PiN 570 impressions

[Adek]

Hi there, I am new to the world of sat nav, and since I like gadgets have gone for the PiN 570. some of my impressions and questions are having the unit for about a week :

(1)seemed to work out of the box as it was supposed to, however, the GPS signal seems to take a while to find (10mins??). The car doesn't have a heated or athermic windscreen so not sure why this is not too good. any ideas on getting this to work better?

(2) pocket PC seems to be a little quirky- I have a dell pc at home, a laptop, all linked through a WiFi router and using win XP, so I am not a complete no brainer, but I can't seem to move files around very easily on the PDA - always seems to try and open them instead of letting me move them. Is this normal with pocket pc? I am used to using windows explorer and handling my files as I so please.

(3)the UK postcode or house number search ain't too hot. On multimap on the web you enter a postcode and it finds it- on smart ST it seems to give a range most of the time particularly for house numbers (eg. #14 to24) so it finds the street OK but less good at the house. not a big problem but interesting.

(4) SmartST also seems quirky- once I have the GPS signal it seems to work, but trying to get this to hang together with the desktop version defies me at the moment. On the desktop, no maps are shown as activated (the maps were pre-loaded and active on the SD card for the UK). So how to get the two versions in sync? I cannot find anywhere the software key info, and I can't seem to retreive it from the PiN, at one point I thought I had lost it all as active sync took over and then no maps were available on the PiN either. A hardware reset brought the maps back up fortunately. Any suggestions on this would be very helpful.

(5) camera database- this was one reason for going for the PiN and not the ICN320- however I can open up the gps asc file ok in the point of interest in smartST, but when it saved it to the PiN, the poi files were not recognised. I could see them on the PDA, but not in the mypoi directory. So again seems to be a problem with the PDA and desktop versions not hanging together quite right.
Anyone know if I have missed a step with POI files, everything I can find refers to the PiN300 and smartST 2 not the 2005 version.

so ther are my first impressions, encouraging but many questions on how to get it all to work together.

Adek

[Adek]

OK, so I've had a couple of days to play with it now, and some points seem to have become clearer.

(1) GPS signal is improved dramatically by using a small MMCx antenna. Plugs into the PiN OK, and even if placed on the dash the signal is better than the PiN on its own. you lose a bit of the convenience as it is a further cale to plug in, but it seems to work and the ariel was less than 20£.

(2) pocket PC and files, I can copy and paste- should have read the instructions, keep the stylus pressed for a second or two and the cut/paste menu appears. still I prefer desktop OS but I can now manage files better.

(4 and 5) DONT follow the Navman instructions in the manual seems to work. LAUNCH SMARTST on the desktop but dont attach the PiN yet, go to the menu for recover registartion info from navman, then a different set of instructions follow , so follow these ones including connect to internet, only when it asks you to attach the USB to the PiN do so. Fill in the reg form and the software on the desktop is activated and then it will sync with the PiN and behold the active maps are then there...
Once this works, you can then open the POI files in the POI edtor function on the desktop. It saves them into the wrong place on the PiN so, copying them onto the SD card, in the navman/mypoi directory seems to work.

So all in all it now seems to work better, faster gps signal, and the speed cameras now show up and warn me.

no doubt I'll still learn more and have questions for the experts, but I'm much happier -only taken me a week to get this far!

Adek

[jerrytaff]

Hello,

I've had a PiN 570 for a couple of days now. Although its supposed to work straight out of the box, I found that it wouldn't lock or display the maps until I'd run active sync and downloaded the registration info from Navman.

Overall it seems to work as advertised, and is pretty impresive for the price. I have s

I too find it takes an annoyingly long time to lock; but once it has it seems to be quite reliable; routinely claiming to be tracking 6 or 7 satellites.

It took me a while to work out how to plan and review routes without having GPS lock first; for a while it didn't seem possible, and the manual doesn't really explain it.

I downloaded the pocketgpsworld camera database, and that works fine; Initially, I was surprised that I get the alerts for the cameras on both sides of the road, but having had time to think about it, I guess it is inevitable. So far, though I've had the warnings either too late, or far too early. What are the best values to use?

Instructions are generally quite clear, the only exception so far was the "magic roundabout" at Hemel Hempstead; the voice told me to bear left, then told me to turn left, when the graphic clearly showed that even when told to turn, I needed to take the second exit.

I've got four minor gripes with this system though:
1) settings->system->gps-> gps power setting off
does not seem to do anything. If I go back in, power is set to on..
2) If I try to save power and have the backlighting switch off after a period of inactivity, why can't the software switch it back on with the next turn announcement?
3) It knows the time and if it is day or night. Why can't it adjust the display between night and day automatically. Why can't it sync the time on the PDA to GPS time?
4) in 3d view why can't they display a compas? I'd like to know which direction I'm driving in.

Those are blown out of the water by my biggest concern: the power connector. Why do Navman incorporate the power into such a flimsy connector. I know its pretty much standard for a PDA, but the car power cord acts like a very stiff spring, and unless you can mount the unit directly in line with the cigarette lighter socket, it puts such a torque on the connector that it bends it. My son has had two pda style phones with similar connectors, and eventually both failed to sync to his PC due to problems with that connector. I'm resigned to expect it to be only a matter of time before this unit fails in the same manner.

Jerry

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