey), the point im making is one minute it will use B roads to add time to and then stay on track to add even more time, i have adjusted all the route settings which dont seem to make any difference, for me using it on the road, well ive started using a map book again with copilot, i know i have only had the copilot a week but as i said im a lorry drive and get around abit, i know the garmin is not perfect but i felt quite comfortable using it after aweek but not the copilot, maybe its me but i dont think so.

Skippy · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 8:23 am Post subject:

I also went from Garmin to CoPilot and I'm bitterly disappointed.

CoPilot has serious problems with it's routing, it comes up with some real howlers. There isn't a fix for it unfortunately, the best you can do is select the "Shortest" route preference. Don't ever use Fastest - it will do some really bizzare things. :x

Have a read of the threads about routing in this forum (if you haven't read them already). There are a lot of angry CoPilot customers here.

Try downloading a free trial of Mapopolis and see how you get on with that.
_________________
Gone fishing!

HytheMan · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 26

Thanks Skippy, i started thing it was me, have you found the pc map crap and looking up customised POI also a night mare, well compared to garmin or am i just a bit bios, with garmin if you move your curser down a road all the house numbers appear unlike copilot which just put 1 - 30, and with the POI, when your in your car trying to input a new route its nice to just bring up all the waypoints(Garmin) and click and go, with copilot i have to input the town before i can find the POI i want which is a crap idea and time consuming , the GPS BT receiver is great though so there is some good points, but you buy the software for the routing which if i was reviewing it i would of only give it 40% unlike 98% and i would give the garmin 70% and i would give the garmin 70%, for the price of copilot i expected more, im stuck with copilot for a year, but next year I think I will be looking else where, i will try mapopolis thanks.

HellFire · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 25, 2004 Posts: 126

I used to have SP3 and the only reason I sold it is because the maps cost about £400 what’s a lot more than co-pilot 5 which I have now, I know what you mean about the street numbers that’s a lot better but the thing you got to remember is the garmin maps cost a lot more than ALK’s so you would expect it to do a few things more, I’ve never had any problems with co-pilot but then I don’t use it all day like you probably do

Skippy · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 9:25 pm Post subject:

HytheMan · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 26

Hi guys, thank both of you for your input, hellfire the european mapsource for garmin in Off Road Store is £115 the copilot software is £135 in Global Positioning Systems so copilot is dearer well for me, skippy thanks maybe I need to play with it a bit more, being a lorry driver everything needs to happen yesterday, and as ive only had copilot a week so maybe I should give it a bit more time, thing is pulling a 53f trailer I don’t want to be stuck down a country lane, if I didn’t know the beaulie area I would off got well and truly stuck, if copilot didn’t use any b or smaller roads until the last minute when set on RV I would have been more than happy, which is what the pocketgps review did state, I wish I could turn certain roads off, there is some setting in copilot routing but they don’t seem to work for me, copilot just seems more awkward for simple tasks like POI finding.

HellFire · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 25, 2004 Posts: 126

The one I had was city navigator and that cost a lot

Skippy · Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 9:46 am Post subject:

HytheMan · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 26

Hi skippy, yes that’s what I thought about copilot to, from the pocketgps review it did say that, that is why I brought it, as to my first message 5 mins from my house it takes me off a major down a b road through a small village which an RV would have problems with, which is just an example that I put on here that anyone can try for them self, what it basically did, if you think off a cross working in a clock wise direction A being north B being East C Being south and D being west, from A - C is a major A road and from A – B and from B – C is a very tricky B road, if you put a route from A – C you would expect copilot to route straight down the major A road to C but no, if took me from A to B then on to C, which is why im so annoyed about the software, I’m thinking of ringing copilot (as they don’t answer emails) because I have tried every setting, if this software could be sent back I would cos it doesn’t do what it says on the box.

Bohica · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 24, 2004 Posts: 37

Hi HytheMan,
Just a thought,have you selected the "RV" setting's in the options?
If your driving an HGV you really don't want to be sent off into the back of beyond................. Confused

I've been following a lot of what's been said about CP5 and the routing issues.Personally,I've really not had a problem,but then again I've got all the settings for road biases set to "Default" values.I did try a couple of times to "Tune" them but the results were so bizzare as to be useless...

Unfortunately,in most cases you can't try most of the routing software before you get lumbered with it (Skippy's prog the exception),but I've just had the opportunity to compare CP5 with the Navman SmartST package (V2 SP2)..............
If you think you've got problems with CP5..................... 8O

HytheMan · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 07, 2005 Posts: 26

Hi Bohica,
Yes it is set on RV but I have changed some of the road speeds and favour setting, when I thought it couldn’t get any worse it actually asked to turn right in the middle of a dual carriageway for the road I needed, zooming in on the map shows no turning at all across the middle of the carriageway, I am thinking of putting copilot on ebay for free to good home cos it isn’t worth the cd its written on, I cant understand how pocketgps can give this software 98%, I know I had some problems with garmin SP3 but not half what I’m having with copilot.

Bazzer · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 10:37 am Post subject:

Hi HytheMan,

Welcome to the club. Like the rest of us, you have quickly discovered that you have bought a real 'turkey' with CP5. You only have to read the locked thread 'Tweaking Road Speeds' to discover the frustration of CP5 users.

The aftersales service is next to non-existant. They have got your money now so why should they care !

As soon as the 'software only' TomTom5 is released, I'll be consigning CP5 to the dustbin.

Baz

	PocketGPS
	Web