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Garmin Mobile 10 Review: Part II
Reviewed by Mr. Justin (weatheryoko):
I do apologize that I’m a little late the second part of this review. Work sometimes gets the best of you! Without further ado, let’s get started with the second portion of this review.
When you first start the application, you’re met with the “Legal” screen. Click “I Agree”.
You’ll now see the “Main Menu” screen. There are 7 options that you can select from the “Main Menu” screen:
- Open Bluetooth Connection Status page (NOTE: Once the BT GPS receiver is detected, this icon will change to a bar graph (where the number of bars represent the number of satellites used to determine your position)).
- Exit the Garmin Mobile XT program.
- Use this button to select where you want to navigate to.
- Use this button to display the “Navigation” screen (i.e. your position and if a destination has been selected, your highlighted route and directions). Although poorly named, this button should not be confused with the “Browse Map” icon found under the “Tools” menu (discussed shortly).
- Click on the “Tools” button in order to utilize most of Garmin XT’s features.
- Click on the “Settings” button in order to modify your settings (including the ones you initially set-up during the program install).
- Click on this to learn more about how to operate most (if not all) of XT’s features. Garmin Mobile XT has a very good help menu.
Section 1: Bluetooth Connection Status
If you see the classic “Bluetooth” symbol (indicating that Garmin Mobile XT has not found your BT GPS receiver yet) and you click on it, you’ll see the following screen: 
Garmin Mobile XT will continuously scan Bluetooth in order to find your GPS receiver. Make sure that your BT GPS receiver is turned on to ensure that Garmin finds it. From this screen you have 3 options: 1) Click “Done” in order to take you back to the Main Screen, 2) Click on “GPS Info” for more information regarding your GPS position (see screen capture below) or 3) Disable the Bluetooth Scan/Bluetooth Receiver connection (You will need to “Disable” your BT GPS Receiver connection when you want to use “Simulate Route” (See Section 5: Tools for more information)).
The “GPS Info screen will show you the number of satellites used to determine your position (note that in the screen capture above, Garmin XT is still scanning BT for the GPS receiver; consequently, Garmin XT is not tracking any satellites), the accuracy of your GPS fix, and your current speed and elevation. Clicking the “Back” button TWICE will get us back to the Main Menu.
Section 2: Exit
Simple enough…click on the red “X” and you will be asked if you really want to exit Garmin Mobile XT. 
Section 3: Where to?
Click on the “Where to?” button in order to select your desired destination. You can choose between several options: a user entered Home location, navigate to an Address, navigate to a Points of Interest (POI) (listed as “Food, Hotels...”), navigate to one of my Contacts, or navigate to one of My Locations (i.e. user-stored favorites). Tapping the down arrow reveals more choices: navigate to one of my Recent Finds (i.e. history), navigate to an Extra (see below), navigate to a City, or navigate to an Intersection. Tapping the down arrow reveals your final navigation option: PeerPoints (see below). 
If you click on “Extras”, you’ll see the following screen:
The Extra category in the “Where to?” menu provides access to extra, optional features that must be purchased from Garmin. Custom POIs are customized points on the map. They contain alerts that let you know if you are near a designated point (i.e. a parking garage) or if you are traveling faster than a specified speed. You can create or download Custom POI list and install them on your device using Garmin POI Loader software available from Garmin’s site. The SaversGuide (only available in North America) serves as a digital coupon book that notifies you of nearby merchants where you are eligible for a discount, such as restaurants, hotels, dry cleaners, movie theaters, and auto repair shops. Coupon shoppers rejoice. Travel Guide is an optional service from Garmin that provides detailed information, reviews, and recommendations about restaurants, hotels, and tourist attractions. Since I’m cheap, I decided against purchasing any of these optional “Extras”. Finally, Peer Points is a feature that allows you (your friends) to send your (their) current location to your friends (you) using SMS text messaging. This service is very similar to TomTom’s “Buddies” feature. Once you receive a Peer Point message from a co-worker/friend, you’ll be able to navigate to your friend simply by selecting “Where to?” -> “Peer Points” and then selecting their location (i.e. Peer Point Message). This feature makes joining up with co-workers/friends extremely easy. Peer Points also allows you to send a specified destination as a Peer Points message. For example, if you want to meet up with all of your friends at a local restaurant, you could send the address of the restaurant as a Peer Point message. Now all your friends could use your Peer Points message to navigate to the restaurant (instead of relying on you to give good directions). The first time you select “Peer Points” from the previous screen, you’ll get a message warning you to check your data for the costs associated with sending/receiving SMS and MMS messages.
Lastly, you’ll notice that you can also send a “location request” to people listed in your Contacts. Searching for an address, POI, city, intersection, etc, is very easy and intuitive. Regardless of which category you chose, you are presented with a multi-step wizard in order to help you find the desired destination. For example, if I wanted to search for 1 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington DC 20001, I would first click on “Addresses”. Then I see the following wizard: 
One of the things I did not like was Garmin’s choice to use an ABC keyboard as opposed to a QWERTY keyboard. I find it harder to use an ABC keypad. It would have been nice if Garmin gave users the choice of what type of keypad they would prefer to use. This could be an additional “Settings” option.
One of the things I really like about Mobile XT is the ability to enter only part of the word when conducting a search. For example, if I was looking for Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest, I could simply type “MASS” and hit enter. Garmin would locate all the streets that contained (not just started with) “MASS”.
Select the correct street by clicking on “Massachusetts (Ave, NE…) to see all the possible choices for your destination.
There is the address: 1 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001. Simply click on the appropriate address to bring up the following screen:
From here, you can simply click “Go!” to navigate to your destination. If you want to see more options for your destination, click on “Options”. You’ll get the following screen:
Under the “Options” menu, you can chose to save the address to “My Locations” (i.e. Favorites), assign the address one of your Contacts, view the weather at your destination (GPRS connection required) or send the location as a PeerPoint Message. Before moving onto the next section, I would like to comment on how Garmin integrates with Contacts on Windows Mobile devices. Unfortunately, while working with Mobile XT, I noticed that it does not handle “Contacts” well. When you click on “Where to?” -> “Contacts”, you’ll see a list of all the people you’ve entered into Contacts. When you select the Contact you wish to navigate to, you’re presented with the following warning: 
Why do I need to assign a GPS location to a Contact with a valid, simple to read address? If you want to navigate to this contact, you’ll need to click “Yes”. When you click “Yes”, you’ll have to go through a quick, 2-4 step wizard that will assign a GarminPoint to your Contact’s address. I don’t understand why this is necessary. Other GPS programs (TomTom, iGuidance, etc) do not require this, so why does Garmin? Note that you will have to do this for ANY contact you wish to navigate to. In addition, in case you have Contacts with multiple addresses (i.e. Work and Home), you can only assign one GarminPoint per Contact. If you want to navigate to their other address, you’ll need to delete the GarminPoint from the Contact and then re-assign a GarminPoint for that Contact once you’ve launched Garmin Mobile XT. This is pretty lame. This ended up be so painful, I didn’t use this feature in Garmin Mobile XT.
Section 4: View Map Clicking on “View Map” will display the navigation screen. This is the screen you will see while navigating to your destination. Garmin Mobile XT supports both a 2-D view (i.e. looking straight down) and a 3-D view. The screen shots below show an example of the 3-D view with the route highlighted. 
Your position is indicated by the blue pyramid looking object at the center of your screen. Your maneuver information is listed at the top of the screen (i.e. in 200 ft turn right on to Redland Road). Additionally, Garmin also draws a big arrow (white) on the screen to help you visualize the maneuver you are about to make. The (+) and (-) sign on either side of the screen are used to manually zoom the map in and out. A compass can be found in the lower left hand corner of the screen. Finally, the navigation screen also displays your current speed (lower left hand side) and your estimated time of arrival (ETA) (lower right hand side). It’s a very simple view with what appears to be succinct information. Now let’s look at what happens after the maneuver. After I complete the maneuver, Garmin audibly announces the next maneuver: “Turn Right in .7 miles”. But wait, I was listening to the radio and missed the voice directions. No problem I think, I’ll just look at the screen. Here’s what I see: 
Where’s the turn information? All it says is “0.7 mi ~ Redland Rd to Frederick Rd”. That doesn’t tell me anything. Am I making a right or a left? What lane do I need to be in? Well let me go a little further and maybe Garmin will tell me what to do. So I drive another third of a mile and this is what I see:
I can now make out the turn on the screen (it finally came into view), but I note that the directions at the top still read “0.4 mi ~ Redland Rd to Frederick Rd”. It is not until I get within 0.3 miles from my turn when Garmin finally tell me that I need to: make a right onto Frederick Road. This one example points out several disappointments I found with the Garmin software. First: Why do I have to READ the instructions? At 70 mph on the freeway, I need to be able to glance quickly at my GPS navigation program and know immediately what I need to (i.e. move to the exit lane, make a right turn in 3 miles, exit on the left, etc). I don’t have time to READ instructions. But that brings up my second complaint: Why is my next maneuver a big secret? From the screen shots above, you can see that I was less than a half a mile from my turn but Garmin gave no text indication of what the maneuver was to be. I was only able to see the maneuver because I was utilizing the 3-D view and I saw the arrow. If I was using the 2-D view, I wouldn’t have been able to see the arrow. Lastly, I said that I was listening to the radio so I missed the voice guidance after the previous turn (i.e. when I first turned onto Redland Road). It would have been nice if I could have tapped somewhere on the screen to have the program repeat the voice guidance. Well the only way to do that is to tap the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA). When you tap the ETA box, the last voice guidance is repeated, but you’ll get the following screen: 
I don’t want to see this screen. All I want is to hear the last voice guidance. Well evidently, you can’t get just that. You now have to hit the “Back” button in order to get back to the “View Map”/navigation screen. Again, this is where Garmin really fails to provide functionality that is found in virtually every other piece of navigation software. TomTom & iGuidance both offer the ability to hear the last spoken voice guidance without having to leave the navigation screen. Garmin also does not offer concise directions. For example, look at the last screen shot. Wouldn’t it be easier to understand (and quicker to read) if they just put an arrow pointing to the right and listed the street you’re supposed to turn on? Instead, you have to read, “Turn right on Frederick Rd”. I don’t want to READ while I’m driving because it’s not safe! Keep the display simple! I mean isn’t this easier to understand:
Or
As I stated before, once you have selected a destination (and your GPS receiver has properly determined your position), your route will be highlighted.
If you click on the main menu button (i.e. the center blue button on the lower information bar), you will see a couple of new options available to you (the red buttons below the “View Map” button: 1) Stop and 2) Detour.
The Stop button allows you to cancel the current route. The Detour button allows the user to avoid certain parts of the current route. Garmin allows the user to enter two different methods of avoids/detours. One is based on distance (i.e. avoid your current route for the next 2 miles) and the other is based on Avoid Turn. The first method would (and is) very helpful in avoiding a traffic jam or construction. You simply instruct Garmin XT to avoid the current route for a specified distance (see screen shot below) and ask it to recalculate a route based on your avoid request.  The second method, “Upcoming Turn”, I found to be fairly worthless (in my opinion). Based on your current route, you can instruct Garmin to avoid a particular upcoming turn. Why would one need this? I think a better avoid method would be “Avoid Road”. For example, if you hear on the radio that there’s be a reported traffic accident along your route and traffic is backing up, you would want to go into the “Avoid” menu and tell Garmin to avoid this street/road. But unfortunately, you can’t. You have to select either 1) “Avoid Distance” or 2) “Avoid Upcoming Turn”. If you chose “Avoid Distance” you would have to 1) wait until you’re on the road to select “Avoid next X miles” (otherwise, Garmin will start the “Avoid Distance” based on your current position. If you’re on a highway that’s making good time and the accident is on a local rood and you select “Avoid Distance” while traveling on the highway, Garmin will immediately detour you off the highway (because you asked it to create a detour for the next X miles). If you chose option 2) (i.e. “Avoid Upcoming Turn”), Garmin will just avoid the maneuver at that intersection. It doesn’t avoid the road itself. Consequently, after it avoids that particular turn, Garmin may (and did in my experiments) try to re-route you onto the road you’re initially trying to avoid. It would be nice if Garmin added a third option that allowed you to avoid temporarily a particular road. That way you could tell Garmin to recalculate a route by avoiding a street in its entirety. Based on our example, and if Garmin had an “Avoid Road” option, Garmin would continue to route you along the highway (which is making good time), and route you along a different local road toward your final destination. Garmin also allows you enter multiple “Via” points. This feature is very handy if you need to add a “waypoint” to your route. For example, if you are driving to work and one of your co-workers gives you a call and asks if you could pick him up on your way to work, you could simply add your co-worker’s location as a “via” point. A new route will be generated that will route you to your co-worker’s location. Once you have reached your co-worker’s position, Garmin will update the route in order to guide you to your final destination. I’ll show how this is done in the Section 5: Tools. My last thoughts for this section will talk about the routing (i.e. the recommended route that Garmin Mobile XT determined). The routing was absolutely fantastic! The recommended routes were in fact the best routes available (using my local knowledge of the roads). I tried numerous routes that even iGuidance and TomTom had problems with. Garmin got the routes correct. Based on what I saw, this product probably has the best routing engine I’ve seen. It’s fast and comprehensive. Kudos to Garmin for this!
Section 5: Tools From the Main Menu, if you click on “Tools” you see the following screen:
The Tools menu comprises two screens. Clicking on the down arrow reveals the second screen.
1. Garmin Online: As far as I’m concerned, this is the heart of Garmin Mobile XT’s functionality. Clicking on Garmin Online reveals the following options (NOTE: You must be connected to the internet through a GPRS connection in order to access these functions):
Traffic: Garmin Mobile XT downloads free traffic data in selected areas. This data is then used by Garmin XT in determining the most efficient route. If you click on Traffic, you’ll see the following screen:
This screen lists all the current traffic information. You can use the arrows at the bottom of the screen to scroll through the traffic reports. If you click on one of the reports, Garmin will provide additional information on the traffic report:
If you click on “Map”, Garmin will map the traffic reports (see below). The traffic reports are also color coded to indicate their severity (i.e. green = slight traffic delays; red = significant traffic delays expected).
In my opinion, this is the most useful feature of Garmin Mobile XT. I found the traffic information to be fairly accurate. You can configure Garmin to automatically re-route you around traffic or you can configure it to alert you of traffic incidents along your route. You can then choose to avoid the traffic or stick with your original route. As far as I know, Garmin Mobile XT is the only product to offer free traffic information. All other North America products charge for this information. Again, you must have a GPRS connection in order to download this information. Garmin gets its traffic information from www.traffic.com. You can see if Garmin/traffic.com provides traffic information for your area. It appears that Exxon/Mobil is sponsoring this service (see traffic events screen shot). If you click on the Exxon/Mobil link from the traffic events screen shot, you’ll be shown of list of the nearest Exxon/Mobil gas stations (in case you’re running a little low on gas).
Weather: You can also download the current weather conditions (and the 5-day weather forecast) for pretty much anywhere in North America. The screen shot below shows the weather forecast for your current position (default), but if you click on the button on the lower right-hand side of the screen, you can download the weather forecast for any city in North America.
If you click on any of the six boxes (i.e. current conditions or any of the 5-day forecast boxes), you can view the detailed forecast.
Hotels.com: If you click on Hotel.com, Garmin will connect to http://www.hotels.com/ and list the current hotels (and rates) near your current location.
You can sort the list by either distance (default view) or by price (see below)
If you click on any of the listed hotels, you’ll see the following screen:
On this screen, you will see the address, the phone number, the quoted rate (but you must call ahead and make a reservation in order to get the quoted rate). If you click on the phone icon, Garmin will dial the number automatically (you must be using Garmin XT on a Smartphone/PDA phone). If you click on the red-star icon, you can view additional information about the hotel.
Click on “Go” to have Garmin create a route to the hotel based on your current position. If you want to see where the hotel is located on a map, simply click on “Map”. If you click on options, you’ll see the following additional options:
You can save the hotel’s address to “My Location”, create a new Contact entry, view the 5-day weather forecast for the hotel’s city or send the location as a Peer Points message.
Fuel Prices: This is yet another useful tool found in the Garmin Online section. If you click on the Fuel Prices icon, you can view the current fuel prices for gas stations located near your current position. First, select the type of fuel you require.
Garmin will then connect to its online server and show the current gas prices near your position. As with Hotels.com, you can sort the list by either distance (default),
or by price.
If you click on one of the gas stations in the list, you can view additional information.
I found the quoted gas prices to be surprisingly accurate. I particularly like the fact that Garmin tells you when the gas prices were reported. Similar to the detailed view in Hotels.com, you can view the location on a map by clicking on “Map”, or view additional options under “Options”.
Subscription Status: If you click on Subscription Status, you can view the current services you are subscribed to. If you purchased additional services (i.e. SaversGuide or Travel Guide), you would need to activate them from this screen.
By clicking on Options, you can also edit how Garmin Mobile XT connects to Garmin’s online services. Your choices are: Always, Prompted or Disabled. This setting is also found under “Settings”.
2. PeerPoints: I covered this function previously. Click on this option to view all current PeerPoint messages or to request a PeerPoint message from one of your contacts.
3. Route Details: If you have already specified a destination and calculated a route, click on this option to view the route details (i.e. turn instructions). In addition, this is the option you will need to choose if you want to add a “Via” point. The Route Details default screen shows a list of the maneuvers based on your current route.
If you click on one of the listed maneuvers, Garmin Mobile XT will display the maneuver on the map (2-D view).
If you click on “Edit” from the previous screen shot, you will be able to add a “Via” Point (see top of the list). You can add “Via” points by using “Find” (this brings up the “Where to” menu), Browse Map (add a point by clicking on a point on the map) or by entering the “Via” point’s Latitude and Longitude.
You can add as many “Via” points as desired. Additionally, if you press the “Sort” button after you’ve entered in all your “Via” points, Garmin will determine the most efficient route through all the points. This would be extremely handy if you had 5 business contacts that you needed to see throughout the day. You could enter the addresses of all 5 business contacts (regardless of order) and have Garmin optimize their order so that it can generate the most efficient route. This is really a nice feature that I would like to see in more navigation products.
4. Browse Map: Browse Map does just that… It allows you to browse the current map.
Clicking on the Car icon on the upper left portion of the screen centers the map on your current position. The button to the right of that allows you to zoom into an area. The next button is a distance measuring tool and finally the fourth button allows you to get additional information on a selected objection (i.e. a selected POI).
5. Where Am I: Displays your current location and other useful information (i.e. nearest intersection, current weather (in case you haven’t looked out your window)).
6. Manage My Data: Manage My Data gives the user a robust method of managing all the data saved under Garmin Mobile XT. The user can edit/update their favorite locations/routes, view/record your track, update your Contact’s GarminPoint, manage your Map Sets, or manage your Custom POIs.
Managing My Locations: Clicking on the “My Locations” button, brings up the following screen:
If you click on Manage, you can add a “My Locations” destination or delete all the destinations found in your “My Locations”.
Additionally, if you click on one of the stored My Locations from the previous screen, you can edit its properties.
Managing Routes: Clicking on the Routes button allows the user to either View stored routes, Save the active route (if a destination has been specified), or create a new route (and save it for later use).
If you click on “Create New Saved Route”, you’ll see a wizard to help you select your starting point and your destination:
If you click on “View Routes” (from the previous screen), you’ll see all the routes that you have saved:
You can click on any of the routes from the list and edit its properties:
Managing Tracks: Select this option if you want to record your track for possible future use. In this menu you can enable/disable the track recording as well as specify how often you want Garmin XT to record your position. Use this menu to view/edit all saved tracks.
Managing Contacts: Click on this button in order to update your Contact’s GarminPoint.
Managing Map Sets: Click on this in order to manage your map sets.
Click on any of the maps from the list to reveal more information:
Managing Custom POIs: Click on this in order to manage your Custom POIs (if you have created or downloaded any).
7. Trip Computer: Clicking on this reveals a rudimentary driving history. This screen would be useful for people who need to document their mileage.
8. Simulate Route: This is a way of viewing your route before heading out on the open road. Its approach is a little clunky and not very straight forward. In order to use this you must: 1) Create a route (from the Tools->Route menu), 2) Disable your BT Receiver (from the Main Menu, click on the BT icon) and 3) Click on “Tools->Simulate Route”. I initially had problems with the Simulate Route function. Whenever I used the “Simulate Route”, it would lock my device (thus requiring a soft reset to unlock it). I finally figured out what was causing it. It seems that if you’ve enabled Garmin to automatically re-route around traffic, it may cause your device to lock up. Once I disabled the automatic re-route, the Simulate Route worked perfectly.
Section 6: Settings Most of these are self explanatory, but I’ll highlight things I thought were interesting.
1. Map Settings:
*Dim Roads: when a route is selected, Garmin will dim the roads that are not included in the active route.
Submenu of Map Settings: Map Features
2. System Settings:
*Device has Keypad: select “Yes” if your device has a traditional phone keypad.
3. Routing Settings:
Submenu Routing Settings: Avoidance Setup
This section allows the user to create what are commonly referred to as “Permanent Avoids”. For example, if you are prone to sea-sickness and never want Garmin to consider Ferries as part of the most efficient route, you would select Avoid Ferries. Garmin will never route you on a Ferry, no matter how much time it may save you (of course if the destination is only available via ferry, you would get a warning stating that Garmin was unable to calculate route to destination). If you click on Custom, you get the following screen.
Garmin allows the user to also enter either Areas or Roads as permanent avoids. This is a REALLY nice feature that allows users to define areas/roads that they never want to travel on or through. This is handy if a road along your route will be under construction for the next 6 months. All route calculations by Garmin XT will avoid these roads/areas until you remove/disable them.
4. Display Settings:
*Keyboards: Select your language.
5. Audio Settings:
6. Garmin Online Settings:
7. Proximity Points Settings:
8. About:
Section 7: Wrap-Up and Conclusions
Well you’ve now seen all the features in Garmin Mobile XT. So how does it compare to other navigation products on the market? That’s a REAL tough question. Let me try and explain why. When I first tried out Garmin Mobile XT, I REALLY wanted to like it. I read the manual and was amazed at what it could do. After using it for a while, I was impressed with the routing, but that is kind of where Garmin Mobile XT stopped impressing me. Before I start picking Garmin apart for what it can and cannot do, let us just remember one question: What is the function of a GPS Navigation system? It’s to make our driving experience easier and more enjoyable. Right? Its primary function should be to provide quality routes with easy to follow instructions (both audibly and on screen). Its menu navigation should be quick and intuitive. If I think about Garmin Mobile XT in those terms, then I would rate this product slightly below average. Let me try to explain. First of all, if you end up using this product on your PDA and you do not have access to a GPRS connection, then you don’t have access to any of the online resources (i.e. traffic, hotels.com, fuel prices, etc). It is the online features that really make this product stand out from the crowd. If we take that away, let us consider how Garmin Mobile XT meets its primary function. Does this product make our driving experience easier? Not in my opinion. I found that I had to read the maneuver directions. If I were using other products, I could glace quickly at the screen and get all the information I need for the next maneuver. That was not the case using Garmin Mobile XT. I also found that Garmin Mobile XT would not visually indicate the upcoming turn until you were less than ½ mile from it. Why? Also, I’m a big fan of audible directions, but Garmin doesn’t’ allow the user to tap somewhere on the screen in order to have the directions repeated. You must tap the ETA and then click “Back” to hear the directions. Why does Garmin make the user have to tap the screen twice, when other competing products give this functionality with just one screen tap? Another thing I noticed was the poor menu layout. Granted, the menu is pretty intuitive, but I was disappointed with Menu navigation. For example, just to enter in a “Via” point, it would take four screen taps just to get to the “Add Via” from the Navigation screen. Conversely, if you were using TomTom, it would take just two screen taps. I was also surprised to find out how many screen taps it would take to get back to the Main Menu from various screens. Depending on where you are in the menus, it could take anywhere from five to 10 screen taps just to get back to the navigation screen. Why not just add a “Cancel” button that takes the user back to the Main Menu? Are the Menus intuitive? Absolutely. But are they quick and easy to use? Absolutely not. Some other things I noticed during my review. - You really need to have an “all you can eat” data plan on your cell phone in order to use Garmin Mobile XT to its fullest. If you don’t have one, then this may be an expensive navigation system. - Unfortunately, just like TomTom v6, Garmin relies on the System volume for its volume setting. Consequently, unless you have your volume always set to maximum, it’s difficult to hear the verbal directions (see my previous review on TomTom v6 for a more thorough description and solutions to this problem). - I’m against piracy, but I’m also against proprietary hardware. Why do I have to use a special Garmin BT GPS receiver in order to use this product? Why can’t I use my Solar Power i-Blue BT GPS Receiver? The i-Blue has MUCH better power management than the Garmin BT GPS receiver. Because I’m a knuckle-head and I forget to turn off my BT receiver, I was constantly finding my Garmin BT GPS receiver with a dead battery. I was constantly having to recharge my Garmin BT GPS receiver (every couple of days) because of a dead battery. - Garmin has a unique way that allows Windows Mobile users to navigate to appointments stored in their calendars. You have to create a GarminPoint first in order to make this work. This is the first navigation application that allows this.
Bottom Line: Garmin Mobile XT is not a bad product, but I think it could be a lot better. Take away its online services and Garmin Mobile XT is a slightly below average GPS solution. Until Garmin updates their software to give simpler, more efficient maneuver directions (thus no longer requiring the user to have to read the directions), make menu navigation more efficient, and remove the requirement for users to use a proprietary Garmin GPS receiver, I would look elsewhere for a navigation product.
So let’s sum up the Pros and Cons:
Cons: - Multiple Maps on same storage card is not possible (can only have one map file). Whenever you transfer a new map to your storage card, the old map is erased.
- Need an “all you can eat” data plan to take full advantage of the software.
- No “Mains” charger for GPS antenna (only comes with a 12V car charger).
- Must use Garmin’s BT Receiver.
- Simulation is a little buggy (locked my device several times when I had enabled automatic re-route around traffic conditions).
- Users must “read” directions. Garmin needs to implement more graphics on directions so that the driver can quickly glance at their navigation system and be prepared for upcoming maneuvers thus minimize the amount of time they must take their eyes off the road. Forcing the driver to “read” the instructions is dangerous.
- Poor “Contact” Integration. Why do I need to create a GarminPoint for each of my contacts? The address has already been entered in the Contacts address field. Use that!
- Too many screen taps to get back to the navigation screen.
- No “Avoid Road”; Upcoming Turn is worthless.
- Takes 4 screen taps just to add a “Via” point! Why so many?
- Volume Control.
- Uses an “ABC” keyboard. I would like to have the option of using a “QWERTY” keyboard.
Pros: - Best routing engine in class.
- Can be installed on multiple platforms (PDAs and Smartphones) and multiple operating systems (Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm OS).
- Supports partial name search when trying to find a destination. This greatly simplifies finding the correct destination.
- Integrates well with devices that use cellular technology (i.e. receiving weather forecasts, getting gas/hotel prices, getting traffic information, direct dialing of POIs).
- Fuel pricing and traffic data appeared very accurate.
- NO SUBSCRIPTION FEES FOR TRAFFIC DATA!
- Find POIs along route.
- Can create an “avoid region” and permanent avoids for roads. Also, “avoid” road class is nice.
- Optimize route when a new “Via” is added.
- Integration into Calendar/Appointments.
Please note that these are my opinions. Everyone has different needs/requirements of their GPS navigation products. However, based on my needs/requirements, Garmin just did not impress me that much. I really wanted to like this product, but ultimately, I found this product lacked some of the core features that should be found in a quality GPS navigation program. I am looking forward to removing the piece of software from my device.
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