Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Delorme Handheld 2005 is claimed to be a full-featured navigational package. Instead, it does the following:
1) Creates routes onboard the handheld.
This is good, but it takes a ridiculously long time. I would be surprised if it can calculate a long route at all, since attempting to plot a 10 mile route on Molokai, HI (an island 38 miles long with 3 highways total) took almost a minute.
2) Cannot re-route automatically
(probably because it would freeze it up for a long time) Instead it announces: "off-route" and waits for you to press a button. If you're off route, most likely you're busy driving in an unfamiliar territory and probably shouldn't be trying to click an on-screen circle.
3) Cannot announce turns descriptively.
Instead it says "bear right", and leaves it at that. You can read the street on screen, and you'd better do that, because it seems to announce the turn a mile in advance, but sometimes there is less than a mile to go, so you really have no idea which "right" it's talking about.
4) Maps are COMPLETELY inaccurate.
OK, I'll admit, I haven't used the maps it came with. I used Delorme TOPO 5, and exported vector maps from that. Technically it should have the same street data.
I tested it in an area I know well. Sometimes, the street you should be on is nearby (you're between streets), other times - it's not. Sometimes I really have no idea what it's showing me - it shows me in a forest, or in some small neighborhood while I'm actually on a highway. As a result, it's constantly announcing "off route". I click the "re-route" button and it plots a route from a "forest area" :)
(Note: all other software I've used accurately displayed my on-map position in this area)
5) Map paging.
This is pretty bad (or maybe I'm spoiled by other software). The map is stationary while you're moving, and pages over once you reach the edge of the map. Not before. Basically, you don't know where you are going until the little arrow reaches the edge of the map, and it recenters.
6) Voice prompting on routes has to be turned on manually.
(Maybe if I read the manual I would have known that sooner)
7) The good:
-Street maps are displayed with good contrast.
-There is a collapsible status line which tells you what's happening and is good as a running log for figuring out what the program is up to (or what's wrong with it)
-Moving and zooming map is relatively quick.
-It has track logging which is hopefully compatible with desktop Delorme products
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Notes:
Hardware: Mitac Mio168 (Navman PIN 100) - Pocket PC2003, 300mhz
Other comparable products I've used:
-Mapopolis
-IGuidance
-Navman SmartST
All of these are better hands down. There are no features I can think of that Delorme offers that these do not, and everything Delorme can do these do better.
In fact, the only reason I even bought this was to display TOPO maps from TOPO 5.0 while I'm on vacation in Hawaii. It remains to be seen how well it can handle that.
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