ViaMichelin GPS Navigation Pack

Via Michelin Navigation Package for the Palm PDA

How I Came to Own this Product
==========================
I was going away to university after my summer break and I planned on taking my car with me, for the first time ever. Being a not very confident driver I was planning on writing and rewriting the directions. With my birthday coming up I was constantly being bothered with the one question that I dread; "what ...
...of ideas, I had a tv that worked fine, my hifi was still hanging on, my car stereo had just been fixed, there was no beauty products that I wanted and I had more clothes than I knew what to do with. It was my mum who suggested to me getting a Palm PDA. "But what would I do with it?" she pondered the question for a while before picking hers up and showing me; "it's really useful!". But the idea had got me thinking; "I'd like ... more

Via Michelin Navigation Package for the Palm PDA

How I Came to Own this Product
==========================
I was going away to university after my summer break and I planned on taking my car with me, for the first time ever. Being a not very confident driver I was planning on writing and rewriting the directions. With my birthday coming up I was constantly being bothered with the one question that I dread; "what would you like?" This particular year I was completely out of ideas, I had a tv that worked fine, my hifi was still hanging on, my car stereo had just been fixed, there was no beauty products that I wanted and I had more clothes than I knew what to do with. It was my mum who suggested to me getting a Palm PDA. "But what would I do with it?" she pondered the question for a while before picking hers up and showing me; "it's really useful!". But the idea had got me thinking; "I'd like sat nav" I told her, she looked annoyed; "that's more than we can afford". A little embarassed I dropped it at that, until a solution came out of the blue. One night she was sat on Ebay when she came through to the lounge and beckoned me to come and have a look at something. Someone had put a very odd listing on, it was about 1000 words and had no structure, just endless sentences strung together, but after reading it a few times it seemed that the seller had listed a Palm PDA and the via Michelin Satellite Navigation pack, to the naked eye however it looked like just the satellite navigation pack and hence we managed to bag the whole lot for £101.00. After a long wait, and after it had been delievered to the wrong house and returned and picked up and delivered again I finally got my bargain bundle...

Features
=======
Since I'm talking about the via Michelin pack here and not the PDA I'm just going through what is available with the Satellite Navigation Bundle.

> Hardware
It's a very simple setup with the hardware really, the package comes with a cradle, that can either be fixed to a window with a suck pad, or fixed to the dashboard with a sticky pad. I personally chose the suck pad as it means not struggling with glue etc when I come to sell my car. Apart from that there are 2 wires; one that plugs into the cigarette lighter and one that is magnetic and when fixed to the metal of the car picks up a better GPS signal.

What's good about the hardware?
It's so simple to set up and it's compact so it can easily be put in the glove compartment if you're leaving the car and don't want it to be on display. It's reasonaly light, especially the cradle, so it isn't going to end up falling off the wall. It's completely simple to use - you plug it in at your cigarette lighter, find somewhere for the magnet, slide the PDA into the cradle and you're sorted.

Any Issues with the hardware?
Well there are a few, please bear in mind I'm telling you these to give you an accurate description of the system and I'm sure that other systems share some of these issues. The first is that because I only have a little car, things can be quite close together and the plug for the cigarette lighter is quite big, with a wire that sticks out from the top. On numerous occassions, when going into 3rd or 5th gear I have punched the plug quite hard. It might not seem like much, but on long distance journeys it can get really quite annoying (and a bit painful). I've given myself some good bruises doing it. The second issue is that you have to make sure that the plug is in correctly and doesn't get knocked, because from my experience the tiniest knock in the wrong direction can turn the whole thing off, and unlike some of the other GPS systems Via Michelin does not work when it is not plugged into the car, this is understandable because it is the cradle that receives the GPS signals not the PDA. Another small issue is that when using the suck pad on the windows you must make sure that you put it on really tightly, there have been occassions when turning a corner and the whole thing has come off the window and either hit the passenger or hit the floor quite hard (not sure which is worse!!). This has happened to me before even when I have taken great care to fasten the pad securely to the window.

>Software
My version of the software may be getting a little old now so please bear this in mind, the version is 1.5.4.a (2005). I imagine that the software is basically the same so aim to provide a basic overview of what is available from the system.

On opening Via Michelin Navigation which can be done via the main menu on your PDA, three options are displayed:

The first option available to you is "Navigate to", this is the option that I use most frequently as it allows you to enter an address that you wish to navigate to now. Although you can use this option when planning a journey for soon; if you select where you want to go and a map is displayed, you can turn your PDA off and it will still be there when you turn it back on. Alternatively after going through the process of choosing your desired location, you can choose to save the location and then it will be available to you when choosing "Navigate to" followed by "History" or "My favourites" depending how long ago you travelled to that location. When clicking on the "Navigate To" button on the main menu you are brought to the "Select Destination" menu, from this menu you can choose:
- Address : Navigate to a specific Address
- POI (Point of Interest) : Navigate to for example a hotel, petrol station, shopping centre (full list of POI's will be given later in the review).
-Select on Map : This opens the map so you can choose where you want to go, this is good if you do not know exactly where you want to go (eg. road name) but you know the general area that you want to be in.
-My Favourites : A list of saved locations (locations can be saved once you have either found them on a map or entered their address.
-History : A list of recently visited locations, great for if you need to go back somewhere in a hurry.

The second option available to you from the Main Menu is “Plan your journey” this is brilliant if for example you were going on holiday and being very organized about it. You can choose your departure point and your arrival point, either by selecting them on a map, entering the address and/or postal code, or choosing a POI.
The third option available from the main menu is “settings”. This option takes you to the settings menu, from where you can choose the following options:
-Navigation : Displays menu with the following options
>Display – Allows you to choose Night Mode (a darker mode that means for night driving so that you aren’t put off by the bright light in the car), 3D View/2D View, Landscape, Navigation Settings (where to view information), Perspective (you can choose either an areal view or a driving view).
>Route – You can choose Route parameters (allows you to choose what kind of vehicle you are travelling in and which route you would like to take; the quickest or the shortest) or Speed Settings (allows you to set the speed limits for different kinds of roads; motorways, major roads, other main roads, local roads, streets & small streets)
>Sound – Allows you to Activate/deactivate the sound, this is useful for if you get fed up of the harsh female voice and have a passenger that is willing to do some navigating for you. Change the Volume (don’t have it on too loud, it can really make you jump when your driving, I would recommend about the middle of the volume bar is loud enough for most people.
>Warner – Allows you to set a speed warner so that you are aware of if you are speeding, sounds useful? I urge you not to turn it on if you haven’t tested it, it is an alarm that sounds loudly the minute you hit the speed limit and scares the life out of you. It doesn’t stop until you go back below the speed limit again. I never ever use it because it’s far too off-putting and in my opinion is more likely to cause an accident than prevent one. You can also choose to have a POI alerted (after my experience with the speed warner I must admit I have never even touched the POI alerter for fear that it might set off a very loud siren inside the car. However I know that you can instruct it to inform you of chosen POI’s (for example a beach).
Map Menu:
Change or Delete Map – Here you can choose to change your map if you have a number of maps for different countries, you can also choose to delete a map or change a maps language (useful if your map is in a foreign language that you can’t understand!)
Display Traffic Direction – Very very useful if you live somewhere like Sheffield where there is a lovely one way system that is very difficult to get round, the map will show you what direction the traffic can go in down a certain road.
Display POI’s – Choose to display specific POI’s (perhaps you are looking for somewhere to stay, choose only to display hotels)
Change Category – This is for personal POI’s (admittedly I have never tried adding one, but from what I understand you can add your own personal POI’s , choose a category for them to go under. Obviously this is where you can change that category.
POI Men:
Display POI’s – Choose whether you want to display specific POI’s (see above)
Change Category – Repeated Option (see above)
POI Alerter – Repeated Option (see Navigation menu)

General:
Language – Change the language (enough said really)
Units – Choose between Km and Miles
About – Information about Via Michelin Navigation

GPS:
Here you can choose whether to activate or deactivate your GPS, also there is an option called “Speed in baud”, it’s currently set to 4800, your guess is as good as mine, I lost my manual when I moved house and haven’t recovered it yet, so I think I’ll have to say, although I’m rather embarrassed about it, I really don’t have a clue what that means. If anyone does please leave a comment and let me know, as I’m intrigued now. From this menu you can also see how strong the GPS signal that you are receiving is, which is good to do before you start cursing and pulling the plug out and pushing it back in as I have done in the past. Sometimes you do find in big cities for example that the signal is quite weak and that the programme can lag a little bit. This can be a little annoying when you get to a roundabout and it still thinks your half way down the last road, although handily it replans your route when you take the wrong exit.

POI’s
So I keep going on about these POI’s and haven’t actually fully explained what they are yet. POI’s are Points of Interest and can be anything from hospitals to Shopping centres, it’s really useful when you are in a place you don’t know that well and gives you peace of mind. A few weeks ago Sheffield experienced some major floods, my boyfriends works at Huddersfield and happened to have my GPS system with him, after trying and failing to get home that night he used the POI system to find himself a hotel in Huddersfield, it was nice to know that with it he’d be able to find everything he needed, from a bed to sleep in to petrol to get to work the next day.
List of POI’s:
Car Park
Cash Dispenser
Cinema
College/University
Concert Hall
Convention Exhibition
Ferry Terminal
Government Office
Hospital/ Polyclinic
Hotel or Motel
Museum
Nightlife
Opera
Park and Recreational
Petrol Station
Pharmacy
Police Station
Post Office
Railway Station
Rent-A-Car-Facility
Rent-A-Car-Parking
Rest Area
Restaurant
Shopping Centre
Sports Centre
Swimming Pool
Theatre
Tourist Information
Zoo
I’m going on holiday in a few weeks and so many of them POI’s give me such peace of mind, I know that when I go I’ll be able to find something if I need to (for example a hospital, or somewhere to fill the car up, and the Ferry Terminal!!)

Navigate To
When choosing Navigate To - Address you are asked the following: “Arrival Town/Postcode” you can enter the name of a town e.g. “Redcar” or the beginning of a postcode e.g. “TS10” but you cannot enter a full postcode e.g. “TS14 3DS”. This is one of the downfalls of the system, you cannot simple know a postcode you must either know the town and the road name, or the start of the postcode and the road name. Once you have found the road you can either choose to navigate to you can choose to select a house number, centre on street (can be tricky on very large roads) or select street intersection. Your destination is then displayed on the map. You can do all this in the comfort of your own home and there is no need to sit in your car with the GPS plugged in.

What’s great about Via Michelin for the Palm PDA
========================================
It’s a reasonably cheap solution to a problem and doesn’t require buying a whole new system, if you own a Palm PDA then it is definitely worth considering as an option as it means you can just buy basically an add on pack. You can also synchronize your PDA with the computer software provided and do things via the computer if you prefer that method, which is a bonus above some other navigation systems. It’s extremely easy to set up and very easy to use, there are no complicated menus; it has a very easy layout. It’s Michelin, and the standard of the maps reflects that, they are of good quality and have plenty of POI’s listed, and there are plenty of options to help you find what you are looking for.

Down Points
==========
I have had my software for 2 years now and it has crashed and I have lost everything once. Now because of my own disorganized nature I had lost the disk by the time it crashed, simply because after a year it had been no problem what so ever, although I did go ahead and buy the software again, I wasn’t incredibly impressed. Another down point is that some addressed can’t be found (please remember this is the 2005 copy, this may have changed), where I come from is a small village and my address in that village cannot be found. The alarms that sound when you break the speed limit are a little too much and as I said previously are more likely to cause an accident than prevent one, they really made me jump, I was hoping for something a little more calm such as the voice saying “you are exceeding the speed limit” or something less noisy at least. Again I will say that the plug is rather big for those with smaller cars, however I did pick up an extension for the cigarette lighter from poundland which seems to work very well, so I won’t complain too much about it. Another down point is that unlike some other GPS systems it does not work when it is not plugged into the cigarette lighter, which can be a problem as my cigarette lighter is very easy to knock as it is so close to the gear stick.

Would I recommend it?
===================
Well yes and no, for those with Palms and perhaps like me, on a bit of a budget, it is indeed a cheap solution, and works effectively, there is no doubt about it. However having used a TomTom and seen the difference I would definitely say if you aren’t strapped for cash or think that you could put a bit of extra cash towards a GPS system then I would urge you to go for something more like a TomTom, although the price difference between the two does reflect the differences in quality. If I was to go for value for money I would definitely go for the Via Michelin software, however because of the cheaper price you definitely aren’t guaranteed the same number of features and the reliability of a TomTom.

Thanks for reading! 

...less