My travelling has been accompanied by TomTom products for a few years now ever since Clove lent me a TomTom GO to review. I was amazed at the time just how well it worked and because I have absolutely no sense of direction Sat Nav is a required application for me. When I say no sense of direction I really mean no sense of direction at all! With the acquisition of a Nokia E61 one of the first tasks I wanted to manage is of course GPS and there are now a few options available which do the trick but the question is if they do it as well as TomTom Navigator?
My understanding is that a standalone software release of TomTom Navigator 6.0 for S60 3rd is not imminent and thus I will have to miss out on what I consider the best navigation software on the market. Let’s be fair though because TomTom marry this with some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced so it’s not too much of a loss after allJ The first GPS product I will look at is Navicore Personal which is unusual in that when you purchase it you can download it straight away. As an example of pricing it is 149 Euros for the UK and Ireland version (approx. £100 / $190) which is comparable to others being offered but in some cases actually more expensive than TomTom Navigator 5.0 on a SD card. When you consider that you can currently buy TomTom Navigator 5.0 with a GPS receiver, cables and cradle in a Treo 650 compatible bundle for £68 you have to question the value of this product in the current market.
There are some interesting bits bundled with the product though- you get real time traffic information and a safety camera database included with permanent free use. People like TomTom have a yearly subscription to their traffic service so in theory you will get your money back quite quickly. So how does the traffic service perform? The Traffic partwas interesting- when I tried it I could not get it to wok so I phoned up Navicore- they took my details and said that they were working on the problem. Within 24 hours I had received an email saying that it was no working and it worked without a problem. Good customer service…
Where I live traffic is a constant pain and having a guide to what’s happening is a must for me- the amount of times that TomTom traffic has saved me a few hours is countless and thus for me whilst this problem is there Navicore Personal has limited use. Indeed, I often use GPS even when I know where I am going just for the traffic service- any of you living near the M25 will know what I mean. I have so far tested it by going from Crawley to Nymans Gardens and to Chessington World of Advantures. Both times the routing was accurate apart from an oddity with one particular roundabout near my home. NP told me to take the 2nd exit which is fine except that it thought that the 3rd was the 2nd? Not a problem because I knew but a potential problem for people new to the area. 
Beside the glitch above it worked as well as TomTom for general navigation and for re-routing, indeed it is quicker than TomTom for working out routes and some of the navigational indicators are also better. When you ae leaving a motorway junction a little box pops up displaying the next roundabout and showing which exit you will use. This is great for ensuring you are in the right lane ahead of time. Instructions are always given in good time and I found myself quite used to the system after 10 minutes or so. The real surprise is that I now prefer it to TomTom Navigator from an interface point of view. The indicators seem more logical than on TTN.
As for the voices they need a little bit of work and the E61 does not help. Considering the Nokia can play music through its speakers in very high quality I would expect the sound of the voices to be clearer. The English speaking lady sounds far too American for my liking and the English speaking man sounds like he is trying too hard to be a comforting news reader. I want Terry Wogan to direct me to my destination or even Sean Connery! I found that the medium setting was quite low and the top setting was too loud, especially with the lady speaking- somewhere in between would be nice. All of the other usual features are included such as non connected route planning and favourites so you won’t be missing anything.
To sum up this mini review everything works well and it is a good product. Is it worth Euro 149? Just about in my opinion. Fair to say that this in my opinion is a competent GPS application that does everything asked of it- a few tweaks here and there wouldn’t go amiss though. Available from Navicore for a variety of mobile devices.
I believe that TypePad mobile works with the E61 and will be of use to those of you looking to start your own blog. Just off to find an application that works with WordPress 
Thanks to Alison for the link.
I received two copies of 
Got load of money? Worried about style more than aything else? Neither of those apply to me but the 
