US Navicore on the N800
 

I received it this AM and have been putting it through it's paces all day.

User Manual

It does everything I hoped it would and is the killer app I was looking for to help justify my purchase.

Pics and more to follow later.

BTW, it comes with US east, US west, Canada and Alaska pre-loaded on a 2 gig (not 1 gig) with 390 MB of free space.

These maps are also loaded on a CD for re-installation. The suction cup windshield attachment arm is very well made. All in all, well worth the $239 with free shipping. :)

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

This might be a dumb question, but does it require a cell phone with Bluetooth or is it independent? Looking forward to the pictures.

Hoss

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

It does not need a cell phone.

Awhile back there was talk of a bundle to be distributed through at least Compusa. Maybe that has been shelved due to Compusa's store closings. Has anyone heard any recent news about a bundle?

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Wow! I didn't think they'd have gotten around to releasing the U.S. version so shortly after Europe. I'm most pleased!

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

I was even more pleased when I found out that Navicore did not forget all those who bought Navicore for the Nokia 770 earlier.

Navicore offers free (!) update (software and maps) for those users. The update includes the software for the N800 as well as for the 770.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Preliminary stuff...

A. Interface

1. Every thing you need for North America is included on the 2 gig Mini... (Ships with an adapter).
Tap and hold a POI and a context menu pops up with among other things, a web link. If the device has a connection and the POI has a web site, the app will use it to find additional info.

2. There are three color themes (for lack of a better term); regular, bright sunshine, and nighttime. All are easily switchable and work in 2D or 3D.


There is no appreciable performance hit between 2D and 3D views.


3. There are 3 English voices to choose from; Christopher (older dude with English accent), Sara (perky, grade school teacher type), and Todd (American used car salesman).


Sarah is the best, IMHO but she can get testy at times :D

5. All menus and text inputs are geared toward finger input with the exception of the initial settings screens.


B. Navigation

1. The map view scales based on vehicle speed at about 5 mph increments.


There are also 3 route modes; car, bicycle, and walking.


2. Three warnings for turns are usually given based on speed...

"In 1 mile, exit right"

"In 1/2 mile exit right"

and

"Exit right"



3. Additional direction is also added if necessary.

"In a half mile exit right then in 2 tenths of a mile merge left."

or

"After the next intersection, move to the right lane"

4. Rerouting is painless and happens in about 3 blinks of the eye once the decision is made by the app.
Going off the planned route will provoke "turn here" instructions if you missed a turn until that option is no longer physically available. Then you will hear "Try to make a U-turn". If you do not, this must prompt the app to re-calculate a whole new route if appropriate.

(The "U-turn" message seems to be at the point of no return.)

5. At any point in the route you can calculate detour directions around segments.


C. Other

There are 3 volume levels for voice volume (plus off).
Sarah seems to work well over the din of a moving auto. I imagine the English dude would be nice while walking. And, the staccato, used car salesman would be right for cycling.

Other apps including media players can run concurrently with no perceivable performance hit. Voice directions are heard over music tracks but do not pause play back or lower player volume.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Thanks for the review! What's the main difference between the modes? I would expect the driving mode to turn the map as you drive, while the walking mode would be north-fixed. Or?
Thanks in advance!

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

I don't know yet... I'm thinking it is the auto scale log used.

There is a menu accessible setting that toggles between "always north" and "direction" orientation.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

What kind of GPS equipment is included? Is it SirfIII? I'm not sure if it's better to just order the software from Navicore directly-a little cheaper if one already has a holder and a GPS module

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

That's good enough for me..
I'm thinking of getting this kit.
I'm also interested in the answer to flude99's question, as I own a (non-Sirf III) GPS unit already. If the Navicore's one is better then I'll get the full kit.

Thanks!

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Can you say something about the usability in bright sunlight?

I ask because I currently use TomTom Navigator 5 on a Treo 650 and recently got an N800. I was going to upgrade to TomTom 6 but I thought I might prefer a GPS on the superior screen of the N800. Plus, I'm more likely to replace the 650 (to get HSDPA) sooner than I'll replace the N800.

The problem was that I happened to take out the N800 while I was in the car, navigating with the Treo 650. I was shocked to see how hard it was to read the N800 display. Since I was stopped at the time, I could just use my free hand to shade the display, but that is not an option while driving.

I need a GPS that I can reliably glance at for a very brief moment to get the needed info. I can't always control the amount of sunlight in a driving situation. I'm really disappointed by the poor readability of the N800 in direct sunlight.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Same problem here.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Yep, you're right, it's "US Navicore on the N800"!

It is not available on the Canadian Nokia site, and the US Nokia site will only ship to a US address charged to a US credit card.

I 'phoned Nokia Canada's "Customer Service":rolleyes: and was told it isn't available and they almost said as much as they can't be bothered answering enquiries from Canadian customers about it!

Doing a quick check with Google it doesn't seem to be available from any Canadian retailers yet.:(

Oh, well, I'll just wait and see.
.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Nokia's not to specific about it >> http://www.nokiausa.com/accessories/...:LD-3W,00.html


From the spec sheet I'd say Sirf III:

MTK chip sets would claim 32 channels vs. this^ ones 20...
Sirf II would be 12 if I remember right.




fldude99, I can't say enough how pleased I am with the mounts fit and finish. It is something I would expect to pay (and would pay) at least $40 for. It is quite the engineering feat, almost art like. They did not scrimp on the material costs either. (I'll have crappy cell phone pics up later if I can't find anything better on someones image server. ;) )

With that said and a BT GPS going for about $80 shipped. Add another $20~30 for a 2 gig card and the software alone would have to sell for under $100 for me to buy it ala carte.

zorg, sunlight is not much of a problem. I have used it now for two sunny days with out much difficulty. But again that is the beauty of the mount. It moves the unit in a few inches under the vehicles roof line

The offset arm is banana shaped and about that long. It has a mechanically activated, 3" diameter suction cup on the windshield end and a horizontal swivel on the business end. There is a vertical swivel on the device clip. The swivels are secured with knurled knobs threaded into metal that is molded into the ABS plastic. Much like what you would find on a professional recording microphone. Not the threaded plastic you find on lesser quality products that strips out after a few uses.

The device clip is pliable ABS and not brittle plastic. Only the external MMC card is blocked because of the kick stand. Everything else is accessible while in the clip... even the stylus.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Did I say banana?


... more like a cow horn. :D



... I also said crappy cell phone cam didn't I? My apologies. :)

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Thanks for the review. What is the coiled cable visible in your photos? I'm guessing it's a power cord?
Neil

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Yup... a $.99, Comp USA, going out of business, bargain bin power cord to be exact. :)

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Here's a thought: friend of mine has a N95-does anyone think it's possible to download the maps from the CD to a microSD so as to work in the N95? We could then share the cost of this kit

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

i received the navigation kit yesterday and am somewhat disappointed, but have an over-all positive feeling about it, so far. hopefully there will be some updates to both the navicor software and the teleatlas maps.

here's some quick impressions:
we live in the capital of vermont; a relatively rural state. i found the bluetooth connection between the satellite receiver and the n800 to be quick and easy. gps finds satellites quite quickly and accurately located its position on the ground. the car bracket is kind of big, but also very adaptable. i mounted mine in the corner of the driver's door window, near the outside mirror. (no worry here about rolling the window down for tollbooths). screen was easy to read, though still not sure about sunny days as yesterday was clouded over and rainy. listened to both sara and christopher and both voices were loud enough to be heard over the radio.
have so far found several mapping problems. could not find a tavern in it's real location; put it somewhere west of it's real location. also said the location of another restaurant in the downtown hotel was a mile further west than it's real location. (amusingly, it showed a free wifi location at the cemetery two miles outside the city.) applied the name of a town 5 miles away to the intersection of the correctly named two main streets of the city. i followed its lead and drove the back roads over to a location 6 miles east of our house. though it had basically found the shortest route it did try to lead me up a dead end street in the city. during the trip it displayed a road that was not there, then a mile later did not show a road that was there. it found only one address on a short road with three houses, but located it at the furthest end of the road, but not near any of the three homes. though it correctly showed the majority of the back roads it did not have a name label for many of them. the voice does not 'name' the streets it tells you to turn on to. though the software seems to usually be able to very quickly figure out and display a new route if you miss a turn, it may 'show' the new turn but not 'tell' you to take it. and sometimes, if you drive past a turn it does not 'display' or 'tell' you to turn around or make a series of turns to reverse direction, though the green 'trail' turns off.

if you don't remember the actual name or address of say a restaurant 40 miles away you have to plan a route to a street in that area, then go back and ask it to find all restaurants along the route. does not appear poi are listed in an alpha list.

so, a little disappointed. software interface is pretty quick and easy, but not actually intuitive. the voice does not name the streets to turn on to, has some problems with where things actually are. does not show rivers or lakes. i'll keep it a few more days anyway, see if we get used to each other.

one more thing. oddly, the ad on the nokia site says the car charger can power both the gps receiver and the n800, it can actually only charge one or the other.

john

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Beware of ordering from NokiaUSA.com

I just had a NIGHTMARE of an experience...

1) It will not register my email address properly. At registration (and login) it stripped the word "frame" from my address at form submit and registered me as "rate@gmail.com" (verified twice). This means someone @ rate@gmail.com recieved my order confirmation with all my personal information.

2) The above took 3 phone calls to resolve and register a different email and a 4th to find someone who claimed to be able to report this bug to someone in the web department. I asked for response on the bug report and didn't receive one, and my order forever said "rate@gmail.com".

3) I paid extra for overnight shipping so I could get it before the weekend and set it up for my trip on Monday. From Wed->Thurs it said "in progress". 2:45pm EST today (Thursday) I got a phone call from a nice woman claiming identity verification. She asked me some personal questions (Since price is above 200 dollars) and then told me the item would be shipped out today. She said one page said out of stock, so she put me on hold and verified that they had them. She then assured me that the item would be shipped today. I told her "thank you" and hung up happy.

10 minutes later my order status online was updated to "back-ordered".

I called in and found another guy (most of the people through these 5+ phone calls really didn't care about me as a customer which really turned me off to the whole idea) who told me that while I was on the phone with verification, apparently their last 5 units the woman saw were sold. Even though I ordered mine the day before, I am now on back-order. He told me they *could* get more within 2-3 business days. I told him I paid 20 dollars extra for overnight shipping, so I wasn't very happy.

I just canceled my order.

- Security flaws in website (try entering a bogus email address on their "Track my shipment page" and guess a order #. If you enter a valid order # with a bogus email, you don't even need the password to see the customer's info!

- Bad customer service (I wouldn't say overly bad, but they sure as hell didn't care whether or not I was happy and/or kept my order)

- Can't ship products successfully due to their own verification techniques? I'm sure theres more going on here but please! I ordered 24+ hours ago and you just now verify my order over the phone which caused me not to get it? What if I wasn't by the phone?

Advice? Avoid NokiaUSA.com like the plague. Does anyone know if this item can be purchased elsewhere? Somewhere who wants my money and cares about me as a customer?

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Funny, I was just about to write in regarding my terrific customer service from Nokia USA. I got a bad power adapter and they answered the phone on like the third ring, understood me and were understandable, and sent me a new power adapter in less than a week (must have sent it the instant they got the one I sent in).

My experience with customer service is that it goes catastrophically wrong when you hit them with a problem they haven't seen much. Ripping out part of your email address probably didn't fit into any predefined category. My bad power adapter probably set in motion one of their most frequent response mechanisms.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

I just emailed in my complaint and the info on the major security flaws about the order # being all you need to get a customer's email and got a template email response saying "we really care about our customers" blah blah and gave me a link to report problems with the website.

The link was broken.

Come on!

To top it off, my response which criticized their support for responding to a complaint about bad code and bad security with even WORSE code and WORSE security was responded to with "we're sorry there was a problem with your email, please resubmit your claim on the web form"

I find this all hilarious, but at what point do I just give up and let them dig their own grave?

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

I love seeing these blanket statements based on 1 experience. It makes the forum so much more exciting. :rolleyes:

Actually the kit is handled by a company called "LetsTalk". In fact it tells you during the ordering process that you are being redirected to LetsTalk servers. It was pretty clear to me when I ordered...

I also see it is now cheaper on LetsTalk's site $199 >> http://www.letstalk.com/product/prod...htm?prId=32775

I wonder if they ship to Canada! :cool:

Also: I'm sorry to here about the Vermont experience jdr93. It sounds like a map problem for your area and I hope Navicore updates it soon. I live 52 miles west of Philadelphia and travel to various locations during the day including the city as well as the surrounding Pennsylvania Dutch country side.
Lacking water features on your maps baffles me. I was about to report that my maps not only show rivers, creeks and lakes, but also the small retaining ponds found on the farms I pass.
Naming street names does not bother me so much because it shows on the bottom blue bar the street I'm on and the top green bar, the street I'm to turn on or exit to take.


...I don't think I would want Sarah or Todd waisting my attention while they try to pronounce "Schuylkill Expressway" or "Nesquehoning Street". I would rather glance up or down and match the spelling to the street sign I'm looking for.

But I'm easy like that. I'm just glad the thing does something this well with out a net connection. It also gives me an answer for the people who ask "What the heck is that thing you're caring with you?" rather than having to explain a concept that may be beyond their imagination.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

I agree the phone verification is annoying and they don't care that it is. They do it even when the billing address and shipping address are the same. And they ask for information beyond that needed to order the product.

Alternative: letstalk.com - carries almost all Nokia products officially released in the US.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

They called me on my cell phone (that's what I put on the order) and asked me to call the 800 number on my home line to verify! What if I didn't have a land line?? I ordered mine with overnight shipping (any other shipping to AK could take a while) and it still took two days because of this. Didn't really bother me too much though, I'm used to getting screwed when it comes to shipping.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

I tried ordering the Navicore product from the Nokia site, waited 2 days - the order still showed as in progress. I realized from the email confirmation that the product was actually coming from letstalk.com. On that site, the product was only $199 with free 2 day shipping. I called and was told it was awaiting phone verification, so I cancelled the order and ordered online with letstalk.com. The order confirmation says it will be here Tuesday - We'll see...

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

This is a common problem for all navigation systems, and not much the manufacturer can do about it. It's not easy for TeleAtlas (the map provider) to do much about it either, because they buy either directly from your local authorities (which usually are responsible for maps in your town), or through an intermediary.

The problem is when the source of the maps don't bother with (for them) unimportant things like marking up the maps with one-way, non-motorized, private, or road changes. We can yell at TeleAtlas but often it's not in their powers to do much. Where I live it's like that, so for me the most important feature for any car nav system is fast, automatic recalculation when I don't follow the planned route.. ;)

Now that is odd to the extreme. That'll be trouble unless the GPS lasts very very long on one charge..

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

I understand what you're saying, but if you read my 2 posts you'll see it's not based on solely one "experience". If I recall correctly, it was 2 trips through their online ordering form, 3 phone calls to fix previous order, 2 phone calls to support to try and report the bug and the security flaws, then 2 phone calls to the distribution center (one telling it would *definitely* ship out today, the 2nd 10 minutes later telling me it was backordered).

This all began with me wanting to report the bug in their site incorrectly stripping words out of my email to prevent future problems for other customers. But then it led to me discovering the security flaw in their website (fake email + valid order number = hello private customer data!).

I understand what you're saying, but I think I'm entitled to make blanket statements, as it's my opinion based on my experience, and that experience has been very bad.

To end, I'm still trying to report the security flaw to their support and I received an email saying their email system was also broken. I finally got one to go through and was told someone would contact me directly. We'll see if that happens.

Also - to the guy who said Letstalk.com carries them, I'm pretty sure they're the one in the distribution center doing the verifications. So if they're the ones who told me it would *definitely* ship that day, I don't know if I trust them anymore...

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

i noticed today the bluetooth connection between the n800 and the ld-3w was working but the navicore software wasn't able to access the data passing to the n800. turning off the gps and the n800 and re-establishing the bluetooth connection didn't help. nor did 'reseting' the gps by holding its power switch in. taking the battery out of the n800 didn't help. finally i removed the battery from the gps module (what a hassle it is to get the lid off), counted to ten, and put the unit back together. seems to be working just fine now. any ideas what might be going on? the navicore program kept saying there was no bluetooth device available.

john

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

You got me...

The next time it reports no BT device; you should pro'ly check BT connections first and see if it is still listed.

If it is and you have Maemo Mapper installed, shut down Navicore and see if MM finds it. That would narrow it down somewhat.

If it isn't listed anymore then I would think it's a hardware issue.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

can someone please also check if this device will

a) work with Maemo Mapper

b) has ability to store taken routes (i want to see if i can map out some biking trails)

thanks


as far as the security of the website goes... i think letstalk.com is secure enough... i wasn't able to see anyone elses order info by punching in random order numbers... also i think they provide you a unique Link to it from a https. looks secure to me.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

The reciever does work with Maemo Mapper. :)

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

In fact. Maemo Mapper and Navicore can share the GPS receiver!

I just got back from a short trip as co-pilot and I of coarse took the tablet and GPS. You can run both apps at the same time and this IMHO makes the Navicore navigator on the N800 the best in car navigation solution out there. :)

With this dual setup you can always have a look ahead view that is always oriented north by simple task switching. This works out well for me because I like to check out what is around my destination while I'm on a boring stretch in route. Navicore continues to give spoken direction while using other apps.
No other car navigator that I know of allows you to view maps from different DB's concurrently. As a bonus I can cut down on the amount of maps MM stores to zoom level 4 or 5 and above.

Maemo Mapper will also give voice direction too. I haven't tried it with a MM route yet but when I shut off the GPS, both Sarah and the flite babe told me the connection was lost.

They talked over each other but Sarah's demeanor made herself heard over Flitey's matter of fact voice.

I'm thinkin' Sarah would be hotter looking too... in a young librarian sort of way. :)

One fault though... Sarah apparently thinks she is being kept in a cell phone. There are a few phrases used when you arrive at your destination and the program must choose one at random because so far, each time I've heard one it was different... Today i heard Sarah say "Congratulations. You have arrived at your destination and your cell phone thanks you for using Navicore software." or some such.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

haha
in case you mistake for thinking that MM was responsible for the arrival at your destination...

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Please N800 Navicore owners, can you tell how smooth is the software ? How many pictures / seconds ?

Eric

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

arg. they sure sold out fast. i should have been quicker...


estimated time of arrival just is.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

my brother was down from canada visiting over the weekend. so we got into a conversation about the best route back to his home base. we live in vermont, one of those border states. using the n800 and the navicore software i tried to put in his village town city and was told they couldn't find it. so i switched to the canada and alaska region from the eastern us region. wow, found the city right away, even the address. but when we attempted to plan the route? right, couldn't find the route. we weren't in canada yet, dorothy; navicore couldn't start navigating.

so we switched back to the eastern us. since we're on a major highway we figured it could probably find a large canadian city that was nearby and had a major highway leading to it. nope, couldn't find montreal.
i think navicore and nokia need to rethink their us/canada(/mexico?) marketing strategy.

we tried gnuite's maemo mapper. it was able to plot a us to canada route from one small city to another small city in about the wink of an eye, though downloading the maps to get there took a while longer. mm seemed to have the rout figured out before the maps were available.

my disappointment with navicore is growing. i dislike the need to open a whole new screen when attempting to type in the city name, or address or street number. and it peeves me the software doesn't start suggesting a city name as i start to type. it disturbs me the maps seem to be old. they changed the routing of a major city street in this little city a few years ago, but teleatlas and navicore still show the car leaving the 'old' road and driving through the middle of a field.

i am beginning to think the navicore software and teleatlas maps require more patience than i'm will to give them. especially when a little home brew piece of software from a writer who has barely enough time in a day for his real job, is able to develop something as sweet and usable as maemo mapper. i do like the more visible screen roads teleatlas developed, but i was impressed with the speed of gnuite's program. i do like the navicore selection of what sound like real humans, but the machine like voice of mm is able to read out both the current street and the street to be turned on to.

maybe i better check the list of gps receivers that work with the n800.

john

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

@jdr93 :
Have you tried any other GPS solutions such as standalone TomTom units or one of the many different iterations for mobile phones? I am thinking that Teleatlus simply has poor maps for your area and their trans border algorithm is not functional. I must say that I wouldn't like my GPS reading to me all the time, I prefer the name of the road to appear on the map and thats it.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

TomTom (at least the v4 I have) couldn't route across maps either, so they added a 'Major Roads of Europe' map for that, enough to get you across the borders, then you could (if necessary) switch to a local map.

As for voice vs. text on screen.. in Italy, at least, if you look away from the road for a _second_ you're dead. You learn that pretty fast (or you're dead..). So I just listen to the voice on my TomTom most of the time, except when I'm standing still. If you can manage to place the screen [the N800] somewhere in the visual field of the road it's probably a bit safer. Some of the images posted earlier seemed to be ok in that respect.

Re: US Navicore on the N800
 

Just got my navicore n800 kit yesterday. I didn't have any problem getting from Letstalk.com, they were quite fast in fact, no email, or confirmation problem whatsoever. Last time I bought a nokia communicator from them didn't have any problem either.

I am very impress with the maps, it even have my neighborhood even though the area is very new. GPS works well also.

There is a couple of areas that could be improved on though. POI search is awkward, can't display restaurant by catagory. Search is long, everytime I enter a field to search it starts the search without letting me fill in the other field to narrow down the search. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

The N800 does not work too well in bright day light. They should have included some kind of hood in the kit. Also it would be nice if the adapter powers the GPS and the n800. Scrolling is not as smooth as I like it to be but acceptable. Should be able to drag and scroll maps like google maps, but on the n800 you can only use the pad to scroll.

Software lags behind about 1 seconds. I'm already at an intersection then it shows on the gps. Of course I'm just driving around my neighborhood, don't know how well it does on a freeway. Although, the software will tell you ahead of time what the next turn is.

Not as good as my car internal GPS, but to be fair I've never found a GPS that works as well as my in-car GPS and I've tried several of them that are much more than the navicore kit.

I've only tried out Sara voice, she seems pushy. If she was a girlfriend you might have to dump her.

Overall, it's pretty good. I'd give the product around 7.5 our of 10.