Over the last few weeks I’ve been using my new Myguide Navigator
6500XL (actually a rebadged Mitac Mio 168). It’s a Pocket PC with
integrated GPS running Windows Mobile 2003. So, here’s what I think of
it.
First the good:
- Providing the GPS has a wide open horizon, it works pretty well.
Once it’s acquired satellites, it is reasonably reliable. It’s
reasonably quick to acquire satellites, except in built-up areas
of London.
- The bundled navigation software, Falk Navigator, is usable. Not
always entirely accurate, sometimes giving ambiguous directions,
but even if I take a wrong turn it gets me back on track. The
facility for searching for locations is not flexible enough. I’ll
cover the Falk software in more detail some other time, as I have
a fair few ideas how this could be made so much easier to use.
- The basic PDA functions work well; calendar, address book, notes
and task lists.
- I like the “Today” page on the desktop showing upcoming
appointments and an overview of tasks.
- The colour screen is nice and sharp.
- Good range of accessories, including a dashboard mount for in-car
navigation.
- Three different script-recognition systems, including good old
Graffiti. Never mind that I didn’t find them until this evening,
when I started to write a moan about the lack of Graffiti and
googled to check my facts!
Now, for the not so good:
- So, what is the operating system called? Is it Windows CE, Windows
Mobile, or Pocket PC? Do I really need to waste my time running
three separate google searches for one bit of information, just
because nobody knows what the damn OS is called?
- Would it really be too much trouble to have Windows Media Player
support the AVI container format? It supports Microsoft’s version
of the MPEG4 codec. Fine. I have software for Linux that writes
MPEG4 video. What I don’t have is a way to get sound and video
into an ASF file that WMP will play. Currently I can play my
videos from my digital camera, but without sound.
- Would it not be possible for applications to actually close
when I ask them to? I do not want them to just disappear into the
background only to be closed with an osbcure utility in
Settings -> Memory.