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iGuidance v3.0
By iNav Corporation
MGN Rating -

Rating Legend

1 star: Find something else; save your money
2 star: Below average; not recommended
3 star: Average; performs as advertised but not inspiring
4 star: Good; worth the money
5 star: Great; best of its kind on the market

Review by Slacker
Review Date / November 13th, 2006

Note: Screen captures are created with Pocket Controller-Professional by Soti, Inc.

Here is what iNav has to say about iGuidance:

Routing

• New! Multiple stopover/waypoints
• New! Itinerary planning (user-defined trip order)
• New! Detour by distance or avoid road
• New! Shortcuts to "Home" (user-defined) & POI subcategories (program default)
• New! Trip status box displaying ETA, distance, remaining time, and speed simultaneously
• New! Trip computer displaying start/end time, total distance traveled, average & top speed
• Enhanced memory management for longer distance routing *see note below
• Improved bluetooth connectivity
• 4 pre-defined map color themes
• Single click POI navigation from onscreen icon (name/phone displayed if available)
• Real time weather report (internet access required via LAN, BT, mobile phone, Wi-Fi, etc)
• Turn-by-turn visual instructions with voice prompts
• Search by city or street first, intersection, city center, POI, LAT/LON (PPC only), contacts (PPC only), favorites, and recent
• Over 1.4 million POI destinations with subcategories (listed by alphabetical order, distance, or city)
• Maneuver guidance screen
• Route list display
• Quickest, shortest, local, major, ferry, toll, and carpool route options
• Automatic day/night map color switching
• Record and play route/track
• Customizable hotkeys for quick command (for PDA)
• Default (non-customizable) hot keys for quick command (for laptop)
• Automatic & dynamic rerouting for wrong turns
• Special safety features (speed and fog alert)
• Easy to use keypad for name entry

**User needs to load maps for all states passing through. Total route distance capability will be limited to SD/CF card memory capacity.

Map

• New! Updated Navteq map now including Alaska & Nunavut province
• Easily select map region by state, region, or by city/radius
• Detailed map display w/ street names in 2D & 3D view
• Zoom in and out

Visual Display

• New! New GUI w/ enlarged menu buttons & font size
• New! UMPC/Car PC version bundled
• New! Bordered roads
• New! Railroads & major roads marking
• New! Enhanced 3D display
• New! 240x240 square screen support
• VGA & landscape view support
• Full screen mode for laptop
• Geo-features differentiating lands, body of water, airport, etc
• Full screen mode for pocket pc and laptop
• Large finger accessible buttons
• Intuitive menu options
• Distance indication bar
• Automatic color modes for day and night display
• Bright colors for visual enhancement

Voice

• Turn-by-turn voice prompts
• Side of street & fwy # notification
• Automatic voice alerts before each turn/exit
• Repeat voice direction feature
• Multiple distance notification for each maneuver

I am a long-time user of Garmin GPS products, most recently the 2610. It is a solid platform in a standalone GPS that I trust completely to get me where I need to be. But traveling with it is less than ideal, as its size makes it difficult to pack in a carry-on, and the cost makes me uneasy about breakage possibilities in checked baggage. I travel quite a bit for business to places I have never been, so a GPS has proven invaluable to me over the years. But can my PocketPC phone device serve this function for which I have used the Garmin units? Read on!

The first screen you will see is a warning about using the device while in motion. PLEASE folks, read the warning! After the stories about people who talk on their phones while driving are equated to drunk drivers I can only imagine what kind of driver you will be typing in an address at 70MPH on the highway!

I received the software the day before I had to travel to Dayton, Ohio. I have been to Dayton once, just two weeks earlier, but was only there for a day, no hotel stay, and had little chance to see anything or go anywhere. My trip was from the airport to the customer location, and right back to the airport. You don't really need a GPS for that. But the second trip was an overnighter, so I had some free time to explore. However, none of the in motion screenshots are from the Dayton area (just so you don't get confused) as I was by myself. If you don't understand, read the last paragraph about using devices while driving.

Ok, on with the review. Here is the main menu, and some of the sub-menus. I will not go through every option on every screen, you can look at the iGuidance User Manual for that. I just want you to see the polished quality of the graphics, completeness of options, etc of the program. For example, in these screenshots you can see the many ways to choose a destination including Points of Interest and a really cool feature: destination based on one of your contacts! You can also set several shortcuts for common places like home to make routing quicker.

Here is a feature even my Garmin doesn't have: speed warnings. The software will tell you when your speed exceeds the speed you set, which is a great way to keep the flashing blue lights out of your rearview mirror.

Of course no GPS is complete without the ability to display raw GPS data:

You can choose various routing options such as roads to include or avoid.

Another feature my Garmin model doesn't offer is a 3D perspective so I really have no experience using a GPS with that type of display. iGuidance offers 3 levels of 3D display as well as a 2D default option. Below is the Display Options menu and screenshots of the 2D and all three 3D views as well as the night time display. PLEASE NOTE: The screenshots below only show major streets because of the zoom level. Watch the video below to get a real feel for the detail available.

As I said, I have never used a 3D perspective GPS before. Let me tell you, that change in perspective is MUCH easier to follow than a 2D perspective. I like to consider myself as having a good sense of direction, and have no problem following a 2D GPS, but the 3D view is so much easier. You will get a chance to see the difference in action a little later and decide for yourself.

And finally, these are the three quick menus available right from the map display:

That's a quick look at iGuidance while stopped, which again is the ONLY place you should be looking at these menus. But a GPS like this is not for standing still, right? Right! ROAD TRIP!

I recorded a short trip with full motion video so you can see it in action. Unfortunately there is no voice in the recording but it's there, telling you before your turns where you will have to turn. You can get a demo of the voice from here.

Click here to watch iGuidance in action!

In the demo I am selecting to use the points of interest database to find the Chili's restaurant that I know is close by. As you see the menu selections being made you can see how easy it is to select the type of food you want (American in this case) then type part of the restaurant if you have a specific place in mind. Also you will notice I switched between the 2D and 3D views. This should give you a pretty good idea of how iGuidance works in the real world even though it is a relatively short trip.

As I said at the beginning, I am a dedicated Garmin user. But I am so impressed with this software that I will leave my Garmin behind on my next business jaunt and use the iGuidance software. Why do I like this product so much? Because it not only works, but it does so seamlessly. One thing I noticed immediately is its functionality over Mapopolis, which I have used in testing in the past. Mapopolis requires you to tell it which maps to load and takes forever to start up if you have a lot of map data stored. iGuidance knows which maps to load based on the information from your GPS. Of course you have to put those maps on your device before you need them, but you don't have to know you are in Boutetort County Virginia to get the GPS to show you a map. This product is just so much more polished than other software products I have seen.

Did I encounter any problems with the application? Yes, one. When I first received the software there were long pauses in the voice directions, which were caused by the GPRS connection on the PocketPC device. iNav has released a patch which resolves this annoyance and the voice prompts are as they should be even with your data connection in use. If you have iGuidance you should go get the patch from their support section of their website.

In case you are wondering what GPS antenna I used for this review, check out another of my reviews on the Holux GPSlim 236. This software works great with it, and should work with any GPS that is compatible with your PocketPC device.

So there it is, the latest release of iGuidance from iNav Corporation. If you are looking for a US based GPS solution this one should be on your short list and is part of my Ultimate Pocket PC GPS Solution.