long wet tongues and mis-directions...

OK, got back home this morning from a long weekend away with the better half :) Damn, I needed that :) So did the dogs, when they saw me - they went somewhat nutso :) Especially Chunky, although she did wake me no less than five times on Sunday morning, presumably checking that I was still there, or that she was pleased to see me, or something like that... but at "oh-my-bleeping-god-not-again-in-the-morning!" one tends not to ask these questions, one merely buries ones head beneath the pillow! ... especially when you're having a cold nose thrust in your face immediately followed by a rasping seemingly ten yard long tongue haul across your face... when you aren't expecting this, it is a little... disconcerting... to say the least!

Anyhow, coming home again I used the trial version of CoPilot 7 that I'm trying out.

Having driven down about half the English side of the M4 into London, while I had no major issues with the actual route it supplied, there's a serious problem with the route information and safety Camera handling, to say the least.

I won't mention the roads I came down, but at two major traffic-lit junctions, it failed to give proper voice directions, and the visual confirmation on the screen merely showed the road apparently continuing to either left or right, taking no account of the fact that there was a junction. Luckily I knew the route it was taking me along, so no harm was don, but in an area that I didn't know, this could be potentially dangerous. This can be directly attributed to the fact that while the route follows a major "A" route, road names change: I'm assuming that the "A" route takes precedence over the road names, or even junctions - that's a very poor method of navigation, frankly - I expect to be told "turn left" or "take the (number) exit" and so on, from modern satellite navigation software. I don't expect the damn thing to try to stuff me on several major junctions, frankly.

In addition, it didn't report a "Monitron" safety camera on one road, and in several cases over the weekend away, I've noticed it reporting "caution safety camera" five times for the same camera - most annoying.

Now, remembering that this is on the trial version, I should add that I'm vastly impressed with the quality of the mapping, and clearness of the display: However, I'm not so impressed with the rest of it. I'll give it the full two weeks test to be fair, but I can't see me buying this - there are too many capability issues with it, which is odd, as it's been well reviewed and praised in the magazines and web sites that I've seen.

Maybe I'm expecting too much, but at the very least, I expect the latest generation of SatNav software to at least be able to match what TomTom put out THREE YEARS ago, in TT version 6.

really, that's not too much to ask for in TomTom's competitors, is it?