Garmin StreetPilot - Review

Garmin recently released StreetPilot over at the Windows Phone Market place. StreetPilot looks really good, is feature rich but carries a healthy price tag ($39.99). While the high price might be justified, Garmin doesn't provide a trial version to StreetPilot to allow Windows Telephone users a chance to try it out first earlier investing the non-refundable $forty.

Over the by few days we've taken StreetPilot out for a test bulldoze and subsequently tinkering with StreetPilot, it appears the navigation app is worth the $40 based on the number of features.  Merely, is information technology worth the $xl with regards to performance? Well...that may exist a different story.

Ease on past the break to read more on StreetPilot and see how it measures up to the sticker price.

App Layout

Instead of launching into a map view, StreetPilot launches into a carte layout. Once y'all get past the "Warning" page (which you can disable in the settings), you find yourself on a multi-page menu that covers:

My Locations: A listing of favorite or frequently traveled locations. You will also see a listing of recently institute destinations and your Abode location (can be established in the settings).

Where to?: This is a carte in itself giving y'all 9 options to find your destination also equally flying condition. You tin can search by address, become habitation, search locally via Google, view recently found destinations, search past category (food, hotels, gas, banks, lodging, etc.), favorites, search past metropolis, or search by intersection. The local Google Search pulls upwards categories of local establishments (dining, gas, lodging, auto repair, etc.) or you tin can search past keyword.

In searching for establishments, you can pull up details on the business organisation that volition requite you the physical address and phone number. From this detail screen you lot can create a route, save the location as a favorite, view traffic around the location or call the business.  The "Where to?" folio is a nice characteristic of StreetPilot in that it makes finding your destinations simple and efficient.

Traffic: Here you will find any information concerning traffic delays in your area. From construction to accidents, this may give yous a fighting chance to avoid delays. In tapping the specific traffic issue, you tin can pull up a map of the effected area.

Traffic information is also available as a map overlay and from the destination views which details the traffic bug for that particular surface area.

Suggestions: As you begin to utilise StreetPilot, information technology will generate suggestions on places about yous that might be of interest. Only tap on a suggestion to get a map view and more particular on the place.

On the top of the menu view is a keyword search field that y'all tin can use at any time to search past address or keyword. At the bottom of the screen, you lot'll run into two buttons that will send you to the map view or settings.

Settings

Garmin StreetPilot's settings are spread out over several pages which includes:

General: Establishing your Domicile Location, turning on/off the warning page and location services.

Sound and Display:  Here's where you decide backlight settings (always on, on when map is displayed, etc.), map colour (24-hour interval, night or motorcar) and turning on/off the vocalisation directions and speed limit alert.

Navigation:  This is where yous set your navigational preferences such every bit route way (shortest or fastest), route optimization (automobile/motorbike or walking), route views (2D or 3D) and an choose your Avoidances (such every bit price roads, traffic, car puddle lanes, etc.)

Map Layers: Sets the information layers on your map and covers traffic, favorites, suggestions and points of interest.  The POI layer also has a filter to limited what is displayed.

Locale: Hither is where you set how your distant units and temperature units are displayed (Imperial or Metric, Celsius or Fahrenheit).

Every bit piece of cake as StreetPilot is to choice up and apply, information technology was a petty strange non to see a Help Section.

Map View

Garmin'southward map view is fairly simple. You take 2d or 3D views with your electric current position represented by a motorcar. You accept buttons to the right of the screen to let you zoom in/out and center the map to your location. A button at the upper left pulls upwardly your map layer options.

The map is impact navigable in the general view (route not set) but when a route is set, you are restricted to zooming in and out.  You lot tin roam the map or compression to zoom when the route is displayed.

Once yous've set your route, navigational information volition be displayed at the tiptop and bottom of the screen. To the superlative you will find your turn and location information. To the bottom, you'll see your inflow time, speed and a pull up menu options (route overview, directions, walking style, stop navigation).

To the bottom right corner the speed limit will be display (if known). As you are traveling, should your speed exceed the posted speed limit, your speed will be displayed in red and a tone will sound. You can disable to tone but your speed volition continue to be displayed in cerise. It's a nice feature for those who are conscious about the speed limits.

The map doesn't accept an automatic zoom feature, which was a little disappointing. It would have been nice for the map to automatically zoom out when y'all increment your speeds and zoom back in when you lot tiresome down.

Some other issue I have with the map view is that the car symbol is a niggling on the large side and tin can obstruct your view of intersections or street names, particularly in the map view (the non-route view). The car looks nice but needs to be smaller or users given the pick to use a smaller arrow icon.

All in all, the map view will do but, for me, it takes a little getting used to.  Bing Maps just seems to have a cleaner appearance.

Establishing your route

Routing can be established many means with StreetPilot. You can search by keyword or address, apply 1 of the "Where To?" options or tap on a betoken on the map.  While yous tin can search for specific destinations by keyword or accost, Garmin adds the functionality of Yelp! or Poynt by allowing you to search by various categories, returning results in your immediate area.

In the map view, you can tap on a map point, and an data chimera will pop for that point.  The chimera will have the GPS coordinates of that betoken, an information button that will pull upwardly the nearest accost and intersection, a search button to find establishments in the area, and a weather button to pull upwardly current weather and a six day forecast for that indicate.

Garmin does a skilful task of presenting a lot of information on your potential destinations.  Over again, these features goes a long way towards the ease and efficiency of searching for destinations.

On the Road

I took StreetPilot out for a 45 mile route trip on a route I'chiliad familiar with.  This allowed me to deviate from the route (without getting lost) and judge route re-calculations.

StreetPilot was quick to establish the initial route.  Information technology is my understanding that StreetPilot downloads your route map to minimize the data connexion dependence while traveling.  Longer routes did take longer to establish just not painfully longer.  The speed in which routes was created was impressive.

Routes were re-calculated quickly and maps kept pace nicely while traveling.  The simply event I had with routes was that StreetPilot relied a lot on u-Turns and circling the block.  Re-calculations also seemed to take the long way effectually things and at one instance, directed me to a road that hasn't been in existence for years.  On the plus side, StreetPilot does permit you to remove u-Turns from the equation in the settings menu under the "Avoidances" button found on the Navigation folio.

Streetmap tracked my position and movement fairly accurately, maybe being simply a hair off but not enough to get me lost. Every once in a while, my position went off route or stayed on route even if I wasn't. StreetPilot corrected things quickly but the deviations were noticeable.

Vocalisation prompts were loud, clearly understandable but a fiddling also robotic for my taste.  Another plus for StreetPilot is that announcements not only informed me of the upcoming turn only too the street I was turning on to. Voice directions likewise included directional references to help y'all identify the correct road (e.k. get out correct onto I 459 Northward towards Atlanta).  This reduced the amount of time looking at the map and let you concentrate more on the road.

Overall, I was pleased with the "on the route" performance of StreetPilot but unfortunately there wasn't a silvery bullet to make StreetPilot a clear cutting choice above other voice navigation apps.

Overall Impression

Garmin's StreetPilot comes close to putting the functionality of a stand up alone GPS unit on your Windows Phone. The app ran smoothly with no bugs, glitches or crashes experienced and offers a ton of features. There is room for improvement which prevents the $40 app from being a articulate choice over the other less expensive alternatives such as Turn by Plough Navigation.

On one hand, none of the other gps apps matches StreetPilot's features. The search options, traffic information and atmospheric condition forecasts help gives StreetPilot a strong edge over the competition.

On the other hand, a few of the alternatives match Garmin's operation as far every bit routing, recalculation, and maps, dulling that edge slightly.

If you lot find yourself needing a voice navigation app on a mean solar day to day basis, Garmin is well worth the cost. If your use is less frequent, I remember I'd have to give one of the lesser priced alternatives a effort get-go (unlike StreetPilot, they accept trial versions).

Another thing to consider is that StreetPilot but supports English and is limited to maps of the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.  If you are an International traveller, the alternatives would exist a better option for the time being.

It is disappointing that Garmin didn't offer a trial version of StreetPilot. They could accept easily provided a version that limits routes to twelve miles to give Windows Telephone users a taste of what thier app offers. Especially when you're asking customers to pay $40 which is not-refundable.

Overall, Garmin'southward StreetPilot is a good voice navigation app.  I think if you make the investment you lot'll be pleased but if you're nevertheless on the fence, requite the trial versions of the other phonation navigation apps a try offset. If you lot find yourself needing more features, then StreetPilot may be the ticket.

You can find Garmin StreetPilot here (opens Zune) at the Marketplace.

See our other GPS review round-ups for Windows Phone 7:

• Voice Navigation Round-up: GPS Voice vs. Plow past Turn Navigation
• Voice Navigation Round-upward (part 2): aSpass vs. Silver Navigator

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/garmin-streetpilot-review

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