.FLYINGHEAD FIRST LOOK
.TITLE The Navman PiN Pocket PC with built-in GPS
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY Navman, one of the best known makers of GPS technology, just announced a brand-new device: the Navman PiN, a Pocket PC handheld with a built-in GPS. We’ve had ours here at Computing Unplugged for a few days, so we’ve got some early impressions. Read this article to learn what we think.
Navman, one of the best known makers of GPS technology, just announced a brand-new device: the Navman PiN, a Pocket PC handheld with a built-in GPS.
We’ve had ours here at Computing Unplugged for a few days, so we’ve got some early impressions. Because we’ve only had it for a few days, we haven’t had a chance to take it on a real road trip, and you really can’t tell how well a GPS works until you rely on it to find your way someplace you’ve never been before.
Because of that, we’re going to give you a hardware overview and first impressions, but we’ll reserve our rating for a future article when we take the GPS technology through its paces. So, let’s start with first impressions.
.H1 The size matter
Our first impression is that this is one sweet device, with a gorgeous screen. It’s much smaller than I expected. Figure A shows it side by side with the Dell Axim X30 (a review of that’s coming soon), and the PiN is actually smaller.
.FIGPAIR A The Dell is on the left, the Navman is on the right.
Of course, what really distinguishes the Navman PiN (which stands for Personal Information Navigator, a take-off on the PIM acronym) is the pop-up GPS receiver. You can see it clearly in Figure B, in its extended mode.
.FIGPAIR B The GPS receiver flips up and down, feeling quite secure.
.BREAK_EMAIL For the rest of this first look, tap your mouse here.
Other than the small amount of extra space for the GPS, the Navman is quite small. In fact, other than the Palm Tungsten T3, we found the Navman PiN to be the smallest of a number of devices, as you can see in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C The Navman PiN is actually quite tiny.
You can also get a good view of how the GPS receiver looks when it’s closed in the above picture.
The device is actually the same as the Mio Digiwalker 168 from Mitac. In fact, when you pop in the Companion CD that comes with the PiN, you’re running the Mitac installer. It’s a bit confusing, but the device is still quite nice.
.H1 The software
The Navman PiN is a Pocket PC 2003 device and comes with a copy of Outlook 2002. Why, after Office 2003 and Outlook 2003 have been shipping for quite some time, this newly released product comes with Outlook 2002 is a bit of a mystery, but hey, it’s free.
The navigator software itself, shown in Figure D, installs on the GPS with an included SD card. It’s nice, because it makes setting up the handheld quite simple and is a really nice plus.
.FIGPAIR D Here’s the 3D view for navigation. You can also get a top-down view, which I think I personally might prefer.
As I said, we haven’t really had a chance to take the GPS navigation software for a full spin, so I’ll hold off on more details for now. Instead, let’s move onto the features of the handheld.
.H1 Pocket PC features
Did I mention the display was spectacular? The 16-bit, 3.5" color transflective LCD display bright, vivid and crisp. The device is quick, sporting an Intel PXA-255 300MHz processor with 64MB of internal RAM. It’s also got the SD slot mentioned above, and a nice, loud speaker, so you’ll be able to hear the voice navigation instructions.
At $499, you probably wouldn’t buy this just to get a Pocket PC, but for a device with built-in navigation and a GPS, that’s a great price.
It’s functional as a Pocket PC, but because it comes with a GPS, it trades off some of the other bells and whistles you might expect, like built-in Bluetooth or WiFi. That said, given the device comes with an SDIO slot, you can add those features pretty easily, should you need them.
If I’ve got any gripe, it’s with the button array. Both the power button and the record button are located on the same side, right next to each other, as shown in Figure E.
.FIGPAIR E The power and record button are located very close together.
I think these two buttons are too close to each other and you might wind up opening a recording when you intend to toggle power, or toggle power when you intend to record a voice note.
While we’re on the subject of tiny buttons, the front button array, shown in Figure F, is also pretty tight, especially the lower buttons.
.FIGPAIR F The front buttons can be pretty tiny.
One other glaring absence is a side scroll-wheel or toggle. On both the Jornada and the Axim, I’ve come to rely heavily on the side toggle for scrolling through Internet pages and for quick traversal of my address book.
Given that the main use of this device is for GPS navigation, where you’re not likely to be pressing the buttons much at all once your trip begins, I don’t think the button array complaints should be a major purchase concern. They’re livable, but a bit annoying.
.H1 Goodies in the box.
When you get the PiN, in addition to the Pocket PC itself and the software, there are a bunch of goodies inside the box. These include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET A small manual
.BULLET A leather-like case that nicely holds the GPS receiver hump
.BULLET Wall-plug power adapter
.BULLET Cigarette lighter power adapter, so you can keep the device charged on the road
.BULLET USB 1.1 connector cable for ActiveSync connections to your computer
.BULLET A removable window mount, so you can easily see the GPS while driving
.END_LIST
Unlike either the Axim or the Jornada, the PiN does not have a removable, replaceable battery. However, the device does come with a nice in-car charger.
.H1 So where does this leave us?
Overall, if I were just looking for a Pocket PC, I’d probably go with an Axim or an iPAQ. Missing features like the scroll wheel and removable battery, plus the slightly annoying button array would push me in that direction.
Likewise, if I already had a Pocket PC, I’d probably look at Navman’s add-on GPS devices (which we’ll review in a future issue), rather than this device.
But, if you’re planning on upgrading or buying your first Pocket PC and you travel a lot, this looks like a great device. Because it’s all self-contained, there are a lot less cables to play with. Also, because it’s portable, it’s particularly interesting to hikers, boaters, and bikers (both the powered and unpowered variety). After all, you can stick this inside your coat pocket, and check your directions when you pull over to the side of the road.
Because the Navman PiN has such a great screen, a full 64MB of internal RAM, a fast processor, and the Pocket PC 2003 OS, you’re definitely not sacrificing much of the Pocket PC experience to get a GPS device. In fact, for an all-around device, this Pocket PC is very intriguing.
Of course, the real acid test will be when we road test the navigation system. Stay tuned!
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the Navman PiN, visit http://www.navman.com/land/products/pin/index.html.
For more information on the Mio Digiwalker 168, visit http://www.mio-tech.com/products/gps/168/default.asp.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
