Traveroute Co-Pilot 2000
Good: Navigation, speech
Bad: Weak maps/directions, price, speech recognition problems, requires Co-Pilot GPS
Co-Pilot 2000 comes with a
hardware GPS unit and has a lot of features but is rather
expensive ($400 retail) compared to the other packages reviewed.
The first thing about using Co-Pilot is that, like all navigation
using Windows laptops, it takes a long time to get everything set up
so you can start driving. By the time you get all the cables connected,
the laptop booted, and Co-Pilot started, you could easily spend five
minutes or more, just sitting in the driveway or parking lot (with
the engine running to power the GPS).
The Co-Pilot GPS receiver requires separate power, which can come
from the laptop via a PS-2 mouse port or via the cigarette lighter
of the car. Co-Pilot map data comes on one CD and may be installed
onto the hard-disk to allow for CD-less use in the vehicle (requires
650MB). Co-Pilot does not allow one to install only specific
portions of the data.
In terms of planning the route, Co-Pilot is similar to its sister
product Door-to-Door described above. Once you're on the
road and using Co-Pilot for navigation, the program operates in one
of two modes: Passenger or Driver mode.
In Driver
mode, Co-Pilot will not display the maps when the car is moving.
The text of the next route instruction (next turn) are shown on
the screen in big letters, along with an arrow
indicating the direction of the next turn, instead of the map.
Voice commands, such as "Where am I" or "Next Turn" can be given
to control the program.
In Passenger mode, the system assumes a passenger is operating the
laptop. The maps are visible and the program allows full program
control using the mouse.
In real-life use I've found the speech recognition of this system to
be better than the average. However, I have still found that it
sometimes stops functioning, requiring the program to be restarted.
In these situations, the program just stops responding to voice
commands for no apparent reason and you find yourself hollering
at your laptop to no avail. It can be very frustrating if
this happens just when you need the program during a real navigation
scenario.
Once you've picked a destination, entered it into Co-Pilot, and
enabled navigation, Co-pilot acts a lot like a dedicated navigation
system. It speaks out the directions in a reasonably clear voice
and in a reasonably sane manner. It is probably the best program
of those reviewed here in this regard. I particularly like that
pressing any key causes Co-Pilot to provide information on your
position, speed, the next turn etc.
While I do not have a tremendous amount of
experience with the program, I find the
interface for selecting and creating routes and waypoints difficult
to use. The feedback does not work well for me. I don't like the
lack of direct control over routes. Co-Pilot always wants to do
more than I want it to. It seems to have input modes or states that
can produce unexpected results. In general,
I wish it were more positive about what it was doing.
In terms of the driving directions,
the routes the programs selects are sometimes questionable.
In my experience, roads and turns are often mislabled and
the driving directions often exclude some important actions while adding
extraneous "turns". The routes Co-Pilot selects haven't been optimal
or common (i.e. it's not the way most people go).
One feature that Co-Pilot has that is really nice is the automatic
re-calculation of a route when you go off course.
None of the other programs reviewed
handle this situation as nicely as Co-Pilot. Unfortunately, since
Co-Pilot's driving directions are often confusing, incorrect, or
impossible to follow, it often leads you off course, making this
feature a necessity. In these cases, you will eventually get where
you want to go, but it might take some extra time that would have
been avoided with a more accurate route and better driving directions
to begin with.
I particularly dislike that when a stop
is added (e.g. to force Co-Pilot to use a road I want to use),
it declares this point the
"destination" until it is reached and passed. I still want to know
the distance to my real destination, not some random point along a
highway. If the routes it selected were better in the first place,
perhaps this would be less of an issue.
As for the map data itself, it's okay but not as good as
Skymap's ETAK maps.
It's unfortunate that Travroute only,
supports their overpriced GPS receiver. In general Co-pilot seems
a bit overpriced compared to the competition. Traveroute says the
price is justified because Co-Pilot implements features of full-fledged
navigation systems costing thousands of dollars. There may be some
truth to this in terms of the software features, but Co-pilot cannot
overcome the limitations of using a general purpose Windows laptop
in a vehicle, which is the major advantage of dedicated in-car
navigation systems. Using Co-pilot means having a mass of cables spread
around the interior of the car, with a laptop PC parked someplace.
Traveroute recommends using a cassette adapter so Co-Pilot can talk
through your stereo, but if you do that, you cannot listen to CDs or
the radio at the same time. These are all symptoms of trying to use
a laptop and Windows in ways in which they were not designed.
Dedicated navigation systems have screens designed to be readable in
bright sunlight; they have integrated speech designed to be heard
in a loud automobile at highway speeds; they have electronics
that operates on 12V power and they turn on and off automatically.
Traveroute and Co-Pilot offer none of these features.
Therefore, I don't believe Co-Pilot's features can justify a price twice as
high as Sony Skymap (including GPS) or four to five times higher
than other competitors (e.g. Rand McNally StreetFinder including
GPS for under $100). And, so far, regardless of price, I still like
Skymap in real-life use, mostly because it is a smaller and cleaner
package in the car, and it has better maps.
Garmin StreetPilot III
Good: Navigation, speech, maps, packaging
Bad: quirks, price, map data licensing
The Garmin StreetPilot III
doesn't really qualify as a software program. It is a stand-alone
navigation system. I included it in this list because it is what I
am now using primarily instead of a laptop PC and GPS software.
The StreetPilot III is a relatively small device with a color LCD
screen and an external speaker contained in the 12-volt in-vehicle
adapter. The StreetPilot III speaks directions, but cannot be
commanded using voice commands. It has a set of buttons on its
front panel that are used to access menus for entering addresses,
selecting destinations, setting options, and so forth.
It is more expensive than any of the software packages examined here,
with a list price of $1,200 (street price around $800), but it does
include all the hardware, so one doesn't need a laptop PC or
separate GPS.
In general, StreetPilot III is far superior to any of the PC laptop
alternatives for in-car navigation. If you have needs beyond, or
other than, in-car navigation, then some of the laptop PC packages
offer features not available with StreetPilot III. In particular,
if you want to customize maps or interface with the software in
some way, some of the other packages, such as Delorme and GPSS have
more to offer than the mostly closed architecture StreetPilot III.
The major downside of the StreetPilot III is the exorbitant costs of
the map data. When I got the StreetPilot III, it came with an unlock
code for one (of seven) regions, with additional regions costing over
$100 each. It appears that new units now come with unlock codes for
the entire US.
For the money, StreetPilot III is pretty good compared to its
competitors, but I still find it a bit lacking. The user interface
is marginal. It sometimes fails to recognize something as a 'turn'
and fails to provide navigation instructions.
The spoken directions are pretty clear and understandable (I use
the English version). It handles going off course well, and
automatically calculates a new route. It does not handle side-trips
very well and seems to have no mechanism for inserting 'avoids' (e.g.
to bypass a bad road, or traffic incident).
A lot of people love Garmin, and report wonderful tech. support. I
have to say my experience has been mixed. I would really like if
the SP3 were more 'open' and had some published APIs for interfacing
to other applications/devices. As it is, I'm stuck with whatever
Garmin decide to implement, which so far is not much beyond the basics.
Overall, I give it a 'fair' rating. It would be a bargain at $400,
but is questionable at $800.
The Beckemeyer Site
