Wednesday, November 29 2006 @ 12:06 AM CST
GPS is all the rage right now. With units available built into your car, standalone units and GPS enabled built into your cell phone which do you choose? For those looking to use a reliable GPS system it is often tough to choose the particular unit for yourself. Over the past week, I had the opportunity to review the CoPilot Live 6 Motorola Q Edition GPS navigation system from ALK. If you’re in the market for a GPS navigation system, you should take a serious look at the CoPilot.
Having just moved from Chicago, were I was born and raised, to relocating to Colorado I could not have asked for a better time to give a GPS system a shot. Clueless to everywhere around me what better, or worse, way to find my way around then set a random destination and let the GPS lead me along.
The CoPilot Live 6 Motorola Q Edition includes a Bluetooth GPS receiver with the SiRFstarIII chipset, car charger, mounting velcro tabs, software install CD and a one gig MiniSD that already contains all the maps and software you will need. Installation was as simple as inserting the MiniSD and turning on the GPS unit. After auto detecting the new software on the MiniSD the Motorola Q will install itself and be ready for action. Not needing to sync your Q was a nice touch by just having all the needed information shipped to you on the MiniSD. The CoPilot system runs $349 with the Bluetooth GPS receiver with the SiRFstarIII chipset and $249 without. Both packages include the 1GB MiniSD card.
When choosing a destination you can manually enter an address or select a saved entry. You can select your home address, work, a list of previously entered addresses or previously selected address or POI, a member of your contact list, map (pick a point on a map as a stop), and intersection (pick a point where two roads meet). Using all these available options CoPilot Live 6 Motorola Q Edition will allow the user to plan out their day by planning “stops” that can be modified as the day progresses.
The only real issue I had with the destination choices is that the POI’s seem to be lacking for my new area. While there are plenty available choices, it seemed rare that I could actually find what I was looking for. If you are looking for a GPS solution with a full featured point of interest system CoPilot Live 6 Motorola Q Edition is a hit or miss.
While navigating there are several views available to use. The default is "Safety View" this mode gives you just enough info while not being distracted. If you are in an area that has a lot of turns, the screen switches to a top-down map to give you a sense of what is around. If you are on a road that has a long stretch and no turns, the screen turns to a plain blue screen with info that shows you how long until the next turn, current time, distance travelled, and ETA.
You can do a 3D view that will always show a top down map that is slightly angled. There's itinerary view which gives you a Mapquest-style table listing of turns and distances. There's "Trip Map" which gives you a view of the whole trip on one map.
At any time you see a map, you can pan and zoom via the center joystick. The arrows pan around. The center button activates zoom mode where you press up or down to zoom in/out. It doesn't really work if you are moving though since the software will reset and focus on where you currently are located.
ALK also integrated a very cool feature into the product called “LIVE”. LIVE allows you to choose to automatically send your location at set intervals to ALK’s secure server. You can then log in to the website and view your location and driving history. If you choose to allow them, your friends, family, or co-workers can view your location and send you messages through the CoPilot software, including addresses. You can then make these addresses your next destination. The LIVE integration is a great tool for managing your salesforce. For personal use what better way to ask someone to pick something up on their way home than giving them directions.
The voice navigation worked as expected. They didn't come on too frequently as to be annoying and not infrequently as to not be helpful. The prompts are very generic. "Turn left", "Next turn 3/4 of a mile", "You have reached your destination", "Bear right". Just turn up the volume or plug the audio to your stereo. You can also select from the options menu what intervals you would like to hear and can modify it to your preference. You can choose between a male or female voice and both are easy to hear over the radio even if it is not plugged in.
Overall the CoPilot Live 6 Motorola Q Edition is a solid GPS solution. While there are better units available on the market, for the price point I’m not sure that CoPilot can be beat. In the best test of the unit I could have hoped for, we were on the expressway late at night after an accident closed the road for two miles. After being detoured off the ramp and heading down a gravel road the CoPilot was able to navigate me back to the expressway safely without getting lost. I’m not sure you could ask for much else.
If you are looking for a GPS solution than the CoPilot Live 6 Motorola Q Edition is a perfect choice. While the software does have some drawbacks, using your cell phone as a fully featured GPS unit gives your QWERTY enabled device even greater functionality.
| 
