Road Angel Navigator 6000

Author's product rating:   

Reliability	Poor
Ease of Use	Average
Look & Feel	Satisfactory
Battery life	Satisfactory
Value for Money	Poor

Advantages:	Never get lost & more relaxed driving
Disadvantages:	Very poor routing & frequent crashes

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Satellite Navigation (SatNav) seems to be the 'in-thing' at the moment, so it should be no surprise that a cheaper Road Angel has been released. I bought this unit because it included (ha! ha!) Northern Ireland, where I was about to visit.

This unit combines black-spot/speed camera warnings with a navigator. The warnings are pretty good, but the audible warning of an average speed area becomes an annoyance when you travel along a 70 mile route which seems to be one big average speed area!

What You Get
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The unit itself: a neat 3" x 4"
Car windscreen mount
Mains power lead
Car power lead
USB cable for PC updates
Manual
256Mb SD Memory Card (installed with RA & maps)

Getting Started
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You can use the RA out of the box, but it's worth registering it to get the latest database. You get 6 months free, then have to pay £3.99/month to keep it up-to-date. Bizarrely, the annual fee is slightly more than paying by 12 monthly installments.

The RA can be charged & used as a portable unit (expect 6 to 8 hours if the screen is not lit).

The Basics (and we are talking very basic here)
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There are an array of settings that you can use, but the defaults seem pretty reasonable. Most settings are for audible warnings of various hazards or speed cameras in the RA's database.

Other settings include the type of vehicle (fast/van etc..) which seems quite accurate in timings and whether you want to avoid toll roads and/or ferries.

The simplest form of routing is by entering a single destination. You can enter a postcode or a partial place name from which the RA will offer possible places. Beware: if you enter too brief a name (3 letters minimum), you will often find the small screen will be overflowing with alternatives.

You can also plan a route, by selecting several places to route via. You can enter them in any order and move them up or down the planned route. However, it is almost impossible to tell which is the currently selected destination, so you can end up moving the wrong one.

Also available is a map facility, which is a nightmare to use, because of the small screen.

In Use
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The RA is WIn CE based (oh dear) and it shows!

I used it initially to get to Scotland from East Yorkshire and the first major problem was highlighted. It decides on a route and come hell-or-high-water it tries to force you back to it; even where it is clearly quicker to continue on your current route.

It is also too easy to accidentally cancel the current routing. Not a problem you think? Well, think again... The RA recalcs based on the starting point of the route plan and, therefore, tries to force you back to it!

I was routing to Coldstream (to make a stop there). However, I needed to turn right to my next destination which was 25yds BEFORE the RA said I'd reached Coldstream. Oh how I wished for a 'go-to-next-destination' button.

Anyway, I arrived in Scotland a little more relaxed than usual. So the RA made a difference as to how I drove, but that is the only good point for this unit.

The fun started when we arrived in N.Ireland. 90% of the places we intended to visit could not be found in the database (and there's me thinking that Portadown was a large town!). You may be forgiven for thinking that these places are not in the database, but no, I used the map facility & discovered that Hillstown, for example, was shown on the map, but I couldn't set it as a destination in the address mode. It couldn't be found.

Problems
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It crashed so often that I thought there must be a a crash-test dummy inside it. (Don't you just love WInCE?)

We were travelling at 30mph when it gave us a warning that we were exceeding 80mph! Shortly afterwards we were sitting at some traffic lights, when it advised us that we were exceeding the average speed limit of 30mph. How we laughed!

We were travelling a road well populated with roundabouts and the dear lady in the box kept telling us to take the 3rd exit, when, in fact, we needed the 2nd. At one point it directed us up a one way street the wrong way! Sometimes you'll be told to turn left, but the map shows that you should turn right.

All too often the RA got stuck in speed camera mode, which meant it was impossible to set routing. The camera icon appear over the required up/down images.

But in my opinion the biggest single flaw is that it does not recalc the route properly when you take a 'wrong' turn. We were heading to Banbridge and missed the turning; our fault, not RA's. However, RA insisted that we get back to the prescribed route, which showed the remaining journey to be 47 miles. However, I cancelled this journey and reset the route. RA than correctly calculated the route to Banbridge as 10miles.

This also highlights its major weakness; it does not route properly. I wanted the fastest route from Scotland to my home, which it gave as 420 miles and arrival 16:45. I knew that on the way there it was 303 miles and would have given an arrival time 15:30. How on earth can it be so far off?

However, I followed part of its route but chose the A697 which I know leads onto the A1. But RA wasn't pleased that I'd gone a different way and insisted I return to the A1 via a different route. Eventually, when it caught up with me, it revised it's distance down by 25 miles and arrival time by 20 minutes. This is utterly ridiculous; why bother having the SatNav?

Extras
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Because the RA is Win CE based it includes a MP3 player and photo album facility. Since the RA has a very small SD Memory Card this isn't a great bonus. On top of this, there's no audio jack, so you have to put up with tinny sound from the single, rear-mounted speaker. Definitely an after-thought and not worth a second thought.

Summary
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I came to hate this little black and silver box by the time I'd used it for a week. RA Navigator 6000 will probably get better, but it is unstable, unreliable & appallingly bad at routing. A great idea, badly implemented. Avoid it & buy something better.

POSTSCRIPT
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Since writing this review I have returned the RA for a full refund <phew>. Whilst in the shop I checked out the Tom Tom 510. This is £100 more than the RAN6000 and it shows. It's slicker, easier to use and appears to get the routing correct! Personnally, I can't afford the difference, so I'm without SatNav now. :(