Navicore Personal for Symbian Series 60 review

Navicore's Personal is the first GPS navigation system to be designed for the Symbian Series 60 operating system used by Nokia and Siemens smartphones.

The kit contains a Bluetooth GPS receiver and an MMC card containing the Navicore software and maps.

Installation is simple. Once you have installed the memory card in your smartphone, the software pops up in the Symbian programs menu. To pair with the receiver, simply select Activate GPS in the software's main menu and choose the receiver in the Bluetooth device menu. The receiver uses the new SiRF III GPS receiver, so it is far easier to pick up weak GPS satellite signals in town or when the receiver is stashed in your car's glove box.

Planning a route is easy thanks to the Navicore software's logical interface. A destination can be found by entering the first four characters of the postcode or searching by street name and number. Waypoints can be set along the way for places to eat, fill up with petrol or visit. The Points of Interest (POI) database is comprehensive, with many tourist attractions and historical sites covered. You cannot download new POI files from the internet, but Navicore claims to be creating a utility that will allow users to add their own.

Route calculation is fast; even complicated routes with several waypoints take less than 20 seconds to plot. The Navicore Personal is also very fast at recalculating the route should you take a wrong turn, which is vital for getting back on track as quickly as possible. There is a choice of top-down 2D and 3D displays, plus a simple screen showing the route as a series of steps. The display updated smoothly on our Nokia 6600, but there is a delay when zooming in and out. Voice prompts are given with plenty of warning and repeated when the junction is reached, and are loud and clear with the option of a male or female voice. Most modern GPS systems have a roadblock avoidance utility, but this is the best we've seen. After selecting the roadblock option in the menu, a map of the surrounding area is displayed. Just click on affected roads to make them disappear from the map. The software then finds a way round the affected area.

This is an easy, incredibly quick smartphone GPS system. Route calculation and recalculation is fast, and the POI database is great. It's not cheap, but it's the best GPS system for a Series 60.

Author: Chris Finnamore