My PNA100 / MD95025 review

[stuey99]

As a first timer to the whole PDA/GPS world I thought I’d share some comments on the Medion PNA100/MD95025

I, like many others I presume, haven’t got loads of cash so was forced by Tony Blair and his jolly taxes to buy an entry level (see: cheapo) unit. I read comments like “spend another £150 and you can get a far better product” – this maybe true but for me £150 isn’t easy to come by. In the end I plumped for the Medion PNA100 mainly as a few people on this site said it was okay and it had full maps of Europe.

I ordered it from the Medion website for £200 and it arrived within 3 days. Good start.

What impressed me immediately was the amount of junk I got. CD maps of Europe, an extra SD card, car and bike supports, cradle, 2 cases – even a spare fuse! Good stuff. The cat had a field day playing with it all.

The unit itself is kind of ugly, although not as bad as the official photo makes it look. But I’m no work of art myself. It has fully functional Windows CE 2003 with Excel and Word – worth a play but soon hurts your eyes. What seems strange is that it has features like a mic – but this isn’t mentioned anywhere on the website or anywhere. Why?

One button press and GPS software is loaded. And it’s actually rather good. Directions are spoken very clearly and displayed cleanly too. Easy to follow. It has a 3D facility but it looks like an afterthought to me and should mainly be used as a gimmick to impress your mates.
What the software really seems to do well is re-routing. If I missed a junction (usually ‘cos I was p1ssing about with it trying to tap the screen without using the stylus) the software took a couple of seconds to plot a new course. Better still it didn’t force me to do a U-turn and stick to set route like other software I’ve read about.

I also liked the map button that just shows you where you are in the world (or in Europe anyway). It will be the death of me as these days I spend all my driving time not looking forward but instead reading the current street name I’m on and saying “oh…so that’s Park Street” etc.

I’m not sure what’s the norm regarding the number of satellites GPS units receive but mine was showing ten on the way to work. Ten? Who owns all these things?

So it’s all good then? Well no, not everything.

As good as the GPS software is it’s slow. Getting an address in as your destination is a painfully sluggish task. You just have to wait for it to grind through its database.
It’s also sooo sloooow when it first calculates the route to be taken. What’s more annoying is the progress bar stays at 1% for ages and then flies up to 98% where it remains for a while longer. Very frustrating. All the time it’s tempting to press the cancel button…don’t -it doesn’t cancel anything until the route has been found – it then cancels the route. Annoying, but once you accept it it’s not too bad. Also I’ve found that if you tell it not to look for ferry routes it calculates quicker. No way am I catching a ferry to work.

And then there’s the battery life. As a PDA alone it’s good. Several hours. However the GPS aerial must drain power hideously – basically you need to plug it into a power source. The bicycle cradle inclusion then seems a bit farcical. If you want to use it on your bike you have three options:-
1) Get a 12-volt power supply fitted to your bike
2) Take a lot of spare batteries
3) Only cycle for 6 minutes.


So that’s it. Hopefully this review can help someone. Overall, and this is the most important part, I’m not at all disappointed. It’s a very tidy unit and you get plenty for your money. Nice.

[twinfanman]

Good review Stuey, more 'ground level' reviews needed!

[RobBrady]

Seconded! Any takers?

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