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CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 11/09/2004
- Released on: 06/30/2004
The $499.95 PiN incorporates Navman's SmartST II mapping and navigation software, which differs in some important ways from Mitac's Mio Map--and not always to its benefit. While the PiN itself is just as compact and versatile as the Mitac Mio 168, we found its navigation software somewhat inferior. It'll steer you from point A to point B, but the frustration is often not worth the trouble.
In terms of design, the main difference between the Navman PiN and the Mio 168 is the case coloring (charcoal gray vs. silver); otherwise, the PiN has practically the same compact dimensions (4.4 by 2.7 by 0.9 inches, 4.2 ounces) for which we lauded the Mio. The GPS antenna sits on the back and adds a bit of bulk, but it's solidly constructed and feels like it can withstand a reasonable amount of punishment. Its 3.5-inch TFT screen displays 65,000 colors and a 240x320-pixel resolution; four shortcut keys and a five-way navigation joystick sit just below it. Rounding out the chassis are an SD/MMC expansion slot, a front-side speaker, a 2.5mm headphone jack, and an infrared port. Under the hood of the PiN, you'll also find the same components as on the Mio 168, including an Intel 300MHz PXA255 processor, 64MB of RAM, and Windows Mobile 2003. Unfortunately, there's no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
To get started, the PiN comes with a simple desktop program that lets you load maps one state or province at a time for all of North America. Unfortunately, only 30MB of the PiN's 64MB of RAM is user accessible--not enough to hold map data for some states. Likewise, many states are too large to fit on the included 32MB SD card. (The Mio 168, for its part, has about 50MB of user-accessible memory--enough to hold nearly any state.) Also, you can't split maps to create smaller files, nor can you divide a map's data between main memory and a memory card. It took about 11 minutes to download the state of Michigan--a 40MB file--to one of our own SD cards.
Once you transfer the maps to your PDA, the SmartST II PiN application lets you navigate to an address (entered manually or lifted from your contact database), an intersection, or a point of interest (POI). It keeps a list of recent destinations and lets you create a list of favorites. We particularly liked the Quick Nav option, which provides one-tap access to three user-selected favorites and includes a handy return-trip option. But it's not all smooth sailing. We had difficulty getting the software to recognize the GPS antenna, which should have happened automatically. It took a trip to the manual, which is excellent, and Navman's Web site to discover the correct COM-port settings.
Next, we experienced considerable frustration manually entering addresses. Instead of a field for city name, SmartST provides an entry called Area, which, true to its function, can be a state, a city, or a county. We tried Northville, Michigan, and were presented with a drop-down menu containing six choices, including Northville, MCD; Northville, Lyon MCD; Northville, Northville; and other confusingly worded entries. Regardless of which one we chose, SmartST II couldn't find the corresponding street or house number. We weren't sure if this was the result of incomplete map data or a problematic address, so we tried routing to a nearby intersection. Inexplicably, the software didn't seem to recognize the meeting of the two streets, even though we could find it by manually searching the map.
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