ICN 510 First impressions.

[goatboy]

Just got mine yesterday, thanks to the lads and lassies at Total PDA.

I previoulsly had an ipaq 5550 with Tom Tom 3 and Bluetooth receiver, but who needs that many cables or that much hassle!!

So I have opted for a 510 - I didnt go for the TomTom go 300 for these reasons:

1. Not pocket-friendly - it's a bit large to slip in the pocket.
2. I have had TomTom before. It's fab but wanted to try the competition.
3. Value for money - I got the ICN510 premium pack with remote and Europe maps at a good price.

First impressions:
Good:
It's small and sexy.
No PDA nonsense to worry about
Simplicity itself to use
Great Mounting clamp
Tiny size for portability
Accurate maps
Loud enough speaker
Headphone socket to plug nav voice into stereo if reqd

Bad:
Don't seem to have a "night" mode - the Tom Tom did, which made it nice for night driving - *UPDATE* - it does, it's just buried in the Display menu, and not as readily accessible as the TomTom which does night mode in two clicks.

The roads seem very small and thin compared to the chunky, purposeful mapping of the Tom Tom (only matters in 3d mode) You can zoom in to beef them up, but just like the Tom Tom you cannot leave it set to that zoom level - it automatically zooms out after a few seconds. *UPDATE* - you can turn off Auto Zoom, in fact again like the TomTom. It's buried in the display settings.

The joystick is hard to control - it moves in it's directions too easily, making it hard to "click" without moving the cursor again.

The aqusition time in a moving car is appalling compared to the Tom Tom. However, I guess you could always buy an aerial...

Overall:
Very pleased - I no longer have to mess about with PDA software, Bluetooth, extra cables and floppy screen mounts!

I was a little dissapointed that it only comes with a 128Mb card and that to install all of Europe would take more than a 512Mb card - I believe the unit will support up to 1Gb. I would have thought that there should have been some provision of *internal* memory for at least the UK map.

The european map needs to be installed seperately but the software is a breeze to use on the PC and beats the Tom Tom version easily (the Tom Tom PDA version, that is - I haven't used a "Go")

Whereas I needed to read the manual to start using the TomTom, I found that the ICN510 would indeed do most of what you want right out of the box, but you will need to access the PDF file on the CD for the manual to get the most from it.

All in all very pleased with my purchase. I have just installed the Speed Camera Database from the CSV file with no problems.

Do bear in mind that the 520 is now available, but no-one seems to know what the advantages over the 510 are yet.

Ade.