Are we there yet? (Navman iCN 520)

Member Name: bigdoug

Product:	Navman iCN 520
Date:	20/02/09 (390 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely maps and Intuitive

Disadvantages: 4-digit Postcodes and POI alerts are just not good enough

The iCN 520 is a fairly intuitive SatNav and for the feint of heart there is a built-in tutorial covering all the salient points of the unit accessed from the Home menu. This allows you to get on working with it right out of the box and glance at the tutorial only if you get stuck avoiding the need to refer to the helpful and extensive user guide.

The rechargeable battery is only needed when you walk from your house to the car and back as it is supplied with both a home charger and cigar-lighter car charger. Also, the iCN 520 is supplied with a leather slip over cover with a reinforced side for added protection to the screen side of your SatNav while it languishes in your pocket when you transfer between your car and home.

The iCN 520 is also supplied with a USB cable and Software CD to program and manage both maps and Points of Interest (POIs - speed cameras, MacDonalds, petrol stations, etc.) with the aide of your computer. A screen cradle is supplied attached to a sucker to stick it to your windscreen - Although you need to remember to disconnect the car charger cable when inserting or removing it from the cradle as the plug is accessed through a hole in the cradle, which also has a strain-relief clip so the cable does not unplug itself as you travel. My Skoda has the cigar-lighter behind the gear stick rather than in the dashboard so the cable, coiled to offer a long reach without dangling into important parts of the car or your cup of coffee. I experimented with a few positions for the Sat. Nav. on the windscreen, finally settling a position on the right edge of the screen at eye-level.

Time-saving Routing Tip:

Select your destination for your trip in the house so the iCN 520 can calculate the route even before you get in the car, so you are ready to roll when you do!

Be Secure - Take the SatNav with you once you arrive

Do not leave the SatNav in your car and remove the screen cradle and wipe the "coffee ring" off the windscreen before leaving the car. I put the cradle and charger in the glove box but always put the SatNav in its leather case and take it with me out of the car. Its bad enough if someone steals your car so don't leave them a SatNav so they can get directions and rob your house too!

The routing process assumes you want to travel from your current location as determined using GPS triangulation of up to 12 satellites. The destination address needs to be specified in three stages: First enter the 4-digit postcode and select the one of the suggested areas. Enter the Street Name until you uniquely list the street you want. Finally, enter the House Number so house names are of no use to you! You are then given the address in full and offered the chance to save it as a "favourite" location so you can simply select it from your list of favourite place the second time you go there avoiding the need to to the three stages again for that location..

I do sometimes find even the 7-digit postcode struggles in some rural and remote parts of England. My brother resides in such a leafy backwater and both postpersons and SatNav-equipped couriers still struggle to find him!

The iCN 520 has six buttons to the right of the nice-sized touch screen; Home Menu, SatNav On/Off, ESC (back up or exit a screen), Pages to change the displayed information, Plus and Minus keys to zoom in and out of your maps. Also, you have both a four-way joypad with click like you might get on your Playstation for navigating around menu screens together with an extending stylus, that slides into its own slot on the back for storage, for the touch-sensitive screen in case you have pork sausages instead of fingers as indeed I do!

When you are following a route you have a choice if 2D or 3D maps to give you more a sense of an "over the dashboard" view. You can increase and decrease the perspective effect of the 3D by moving the stylus up and down the screen.

Double-tap the screen with the stylus on a valid address or road and a menus appears offering you to view the full detail of the location, save it as a favourite, choose either to navigate to it or avoid the surrounding area altogether.

Tap the stylus in the bottom right-hand of the screen to change the display between; Distance to Destination, Distance to your next turn, Compass Heading, Current Time, Current Speed, Time to Destination, Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA),

One thing I really like about the Navman i520 software is the ability simply to draw an "avoid area" directly on the map screen encompassing places that you want to avoid and the route is planned without passing through it. This is great if there are roadworks or your local knowledge about roads in your area allows you to plan a better than the SatNav when left to its own devices.

The iCN 520 uses the same "camera food" as my Vivitar 5355 - SD memory cards up to 4GB but I have a 2GB in mine, which is sufficient for maps of; UK, Ireland, and all of mainland Europe to street-level. And if I go on holiday I can archive the SD card onto my computer and use it to store extra pictures taken with my digital camera.

The Points of Interest (POIs) part of the SatNav allows you to upload the locations of Safety cameras used to monitor the possibly more hazardous places on your route so you can be apprised of any of these locations and the maximum speed limits that are in force. I found this function next to be useless on both the new iCN 520s I bought and usually alerted me to places after or as I was passing them rather than giving me prior warning. This was a fault that I could not rectify even by repeatedly reinstalling the software and buying another one to see if this was a one off. It was not a one off and the situation was only resolved by chancing upon some Tom Tom 5 software that I could load onto the Navman iCN 520 and this both cured the POI alert problem and provided me with full 8-digit postcodes for locations.

The Navman iCN 520 maps are more detailed than provided by the Tom Tom and your current location is quoted as both a street number and name which is quite impressive but for its other shortcomings.

I bought the Navman iCN 520 at a cost of £175 when they were new which compared very favourably with the £300-odd for a Tom Tom 5. Currently (21 February, 2009), you can pick one up for around £60 on eBay.co.uk or even less if you are lucky. Then my advice is to program it as a Tom Tom 5. Although you might be able to just buy a Tom Tom just as cheap now too. There are two extras that you might consider an extension aerial this may make it quicker to initially pick up the GPS satellites when you first turn it on but I have had no problems without one - even with a windscreen with integral heating wires. The other and in my opinion equally redundant is the remote control. Just pick the thing up and use it! The only amusement you might gain from owning one is if another car you are next to in stop-go traffic also has a Navman iCN 520 then you could play with his or her SatNav as a diversion.

If you do not need to know where your POIs are so badly and you have programmed and saved all your favourite destinations then this is a perfectly serviceable SatNav now available at a knock-down price that would recommend.

Summary: A perfectly serviceable SatNav now available at a knock-down price that would recommend.