destinator 3 RANT (acer n35)

nunew33 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 04, 2005 Posts: 35

The backup software is in programs (if its not preloaded itll be on the acer CD). Or you can do it from active synch. Do a full backup. The other backup only backs up data in calander and contacts. takes 2 minutes to restore

The only time mine crashes is when it cant keep up with my requests (ie im tapping with the stylus whilst its doing another task) and usually when I am using Agenda Fusion (Calender software I paid for - worth the money).

I also dont think gettiung things wrong is unique to destinator. Id say in 3-4000 miles of use Ive had 2 bends described as turns, about 3 incorrect roundabouts, but 9 times out of ten when i put an address in it gets me there. It has also got me to the nearest bank petrol station a number of times when ive been somewhere new.

If it helps some other software that Ive found useful is gsfinder to replace the explorer tools (uses the windows tree format to navigate).http://page.freett.com/todamitsu/index_english.htm

There are also loads of free tools from a guy whose initials are PHM such as regedit, todaymeters and taskbar launch. http://www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/ These tools help me keep the PDA clean after uninstalling software

Im only paying £140 for mine Smile

so im definately happy (a purchase scheme through work)

ulfire · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 03, 2005 Posts: 5

ulfire · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 03, 2005 Posts: 5

nunew33 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 04, 2005 Posts: 35

3-4000 miles.

made up of 600 mile trip down south via a stop of in birmingham (correct address), deddington (correct address) and silverstone circuit. One incorrect bend. I missed a service station on the M40 and was on fumes this found a garage within 6 miles.

A couple of 400 mile trips for days out, both single destination and both found correctly.

The rest is local mileage. Even though I know the roads I still have it on. Doesnt always give best route, and here is a bug bear because you cant fiddle with the speed to road type parameteres like you can in autoroute. Only once could it not find a house, even though it was listed, but it found a street so I was there or there abouts. And a couple of times it doesnt have correct house number range. Hence my 9 out of 10 statement.

I dont live in a rural area.

dippergt750 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 18, 2005 Posts: 1

I won my N35. Did not cost me one penny. Clock keeps perfect time (provided unit is kept charged) and destinator works fine and is accurate to within about 75 yards or so. One small problem I did have (which turned out to be my fault), I phoned Acer, they gave me an RMS number, picked up unit on the Monday and delivered it back on the Wednesday which is pretty damn good.
Granted, Destinator will sometimes "SAY" the wrong direction, but the map is pretty much 100% accurate. The company I work for have nearly every "flavour" of GPS fitted to their cars and every one has some idiosyncrasies. Destinator is as good, or as bad, as any of the others.

sengadog · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 01, 2005 Posts: 10

Hi, just to throw a spanner in the works, I bouoght my acer from comet about three months ago and have had no problems apart for the destinator 3 glitch displaying the wrong way round roundabouts and wrong distance warnings due to comma missing in the code ( this was fixed very easily) I have since purchsed tomtom 5 and have put this on the acer, bar the tt5 glitches all is working ok. I have had no problems connecting via usb etc etc. Sounds like you have a bad unit, I would ask for a replacement.

suck_it_and_see · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 06, 2005 Posts: 5

Hi, I have had my Acer for about 2 months now and have had no problems what so ever, the only thing I have found is that the unit has to be switched on when you plug anything into it otherwise it hard resets.
I have made a few 100-200 mile roundtrips and a lot of local work with it and have only found that it says "ird exit" on some roundabouts instead of "Third exit" Two of my friends have the Garmin Ique3600 and they have had more problems than me.
It seems a little underpowered but nothing drastic and it takes a lot longer to load up with the speed camera database on it other than that it is great!
You must have a faulty unit.

jimbo_hippo · Frequent Visitor Joined: May 18, 2005 Posts: 444

The "announces a bend as a right/left turn" thing crops up all the time so I think I'm gonna throw my 2bobs worth in here.

You'll probably find that when it announces this, there is a road joining to the right/left on the bend. As far as I'm aware, none of the maps in the consumer products (TomTom, Destinator, Navman etc) have any concept of give way/stop priorities. So if the software sees a right turn with a road joining to the left, is might interpret it as a T-junction after taking the angle of the turn into account. I also think that the algorythms for this kind of intersection are purposely 'softened' to err on the side of caution to prevent you screeching to a halt at a T-junction unannounced (if you aren't looking at the signs!). Once you take this approach on board and look at the map when it happens, it becomes easier to see why it happens.

I can't imagine the sofware will ever take note of priorites even if listed in the map data for moving vehicle use since an unlogged change of priority would be a liability so just get used to it as a 'quirk' of nav sofware.

Perhaps we should all be sent to a 1 week course programming with the data provided then we might be more sympathetic. Some programme's errors are not acceptable but to me this one makes sense and I just live with it.
_________________
Tom Tom GO 720
Orange M3100, Orange SPV M5000
TomTom Navigator 6, Destinator 6
Holux GPSslim

ekto · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 15, 2005 Posts: 11

Here at Finland me and couple of my frends haven't had any major problems. Yes it says turn if the road has a steap bend, but so does navicore and few other software. Actualy navicore says it in almost every bend, but acer says it only if there is a junction in the bend.

I have had to do a hard reset only once, and that was because Acer was low on power. I conected the car power cable, but I didnt do it well, so it fell of during driving and the battery of acer was already really low. After 10 minutes Acer freeses while saying some voice manovers, so I had to wait that all of the power was gone, and reinstall. Lucyly I have the whole Destinator folder at my PC (because of the translations), so I just copyed all files back to Acer. All favorites and setting camed back, and worked.

I have also been able to copy some graphics and finnish voices from Detinator PN. I translated menues by my self, so now I have a fully finnish dest3. Here is an example, notice the menu background:

I have used the Acer many times when I have been a passenger in some other car, like my boss. It works well when in hand and has saved us from beeing late.

Overall I'm really happy whit Acer, and cannot understand how there is so much diference whit these devices. Or meaby it's whit the maps? Don't know, but this is only hint I can come up whit: Don't use the "Shortest way" for navigation. Some maps (like finland) has a lot of service roads in it. Also there is a lot of roads in urban areas that are blockt, because they dont want people to drive trough those roads. The speed limit in these roads are so low in map files, that if you use the Fastest way, it wont take you to those roads.

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