Reviewed by Mr. Justin (weatheryoko):
Well GPS fans, I have to admit. I’ve been looking forward to reviewing this GPS navigation solution for a while. I first heard about this software when Garmin first posted a beta-testing version (for Windows Mobile devices) online last fall. Recently, Mr. Joe Kee of www.buygpsnow.com was kind enough to send me an evaluation copy of the Garmin Mobile 10 package. All he asked was that I post my thoughts on it after I’ve had time to “kick the tires”. As always, “Thanks Joe!” Enough of the pleasantries! Onto the review!
A quick note too. I have a felling that this review is also going to be quite lengthy. I’ll be breaking it up into 2 sections. The first (which you’re reading) will cover the installation of Garmin Mobile XT onto your PDA. The second section will cover the features of Mobile XT and its strengths & weaknesses.
Part 1: Background.
Even though Garmin is a well established company, with a long history of providing off-road GPS solutions for geo-location (i.e. for hikers), I’ve never used a Garmin product before (I guess I’m not the outdoorsy type). Within the past few years, Garmin has been expanding their product line into the automotive GPS navigation arena.
Garmin (thankfully) has chosen NavTeq maps as their map data provider. I find these maps to be slightly superior to the other major data provider, TeleAtlas. It should be noted that the accuracy of either data provider is region-specific (i.e. in some areas NavTeq provides a greater level of accuracy, while in others TeleAtlas is superior). If you’d like to compare the maps from the two data providers for your area, please visit:
http://uwmike.com/maps/source/
You can toggle between NavTeq and TeleAtlas maps.
Part 2: Geek Speak.
Below I’ve outlined the hardware that was used during the review.
Hardware: - Desktop: AMD FX-55 w/4GB RAM running
Windows Vista x64 and Windows XP
Pro (dual-boot system).
- PDA: Qtek 2020i running WM2003 Second
Edition. ROM was flashed with the most
recent O2 ROM. Mobile XT was running
from RAM. Available RAM was
approximately 60 MB. All maps were
stored on SD Card. SD Card used was
a San Disk Ultra II 2 GB (plus USB) SD
Card.
Part 3: Package Contents.
Starting in the upper left corner and going clockwise:
- Product Box
- Garmin “set up and go!” (a.k.a. Quick Start Guide). This can be found online here: link
- Garmin Mobile XT DVD (This DVD contains both the “City Navigator North America NT v8” (a.k.a. nRoute) navigation software for your Laptop/PC as well as the “Garmin Mobile XT” navigation software for your PDA).
- A VERY important yellow sheet that contains your serial number for your Mobile 10 product, a registration code (needed for registering your maps; more on this later in the review) and an unlock code to unlock the detailed maps (again, more on this later in the review). Don’t throw this away!
- 12-volt adapter cable to power and charge the included Bluetooth (BT) GPS receiver (the Garmin GPS 10x)
- Finally, (from left to right) the battery for the (Garmin GPS 10x), the Garmin GPS 10x, and a belt clip.
Part 4: Get the BT GPS receiver ready.
Following the instructions in the set up and go! manual, I installed the battery into the Garmin GPS 10x. I plugged one end of the 12-volt adapter cable into the 12-volt receptacle in my car and the other into the GPS receiver. The battery began to charge immediately (power led began to flash). I pressed the power button located at the top of the receiver and the BT led began to blink.
Here’s where the Garmin Mobile 10 software really shines. Other GPS products that utilize a BT GPS receiver usually require you to go through a “pairing” process. This can be a little complicated and may confuse someone who’s never used a BT product before. Garmin Mobile 10 does NOT require any pairing. The software (once installed) will take care of everything. VERY NICE! Kudos to Garmin. Onto the software installation.
Part 5: Installation of Software.
Before I go into the process of installing the software onto your desktop and/or PDA, I want to let you know that I had zero problems installing the software to my PDA. The set up and go! manual (plus the installation wizard) makes the installation process very easy. Let me sum up what we’re going to do.
When you first put the DVD, you’ll be presented with the following screen:
If you want to use Desktop PC/Laptop (not your PDA) as your navigation platform, choose “Install nRoute”. If you want to use your PDA (not your Desktop) as your navigation platform, choose “Install Garmin Mobile XT”. Yeah, it’s THAT easy to install the software. After choosing which navigation software you want to install (i.e. either for your laptop/PC or your PDA), you will be presented with a series of easy to follow installation wizards. I would like to note, however, one thing that Garmin fails to mention in the Quick Start Guide or the User’s Manual (which can be found here: link) is that if you want to use their “detailed” maps on your PDA, you will first need to “unlock” the maps found on the DVD and then install a program named “MapInstall”. “MapInstall” is an application that allows you to transfer your unlocked, high-resolution, “detailed” maps from the DVD onto your PDA. This program is installed at the end of the installation. Unfortunately, Garmin does not provide any documentation on how to use this program (Don’t worry though, like the installation process, unlocking and transferring maps via “MapInstall” is very intuitive. I’ll talk more about it near the end of the installation process).
So now we know what the installation process will entail:
1) Install Garmin Mobile XT on our PDA.
2) Unlock the “detailed” maps.
3) Install “MapInstall”.
4) Run “MapInstall” in order to transfer your unlocked, high resolution, “detailed” maps to your PDA.
One last thing I’d like to mention. For those of you out there who are using Windows Mobile Devices, there are two methods you can use to install Mobile XT onto your device.
1. Method 1: Transfer all data/programs via ActiveSync to the storage card inserted in your PDA. WARNING: This method is EXTREMELY slow. It took me approximately 35 minutes just to install the program! I don’t even want to tell how long it took me to transfer the detailed maps.
2. Method 2: Use a card reader on your Laptop/PC (i.e. take the storage card out of your PDA and plug it into the card reader on your laptop/PC). This is the method I would recommend. I took me less than 3 minutes to install program when I used this method.
Either method will work. I’m just trying to save you some time. Armed with your installation DVD and your PDA, let’s go through the process.
Step 1)
· Method 1:
o First, you’ll need a storage card inserted into your Windows Mobile device in order to install Garmin Mobile XT.
o Second, connect your Windows Mobile device to your laptop/PC.
o Third, make sure that you’ve established an ActiveSync connection (if you have not installed ActiveSync, you will need to do so before you start installing Mobile XT on your PDA).
· Method 2:
o Insert your storage card into the card reader on your laptop/PC.
· Now, insert the enclosed installation disk into your computer’s DVD-ROM drive. The installation program will automatically load the following screen:
Similar to iGuidance 3.0, the Garmin Mobile 10 package provides GPS navigation products that can run on both your laptop/PC platform (Garmin’s nRoute) and your Windows Mobile (PDA) platform (Garmin Mobile XT). For example: if you travel with your laptop (and don’t own a PDA), you could install ‘nRoute’ onto your laptop and use that for your automotive navigational needs. Conversely, if you only travel with your PDA (or find it difficult to balance your laptop on the dashboard of your rental while doing 75 mph), you would install ‘Garmin Mobile XT’ onto your PDA. Both software products will use the same high-resolution, detailed map data provided on the installation DVD. This review will focus on the PDA-side of the house; however, if there is enough interest from those reading this blog, I’d be happy to add a section that covers ‘nRoute’.
Step 2): Click on ‘Install Garmin Mobile XT’. Aterwards, you’ll see the screen shown below. The Garmin installation software should automatically recognize the storage card that has been inserted into your PDA or into the memory card reader on your Desktop/Laptop PC. Select the appropriate storage location (my storage card was located in my Windows Mobile device) and click on the “Install” button.
The installation software will begin copying the necessary files to the storage card you selected. This part of the installation will copy all the necessary files needed by Mobile XT (NOTE: This includes a “highway/interstate only” map of North America. For “door-to-door” navigation, we’ll need to transfer the “detailed” maps from the installation DVD to our PDA after we’ve completed the installation process.)
Step 3): Once the files have been copied from the DVD to your storage card (it took about 35 minutes using method 1), you’ll get the following screen shot:
Follow the onscreen instructions. I had to remove my storage card (and re-insert it) in order to initialize the installation process on my PDA. For those of you who installed Mobile XT via your PC’s memory card reader, all you’ll need to do is insert the card into your PDA. Installation onto your PDA will start once you’ve inserted the card into your PDA. Let’s set up our Windows Mobile device first and then we’ll come back to our Desktop PC in order to transfer the “detailed” maps to our PDA.
Step 4): Installation of Garmin Mobile XT on your Windows Mobile Device. When prompted, click “Yes”.
Step 5): When the installation is complete, click “Yes” in order to configure our BT GPS receiver and answer some basic configuration questions.
Step 6): Click “I Agree” in the lower left hand corner (my screen capture program cut off part of the text. Sorry.).
Step 7): You will now be prompted to answer a few configuration questions (i.e. default language, preferred units of measurement, etc). NOTE: you can change all of these settings at a later time so don’t sweat it if you make a mistake.
I chose English.
I prefer Imperial units vice metric.
Several features/services of Mobile XT require an internet connection (via GPRS/EDGE/3G). Depending on your data plan, you may want Garmin Mobile XT to prompt you before any content/data is downloaded. This is an extremely nice feature if you’re not on an “all you can eat” data plan.
Step 8): Finally, you’ll get to the BT Connection screen. Garmin Mobile XT will now attempt to find and connect to your Garmin GPS 10x Bluetooth Receiver. You remembered to turn it on, right? J It will first scan for your BT GPS receiver.
Once it has found the BT GPS receiver, you’ll notice that “Scanning Bluetooth” has been replaced with “Acquiring Satellites”. Note that the software automatically turns on your BT radio and that you didn’t have “pair” the BT GPS receiver with your device. The software took care of everything. Again, kudos to Garmin for making this extremely simple!
Since I was inside when I installed Mobile XT (I doubted that the receiver would be able to establish a GPS fix), I pressed the “skip” button. After clicking “Yes”, I was taken to the Main Screen.
We’re doing pretty good. So far, we’ve got the Mobile XT software loaded onto our Windows Mobile device, but we haven’t unlocked or installed our detailed maps yet. So let’s do that next.
Part 6: Copying Detailed Maps to your PDA.
Garmin has come up with an interested method to try and combat piracy of their software. From what I can tell, each Garmin GPS 10x GPS receiver is “stamped” with a unique code (i.e. the unlock code found on the Yellow sheet of paper). When the Garmin Mobile XT program is launched, it looks specifically for a Garmin GPS antenna that has been stamped with your unique unlock code (again, the unlock code found on the Yellow sheet). If the Mobile XT program cannot find the GPS receiver with an unlock code that matches the unlock code of the detailed maps you transferred, then you’ll never be able to use the program for navigation. It will indefinitely “Scan Bluetooth” for the appropriate GPS receiver.
I have to clarify that I do not support software piracy, but this method of anti-piracy seems a little extreme to me. For example, what if you accidentally lose your GPS receiver because you left it in a rental car? You have to buy a new receiver obviously, but are you going to have to buy another “unlock” code? I would hope not. Also consider that you HAVE to use the GPS receiver that Garmin provides. What if you don’t like it? (Which I don’t, but I’ll talk more about that in part 2 of this review.) Shouldn’t you be able to use a GPS receiver of your choice? What if you don’t like BT and want to use a hardwired GPS antenna (because you want to charge your PDA while navigating and only want to carry one cable)? I prefer GPS navigation applications that allow me to use ANY GPS receiver. Bottom line: I don’t like being forced to use Garmin’s GPS receiver, and I think Garmin was a little excessive in their efforts to combat software piracy.
Going back to our Desktop PC, we’ll see the following screen. Press “Next”.
Step 1): You’ll receive a prompt stating that you’ll need to “unlock” your maps before you can download them to your PDA (or use them in nRoute). We’re going to unlock them now. Make sure that you’ve got that Yellow sheet of paper with your unlock code handy. Press “Next”.
Step 2): Follow the steps outlined by the Unlock Wizard. Click “Next”.
Step 3): Select “Yes, I have a 25-character unlock code” and press “Next”.
Step 4): Chose “I have a 25-character Unlock code. I will type it in” and click “Next”. NOTE: The unlock code it tied to the Garmin GPS 10x Receiver that came with your package. If you lose your antenna, you can no longer use your program for GPS navigation and you will need to purchase a new antenna and possibly a new unlock code!
Step 5): Enter your 25-character unlock code found at the very bottom of your Yellow Sheet and click “Next”.
Step 6): If you haven’t done so already, I would HIGHLY recommend that you register your Garmin Mobile 10. The process is simple and relatively painless. Select “Yes, I have a new Registration Code” and click “Next”.
Step 7): Follow the instructions in the wizard. Click “Next”.
Step 8): Assuming that you do not have a myGarmin account yet, click on the “Create New myGarmin(tm) account” link. (If you already have a myGarmin account, enter your user name and password and skip to Step 17.)
Step 9): Once you click on “Create New myGarmin™ Account”, your default web-browser will launch and you’ll see the following screen:
Since you need to create an account, click on the “Create new account” link (directly below the “Sign In” button).
Step 10) Enter your full name, email address, and a user name/password combination that you can easily remember. Choose your preferred language, click on the box that states “*Agree to terms and conditions” and then click “Finish”. (Remember your user name and password. We’ll need these in Step 17.)
Step 11): We want to register our product, so click on the “Product Registration” link.
Step 12): Enter the required fields and click “Next”.
Step 13): Select “Garmin Device or Accessory” and click “Next”.
Step 14): Enter the 8-digit serial number found on your Yellow sheet. It’s labeled “Unit Serial Number” on your Yellow sheet. Select the appropriate purchase date and enter www.buygpsnow.com for “Dealer/Retailer”.
Step 15): The next screen will present you with a summary of the product you are about to register. Verify that everything looks correct. If everything is correct, click “Next”. If something’s wrong, click “Back” and make the necessary corrections.
Step 16): The final step will ask you to enter your Registration Code (also found on the Yellow sheet). It’s the alphanumeric code listed as “Registration Code” on your Yellow sheet. Enter the code and click “Next”.
We’ve finished the registration process. Good. But we still need to unlock the detailed maps!
Step 17): Since we’re done registering our product, go ahead and close your web-browser (You don’t need it anymore). You should now see the same window from Step 8.
Type in your user name and password for your myGarmin™ account and click “Next”.
Step 18): The next screen will ask you to verify all the information you just entered online in your myGarmin™ account. (I’ve deleted all of my personal information, but your screen should show the form filled in with your personal information.) If everything looks good (which it should), click “Next”.
Step 19): Great! We’re done with the MapSource Unlock Wizard. The final screen we’ll see is shown below. Just click “Close” to close the wizard. (If you try to enter a registration number, you’ll get an error message stating that that registration number has already been used/registered.)
Before we move on, let’s recap what we’ve done. We’ve successfully installed Garmin Mobile XT on our PDA. We’ve got the BT GPS receiver working properly and we’ve successfully registered and unlocked our product. All we need to do now is install the MapInstall application and transfer the detailed maps to our PDA.
Step 20): With the Unlock Wizard window closed, we’re back to our installation screen (from Part 5, Step 2). Click “Next”.
Step 21): A new (and last) installation wizard will pop up. This final step will install MapInstall onto your PC. Click “Next” to continue with the installation.
Step 22): Read and agree to the licensing agreements. Click on the two boxes and then “Next” to continue.
Step 23): Choose what directory you’d like to use to install MapInstall and where your local copy of the detailed maps will reside. The installation program will copy the detailed maps from the DVD to your harddrive so you don’t have to carry the DVD around with you. I used the default values. Click “Next” to continue.
Step 24): The installation of the MapInstall program will begin.
Step 25): When the installation is complete, click “Finish”.
Step 26): Finally, we’re finished with the installation. All we need to do now is transfer some of the “detailed” maps to our PDA. Click on the option “Launch MapInstall Now” and click “Done”. This will launch the MapInstall application.
Step 27): Hang in there! We’re almost done! The process of transferring the detailed maps to your device is really very simply. Just follow the instructions in the wizard.
Step 28): Chose your target device and click “Next”. HINT: I’d recommend that you remove the storage card from your PDA and insert it into your PC’s memory card reader. This will SIGNIFICANTLY speed up the process of transferring map data to your storage card. If you’d rather leave the card in your device and transfer the data via an ActiveSync connection, you can do that too. It’ll just take a lot longer. I pulled my card out of my device and inserted it into the card reader (which shows up as E:\ on my computer).
Step 29): You’ll now see the MapInstall’s Main screen. Using this program is pretty intuitive. Use the 8 arrows to scroll the map, and use the zoom slider (on the left hand side) to zoom in or out. In order to choose a detailed map that would like to have transferred to your storage card, simply click on the appropriate region. For example, if I wanted to load the region of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, I would simply zoom into that area and click the states with my mouse (see second screen shot). Additionally, on the right-hand side of the MapInstall screen, you’ll notice a bar graph that represents how much storage space is available on your storage card. When you select a detailed map to transfer to your storage card, the graph will update itself automatically to show you how much free space you have remaining.
I’m not to sure how Garmin went about creating the various map regions. Unlike competitor’s software, the map regions are not always whole states. Rather, a single state can have multiple map regions associated with it. For example, California is broken up into three map regions. You can load all or just one of them. Also unlike competitor’s software, you can easily route between map regions WITHOUT having to switch regions (as long as the regions are adjoining). If the map regions are adjacent to one another, MapInstall simply “stitches” them together.
After you’ve selected all the maps that you want transferred to your storage card, click on “Next”.
Step 30): Press “Finish” to build your maps. NOTE: The map regions you select do NOT have to touch. For example, I selected all of California, Maryland, Virginia and D.C. when I built my map region. With this selection I cannot do Coast-to-Coast routing, but I can freely navigate throughout California OR throughout all of Maryland/Virginia/DC. Because California and Maryland/Virginia/DC are not next to one another, I cannot navigate from California to the Maryland/Virginia/DC region.
Step 31): MapInstall begins building your specified map and transfers it to your storage card.
Step 32): When the build is complete you’ll get the following window.
Congrats! You’ve got everything installed onto your PDA.
This’ll wrap up this portion of the Garmin Mobile 10 review. In the second portion, I’ll talk about some of the features/services that come exclusively with the Garmin Mobile XT. Expect to see the second portion of the review in about a week. See you soon GPS fans!
Next Blog: Initial Feedback, Strengths and Weaknesses and Bug Fixes!