I received an update to my Destinator 3 called “Destinator PN”, it has been a while since I got this, but I just read my Destinator 3 review, and thought I should update it.
It can use a TTS (Text to Speech) engine, but I have found that the TTS is pretty useless.
I tend to play MP3’s on my PDA while I drive, and don’t get me started on how useless the music players are on the Pocket PC, I used the built in Windows Media Player 10 (WMP), which would be GREAT if the playlist management was better, even the ability to save a playlist would make it one of the best.
The problem with the other players is they use the systems main volume as a control, and I turn WMP’s volume to 75% which is equivilent to changing the volume in winamp on the pc, it only affects WMP, so I can hear my directions from Destinator at full volume, but the WMP music is playing at 75%.
Anyway, overall the interface is ALOT better, and having a “Home” button makes going home pretty easy.
The modular screen layout is nice, I usually have the next turn at the top, speed in the bottom row, and ETA/ETD in the second last.
The Estimated Time to Arrive/Destination are weird, it shows the time in hours and minutes, it takes a few minutes to get used to
“ETD: 13h 51m ETA: 01h 10m”
Which is time when you arrive is 13:10, in 01 hours and 10 minutes
The maps are more detailed, and probably newer, but seem to have the wrong speed limit on most streets, this is most annoying on my home street which has been 60kmh for about 5 years, in Destinator 3 it was correctly listed as 60, but Destinator PN seems to think it is 50kmh (which is default speed on home streets in Australia)
It also seems to take ALOT longer to map streets, My PDA (the rx3715 is a Samsung 533mhz processor) actually seems to have a hard time processing it.
I want to hear about someone who has used it on one of the newere HP’s with GPS built in, but I hear they have a tomtom deal when you buy them, so that might be hard to find.
Also the memory requirements seem to be on par with the old version plus new features.
I have to keep my primary drive pretty clear of crud or I can’t play WMP and use Destinator PN at the same time.
I am consiering downgrading for the differences in speed and memory, but overall if your PDA can handle the upgrade (or has kick ass amounts of “Base” memory) it is worth the upgrade.
But I would like to note, the map quality is better, the speed limit quality is worse.