Pocket-lint tested out Garmin's latest Premium satnav device, the
Halfords-exclusive Nuvi 3598LMT-D, out on the streets of London in the
rarest of fashions: in the passenger seat of a 1912 Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Talk about a juxtaposition of old and new.
We got our mitts on the Premium Nuvi device, the slimmest, suavest
and best-built of the 5-inch touchscreen satnav models available. There
are also Essential and Advanced models available within the range which
offer the same screen size but chunkier, less premium build and fewer
features.
It's only the Premium model which has a quick-to-connect magnetic
mount that pops straight into place onto the windscreen-mount. Try and
put the device on upside down and the magnet repels a connection, so
it's not possible to mount the device the wrong way up.
The Nuvi 3598LMT-D's screen is bright, colourful and the touchscreen
responsive just like a modern-day smartphone - pinch-to-zoom and
scrolling around maps, adding way points and navigating through menus is
no problem at all.
And so to the streets. When there's no power steering on hand you
don't want to get caught up weaving in and out of lines of traffic.
Garmin's latest Nuvi pulls together a variety of features to keep you
one step ahead of the traffic:
Detailed maps include 3D buildings and terrain that update for free
for life, real turn-by-turn directions will use landmarks as reference
points - for example "turn right after the church" instead of "turn
right in 300 metres" - while DAB-received traffic updates feed the Nuvi
with traffic information to help avoid those unwanted jams.
Garmin has partnered with INRIX and Nokia Here in order to benefit
from these companies' services. INRIX is a traffic company that sources
information from the highways agency in addition to a huge crowd-sourced
network of vehicles for accurate information about traffic movement.
Here by Nokia is where the landmark-based voice navigation system and 3D
mapping has been sourced from.
In our 30-minute journey we were only able to test out a smidgen of
how such a vast database of information could affect a specific journey.
A live traffic display to the right side of the Nuvi's screen shows up
delays to your current journey in real time without disrupting the main
live map, while traffic congestion in surrounding areas shows up as red
on the virtual roadways. Those areas are best avoided, so if you don't
plot a specific route a quick glance at the screen can help with
judgement. This traffic update aspect certainly works, as the Nuvi
detailed a five minute delay to our journey. However there was no
forewarning about the traffic disruption due to Crossrail implementation
on London's Farringdon road.
As the Nuvi receives data via DAB signal rather than the pay-per-data
smartphone data-sync offered by competitors such as TomTom it means you
needn't pay a penny more than the Nuvi 3598LMT-D's £299 asking price.
And we'd hope not as three hundred quid is a serious investment.
But Garmin hasn't avoided smartphone-sync altogether - and for good
reason. Although the DAB radio signal means free data, the digital radio
network doesn't provide full coverage of the UK and it's even patchier
elsewhere in the world. The solution? Smartphone Link via Bluetooth for
iOS and Android platforms. This works in two ways: alongside the DAB
signal where the smartphone sync will pull in live data about weather,
traffic cameras or the smartphone app can even help you find your parked
car; whereas without the DAB signal available the smartphone sync can
utilise the data for live traffic updates too. It's best of both.
Other features that we weren't able to test out included
voice-activated navigation. In a windowless Rolls it's hard to hear much
except the whistling windand this also made it tricky to hear the
turn-by-turn instructions, even at full volume. We'd rather the Nuvi
could notch up a bit louder to be heard above surrounding noise, music
or the like.
Then there are features such as active lane guidance and a
three-quarter bird's eye view of more complex junctions. As it's largely
all single-lane action in London town, we weren't able to see these
features in action for our specific route, but both these features sound
like an effective way of tackling those unknown routes.
Overall it looks as though Garmin's got a solid contender here. An
attractive, slim device that's quick to connect and delivers all the
mapping you could need. It's just the near-£300 price that may cause
some to baulk at the idea of buying one.
Πηγη: pocket-lint.com