DestinatorPN Review   released 22nd September 2005.  This page is best viewed at 1152x864

Introduction
The release of an upgraded  software program is always interesting news for owners of the existing product. DestinatorPN (the PN stands for personal navigator) is no exception. As usual the release was leaked many months before it actually became reality, and then Europe and the USA always get it before we do in Australia.  I’m not sure if this practice helps to increase sales or if it has the opposite effect. Nevertheless one thing is certain – lots of discussion is generated.

Destinator3 v3.0.75 was a good product, and pretty well did what it was supposed to do – get you from point A to point B.  Within the limitations of the map data it was my program of choice for GPS navigation. It was not perfect and the map data for Australia had heaps of errors. However compared to its competitors the maps were still more detailed and had more streets and addresses than those programs which used Sensis maps. To my way of thinking that is what a GPS system is all about. Given that the interface is useable, the routing works and the program is stable, it’s the maps that ultimately count.

So how does DestinatorPN measure up and is it a worthwhile upgrade? Well read on to find out…

What’s New? - Major items only

• Full Map interface
• Support for Landscape mode on WM2003se devices
• Built-in Popup T9 keyboard
•  Configurable information can be displayed or hidden
• TTS (text to speech)
• Quick access buttons which become transparent if not used
• Send SMS

Set Up
Setting up DestinatorPN is straightforward. The slightly revised console will be immediately familiar to all users, and with exception of the TTS icon is practically the same as the previous version. Maps can still be cut but I prefer to download the entire map of Australia.
One welcome change is the ability to load the main program onto a SD card or similar. Registry items and shortcuts will still be written to main memory though. Using the console, installation to your PDA is also quite simple and, as with the previous version you need to set your GPS parameters before you can use the program. Some people can have difficulty with this step, however if you follow the PDF manual it all goes quite smoothly. Because of the depth of Navigation programs you really need to read the manual to get the best out of them, DestinatorPN is no exception. In fact the manual (supplied in PDF format) on the CD is excellent. Most items are very well explained, only a few need more explanation.

User Interface
The user interface is how users interacts with a program. This has a great effect on how the program is perceived (initially at least). I have seen DestinatorPN’s interface described as “quirky” and to a certain extent I agree, but it is something that you get used to quite quickly and from then on any quirkiness evaporates.
Overall the interface is somewhat improved over Destinator3. The Developers claim a finger friendly user experience, well not quite, there are still times when a stylus or suitably shaped little fingernail is required, especially when a window needs to be closed and an option or setting has been changed – rather than having a nice big close button the program still relies on the relatively small standard windows close box in the top right corner, and this becomes frustrating if you miss because then you invariably activate the Time and Next Appointment dialog box.  A partial finger friendly interface is not much help when you need the stylus, or something, to complete the action anyway.

The limitation of two user alerts still exists – This means if you have Speed and Red light cameras selected to warn you if you are approaching them, you can not have a different alert for (say) Petrol Stations. The best that you can do is to have the Generic “Favourites Alert” verbal and written (on the screen) displayed and spoken. It would be nice to have more than two configurable alerts but in this version it stays the same as Destinator3 – maybe next time?

Dynamic Cursor
The steering wheel icon is gone and is replaced with a triangular shaped icon that changes its shape according to the speed you are traveling at. At low speeds it is quite a large icon with a two tone green colour. The colour selection makes it difficult to see in certain circumstances, generally when there are also large green areas shown on the map. The new position marker also sports a shadow. 
The shadow changes its position according to the time of day, and as far as I can tell it is pretty accurate. According to Destinator this is a very useful function, especially in Pedestrian mode, because if you position yourself so that the shadow you cast is the same as that shown on the screen, it helps you orientate yourself in relation to your destination.  I found it less useful. If you are stopped when doing this the position of the shadow is unreliable because the GPS is still sending data which may vary by as much as ten meters, so it is not uncommon for the position marker to turn until your position settles down. At that point the shadow shown is useless.
When traveling in a car along a route calculated by Destinator the shadow really serves no purpose other than that some might find it attractive.
The changing shape of the position marker is something that you will like or dislike – I dislike it – it just makes it even harder to see and I don’t need to be reminded of the speed I am traveling at.

The Journey
To begin a journey, tap the Car icon (circled in red) which brings up the Destination screen.  Further options here are shown on the screenshot to the right.

DestinatorPN has three address modes: City, Street, and Number. Street, City and Number, and Intersection, which requires a City, Street and Street sequence. The mode is selected by tapping the third icon from the top on the left hand side. This toggles the three modes. The Street, City and Number mode is quite good for those times when the suburb within Destinator’s database does not match the suburb in the address, because it give you the opportunity to pick suburbs that might be adjoining. Something that happens in Copilot and the tomtom GO and can cause routing errors. 
Intersection is handy if you don’t know the exact number, provided that the street is not too long.

A Favourite can also be added via the address screen by tapping Tools and selecting Favourites

Tapping the POI icon brings up a list of Points of Interest. The POI’s in the latest version are greatly expanded on the D3 offerings; however there are still omissions like ATM’s for example. I guess not all possible combinations will ever be available, given the limited storage of the current devices. It is really a question of what the developers “think” will be useful.
Once the list is displayed an item can be selected, from there it can be turned on ie shown on the map and a “Favourites Alert” given when you are near, or expanded further, selected and expanded via tapping Items, where a list of all the relevant POI’s with the search area is shown. The search are can be increased (or decreased) according to
your requirements. This is done by
tapping tools and then tapping Settings
and then changing the parameters
accordingly. Tapping “show” shows the
location on a  map and is very useful for
verifying that it is indeed the correct place.

The POI feature works very well, but it has limitations in content,
although I must admit the inclusion of Neighborhood Shopping, seems to be quite thorough in the areas I have looked at. Waste Management on the other hand seems quite poor.  In summary the POI implementation is very good and I expect will get better with new map releases. If I have any criticism it is that the icons are little small when displayed on the maps, however I believe this is an operating system limitation.

Favourites initially comes preconfigured with Speed and Red Light cameras only, why these are in favourites has to do with the way Destinator manages the visual and verbal alerts. It seems odd but I guess it works. Selecting Favourites, then tapping Items shows the list of Favourites that you may have saved. For example the CAMP entry shows an item I saved whilst staying in a Holiday Cabin recently. Favourites can be added via the Address Entry screen as previously described or by tapping a location on the map and saving it via the pop-up window. The latter method requires some care because Destinator will pick the closest address to the point tapped on the map.

Tapping History simply brings up a screen showing the last 50 destinations entered and therefore allows quick entering of previously entered destinations. As with most of the Address entry screens tapping tools allows other options.

Selecting Contacts shows the items in your Contacts File via a list. You can scroll down the list or better still tap the first few letters via the T9 keyboard then tap “Info” to select one of the available addresses, namely; Home, Work or Other. To complete the action tap address and Destinator will find the location. If there is any ambiguity Destinator will show alternatives with similar addresses. All in all a petty good effort by the Developers. I did however find a few problems. If the street number is not contained within Destinator’s database it will unnecessarily show similar alternatives throughout Australia, an unnecessary step that could lead to confusion. Adding a new entry into my PIM (Pocket Informant5) using File As i.e. the File As name may not match the actual name, Destinator shows the name in its list as Unnamed contact. Reverting the File As name back to standard fixes this problem, but I like using File as in my PIM, so I classify this a definite bug.

Trip Planner is perhaps the least intuitive interface within Destinator. Initially it opens up to a blank window which requires tapping onto the tools button on the bottom bar. This brings up a window where all you can do is enter a name for a trip. Once this is done it requires a tap onto Waypoints which brings up another window and you guessed it a tap onto the tools button to add a waypoint and so on. If you tap onto Navigate at this point the last location that DestinatorPN knows about is used as the Origin and the trip is planned accordingly.  This is probably not what you want, so it is important to pick one of the waypoints and set it as the Origin. Yep – Tools – are you beginning to see a pattern in how Destinator operates? Once you get this the interface loses its quirkiness and becomes quite easy to use.

With several Waypoints entered, tapping tools/optimise, reorders the list into what Destinator thinks is the most efficient route, and in my experience it always has been.

However!  The trip is calculated in stages, i.e. one point is done and the other is calculated and so on. So unfortunately you cannot see the whole route on your device. So you’ll just have to trust that it will do the job. Another important thing to remember is you need to be in planning mode to define a trip. This is accessed by tapping the route icon in the Settings screen. You know your in planning mode if the icon resembles a steering wheel – a circle with a dot or diamond in the centre.
Don't forget to change back to Navigation mode! If you do forget, you will think that DestinatorPN has lost contact with the GPS, The GPS connection icon will remain red and you position on the map will not be shown.

Avoid Roads is where you enter roads that you wish to avoid; for example you may not want to use the Eastern Distributor. This is also where you tell Destinator whether or not to include Toll ways in its routing calculations – Unfortunately this setting is global – ie it avoids all toll ways.  You don’t get a choice on a per route basis the way that tomtom does.

This screen shows you any SMS messages you may have received from someone else using DestinatorPN, where they have sent you a location.  If this list contains data you can navigate to the address shown by selecting it and tapping navigate.  I have not used this “feature” and probably never will, but I can see applications for it, even if they would be rare.
Whilst on the subject of SMS, when in map view it is possible to tap the screen on the big green position marker and send your location via SMS to another mobile phone. If that phone is not running Destinator or indeed does not have any GPS facility at all the message will be received as text detailing the co-ordinates (Latitude and Longitude) and the address.

Options
To access the settings and option screens requires a tap on the car icon which brings up the first of three screens. The last screen, titled Settings, is where most of the configuration takes place. Most - because to enable Speed and Red Light cameras you have to go to the first screen titled Destination and then Favourites.

After entering your destination in either navigation or planning mode your route along with the distance, time are shown in a summary screen

The directions screen shows street names, a picture of the navigation action required at each change and the distance between each change. This screen can also be accessed during use by tapping in the top left where the Return arrow icon is and then once the first instruction is shown tapping again.  This is also where you are given the opportunity to avoid any roads you might want to. This is done by tapping the road and then tapping the avoid button.  I use this fair bit and it works great.

Your progress can be shown in turn by turn mode. This view is zoomed in quite close and shows each coming turn or change complete with voice and visual prompts. You can also view this information whilst in planner mode. Actually I don’t know anybody that uses this, but most other packages have it well, so I guess it is included for completeness.

 
As expected this cancels a route that is currently active.

DestinatorPN has the ability to record and play back a trip. Unlike tomtom you cannot use it to show a demo of your planned trip, nevertheless it is something that some people like to do. One good use might be to highlight routing errors that show a route where no street exists on the map. Turn directions are not given in this mode but Red-light and Speed Cameras are announced.

Walker mode is selected in the options screen.
This icon toggles between a car and pedestrian. So if you are in car mode a pedestrian icon is shown, conversely if you are in pedestrian mode a car is shown. To get to a destination in this mode the steps are identical to entering a destination in car mode. There is however a 10 kilometer limit. In this mode the route is shown as a shaded line and your position is indicated by a diamond marker rather than a “stealth bomber”.  To be frank – I don’t know why they bothered, as far as I can see there is no difference in the route or in DestinatorPN’s behaviour. At first I thought this could be useful for hiking or similar activities.  DestinatorPN still requires a valid address (including the street number) as the destination and plots a course using streets on the map. If you are (say) 1 km from a road, your start point is shown snapped to the nearest street. Only the diamond position marker is shown in your true position a kilometer from the nearest road. Given that there is no way to enter coordinates into PN directly on your device (you need to use the console if you want to do that) this is one  small feature!  It is no good for Geocaching – so what is the point? Mostly it is not worth the trouble of changing to Walker Mode – leave it Car mode – the results are almost the same and your destination is announced, unlike Walker Mode.

Other Items
The other Items appearing in the Options Screen are Switch Maps – if you have  multiple maps, Help, a short but useful help file and About which shows the version Number and Copyright information.

Settings
The settings screen contains buttons for GPS Status, Defining a Home Button, General, Map, Route, Voice Alerts, Visual Alerts and Look & Feel Buttons. The Home Button is actually more useful than it first appears. You could for example, set it to a Petrol Station.  In this case tapping on the Home Button on the main screen will calculate a route from where you are to the nearest petrol station - neat! Of course this feature is totally dependant upon the quality of the PIO's in DestinatorPN's database.

Text to Speech (TTS)
DestinatorPN now includes TTS. I have not used this and wont in the foreseeable future, the voice just irritates me no end. User reports indicate that it is about on par with CoPilot5 and there maybe some performance hit on lower spec’ed devices. Destinator themselves recommend a higher clock speed if you wish to use it. Given that the TTS function only offers spoken street names (or a really bad robotic interpretation of them, in my opinion) I don’t see the need, because the Pleasant female voice (she’s called Emily by the way) gives me all the instructions I need, including destination arrival. Emily has also undergone some speech therapy. Prior to the version I have now (5.1.118), Emily could not pronounce “third” correctly. Her best effort was “Hird”. After the initial humour of it, it quickly became a source of irritation. Why it took Emily so long to learn this I don’t know. But it was pointed out to Destinator years ago – and nothing was done until now.

On the road
DestinatorPN is (like Destinator3) a pleasure to use if the map information is right, and mostly it is. However there are numerous errors and omissions in Sydney and areas around adjoining – The Blue Mountains, Pitt Town and Menai for example. There are probably many errors and omissions in other locations as well but I have now way of finding these short of driving every road in Australia.  User reports on Destinator3 showed errors Australia wide and I doubt that all of these errors have been fixed.
The verbal instructions given by DestinatorPN are good. Not as good as the tomtom Go but slightly better than CoPilot and Navman. If another turn follows a turn closely, the instruction is given as “Turn left followed by turn right”. Very useful when turns are very close to each other. The one downside in my view is that instructions for upcoming turns are given as “turn left in 500 meters” – to me this is backwards  - “ in 500 meters turn left” makes more sense. It is possible to take the wrong turn (too early) and this has actually happened to me twice. My wife’s tomtom on the other hand is very clear and easy to follow.
For those of you who disliked accepting the disclaimer every time the program is started, the good news is that you now have the option to turn it off – hooray!

DestinatorPN offers three views whilst driving, The standard 2D view which is very detailed and looks quite nice, a 3D view which is stripped of all detail except for roads and of course the turn by turn view. I suspect that the greatest majority of users use either 2D or 3D as their main view. On the subject of views; Birds Eye view, which made its appearance in D3 and was advertised as a feature at the time, is gone. Mores the pity, because a lot of users liked that view but I’m sure it was very processor intensive. Once the program is set up as you like to view it, it remembers that view and next time DestinatorPN is stared no further changes are required. I turned off automatic zoom in settings because I disliked the default zoom – for me it is too close, I like to see a little more of what is ahead. The default 3D view is way to close for my liking and there are quite few reports throughout the internet saying the same thing. Fortunately this can be fixed by zooming out using the scroll bar and then by changing the view angle using the Hardware scroll button on your device.

As is fairly standard in all Navigation programs each view has a day and night setting. In DestinatorPN a tap on the appropriate icon on the main screen toggles between 2D, 2D Night, 3D and 3D night. Both views show a visual alert (in the default setting – this can be changed) along with the voice prompt, DestinatorPN overlays a partially transparent symbol indicating the type of turn coming up.
POI’s that have been “checked” to show on screen are displayed on the map.  In 2D mode they can be hard to see because of their relatively small size. In 3D mode if you are zoomed out a little they are much clearer. However if you have your settings set to warn you of Speed and Red Light cameras they (other POI's) are not announced. This is significant failing and one that I had hoped they would address in the upgrade.

Routing
The routes calculated by DestinatorPN are pretty good – the equal at least of any other program I have used and better than some of the competition. Of course this is based on the routes I take so your experience in another area may well be different. If the settings in the Route screen are changed the routes calculated are also changed. Shortest is invariabley the shortest though it may not be the quickest.  Within the time that I have had with DestinatorPN I have not found any routing problems. Bear in mind this is not an exhaustive test, merely what I have found in my day to day use.

Snap to errors such as the ones shown on the right occur in every navigation program I have seen. In this instance I turned off the highway because of heavy traffic. It took DestinatorPN approximately 200metres to register this fact before my position changed
on the map. Other software I have used did
not register the change at all.

Re-routing and avoid roads on the fly

If you miss a turn or intentionally ignore one, DestinatorPN like all its competitors will calculate another route. This is where DestinatorPN shines; it is easily the fastest of all the programs I have used – it rarely suggests a U turn – but this still sometimes occurs. overall I rate this aspect slightly better than D3.
Using the Avoiding roads feature whilst driving is not something that you should attempt, although it is easier to use and better implemented than some of its competition it still involves taking your eyes off the road and this is dangerous. If this situation occurs and you need to avoid a road because of a traffic warning or some other event, pull over or wait until you have stopped before attempting to do it. However, roads can be avoided when the route is first calculated and is a simple matter at that point.                                           

Lag
There is some lag (your actual position compared to the position marker), all navigation programs suffer from this to different extents – DestinatorPN is in the lower end that is it is only a small amount. In 3D mode it is much more noticeable. At 60KPH it is around 10 meters (my best guess). In 3D mode it’s more like 20 meters.

Other items

Other items of interest which are not really covered in this review are the various pieces of information pertaining to the current trip. There are two lines (for want of a better word) available at the bottom of the screen for displaying things such as the Current Speed, Altitude, Estimated Time of Arrival and a few others. Tapping that line or the icons to the immediate left will cycle what can be shown. Each time it is tapped a different bit of information is shown. The last screenshot shows a Windows close box, tapping again will turn off that line of display completley.

Visible in the screenshot on the bottom right are:-

• The top bar showing the next change in direction along with the name of the street and the distance to go.
  
• The Screen display icon. Currently if tapped it would change the screen to 3D night mode
  
• A compass which always points North
  
• The scroll bar for changing the zoom
  
• The car (Menu) icon – this takes you to the three other screens described earlier on
  
• The one touch Home or PIO button described earlier on 

Conclusion
If you are thinking of upgrading from Destinator 3.0.75 to DestinatorPN and you don’t want or need Landscape mode support or TTS there are really no compelling reasons other than updated maps. If you want these features however it is a worthy upgrade. DestinatorPN has grown on me – initially I was somewhat under whelmed but I recently reverted back to D3 for a short while to get a feel for the differences and I must admit I much prefer DestinatorPN.

If you’re thinking of purchasing a personal navigation program for your PDA, DestinatorPN is well worth investigating further. There is not a lot of choice in Australia (at the time of writing) and for PDA use DestinatorPN is my product of choice. Of course if you want a stand alone GPS solution, you have many more options. Recently a Stand alone version of DestinatorPN has been offered – but this is in direct competition with some other very capable systems so in this case the choice is not quite as cut and dried.

There are a few little niggles I have with DestinatorPN, but by and large these are a personal preference, things like the size, shape and colour of the position marker, the background colour in 3D view – nothing that really distracts from the program itself. It would be nice if the main Destinator site (the Destinator Community as they call it) actually had something useful on it – the site appears to be dead and nothing new has been added for quite some time.
The only sites I have found that have skins and various other modifications to the look & feel were in a German site and the install instructions are, naturally, in German. A little risky plus I don’t need German instructions in Australia.

I purchased my copy of Destinator from C1 Consulting, The Destinator licenses they supply come with a full Software Development kit… Allowing developers to integrated Destinator PN into applications – on Pocket PC, CE / Windows Mobile 5 and even XP.  Something no other nav solution can offer.

Additionally because the SDK is supplied on the CD, it is a fairly simple matter to install Map Monkey (a version is included on the CD) so it is possible to load the program onto your Laptop or Desktop PC.  If loaded onto your Laptop and used with a suitable GPS reviever you can have a fully functional GPS solution. Great for planning trips on your PC or getting a large screen solution for your car. The Map Monkey interface is great too because it does not have the space and performance restraints a PDA has.

You might also be interested in a review of CoPilot5 and a preview of the tomtom GO300

This review was done a XDA2 with a WM2003SE upgraded ROM. The GPS receiver used was a GlobalSat BT338

I give DestinatorPN  7/10