At the CeBIT electronics fair in March 2007, Navigon presented its new 5100 and 7100 series models. With four new models, the German manufacturer started a new chapter in their design history. Up till then, Navigon systems were known to be robust but cumbersome, but here they were, presenting slick and stylish new ranges! Since then, Navigon has introduced several other new devices, aimed at both the low and high ends of the market, and all based on the new style. Yournav recently received a review sample of the Navigon 8110, currently the top-of-the-line model.It has only been available for a couple of months, but it is quickly gaining a group of very enthusiastic users. Before we started this review, we were wondering why this was so. After we finished our tests, we knew.
Primary fun
After the purchase of any new navigational device, it doesn’t take long for the fun to start. The packaging of the new toy is usually very attractive, and often filled to the brim with extras, especially when you are dealing with the high-end model of any range. As we said, the Navigon 8110 is top of the range for this particular German company, so we had high expectations of what we would find inside the box.The first surprise is the sheer size of the box the 8110 comes in. The device is packaged in a large black case, which has been slid into a shiny cardboard sleeve. This sleeve shows a large number of icons, which
represent the most important features of the device and the contents of the box. This gave us a pretty good first idea of what this machine is capable of, and it also let us know that the pre-installed mapping material comes from Navteq. Yet another graphic, this time a small map, clearly shows which European countries the map in our new toy covers. This simple and seemingly obvious item is something certain other manufacturers would do well to emulate!The information on the box is written mostly in English. Only the warning that cars using a heat-reflecting windscreen might need an external GPS antenna is printed in six languages. The features it boasts for the Navigon 8110 are (amongst others): Panoramic View, voice recognition, Reality View, Lane Travel Assistant, text-to-speech, an MP3 player and a photo viewer. The voice recognition and the text-to-speech currently don’t work with all available languages, but English is no problem. This will be fixed in an upcoming software update.
Navigon ships the 8110 with a free bi-annual subscription to FreshMaps. This ensures the user can enjoy the most recent maps for two whole years (other brands, please note!). Map updates can be easily downloaded onto the device using the PC NavigonFresh software, which is shipped standard with the unit.
Inside the box, apart from the sat nav unit itself, we also find the active car mount, an SD card with the European mapping material, a USB lead, a carrying bag for the device, a 220 volt charging adapter (with different international plugs), a charger for use in the car, a small plastic plate for attachment to the dashboard, a user manual, a Quick Installation Guide, a booklet with a overview of the available accessories and a CD-ROM with the PC software and even more “electronic” manuals. The (beefy) written manual is printed in five different languages: English, German, French, Italian and Spanish and the digital version is available in seventeen languages.
Exterior
After opening the box, our attention is immediately drawn to the device itself. Of course it got a prominent position! The Navigon 8110 is a big unit – it has to be as it features a very large screen with a diagonal measurement of no less than 4.8 inches! The appearance of the system is characterized by the brushed stainless steel front and the smooth rounded curves, which give the whole unit a very stylish appearance. The rear cover is made of hard, black plastic and contains the speaker grille and a typical circular connector for the mount.Because of this use of stainless steel material and its large size, the 8110 is not a lightweight. The device weighs no less than 265 grammes, which is relatively heavy for a navigational device. Still, the PND is easy to hold because it’s pretty slim and not too high and not only does it look very nice, it also appears to be very solid.
When we take a closer look, we see a large number of buttons and connectors. On the top, we see a stylus (1) that helps to control every square millimetre of the 8110’s screen. This stylus is well integrated into the exterior of the device, so well, in fact, that you need a good long set of fingernails to get it out! On the other side there’s the SDHC card slot (2) and in the middle the metal-coloured on/off button (3).
To the left we see two buttons: a ‘back’ button (4) with which the user can return to the previous screen, and a button to mute or un-mute the sound (5). Below, there’s a connector for an external GPS antenna (6), nicely tucked away underneath a rubber cap. Since the Navigon 8110 uses the renowned SiRF Star III chipset, we don’t expect this external GPS antenna becoming a necessity very often.
On the right-hand side are another two buttons for turning the volume up and down (7+8) and below those is a headphones connector (9). Behind a small hole to the right of the touch screen is the microphone (10) and on the bottom of the device there’s a mini-USB connector (11) for connecting the unit to a computer or for charging the battery, and an LED indicator (12) that shows orange when the system is charging and blue when the SatNav is operational. Next to the LED, there’s a reset hole, for those hopefully rare occasions when a system re-boot may be required.
Click to enlarge...
Car mount Navigon 8110
Car Mount
The system’s car mount uses a large suction cup, which can either be attached to the windscreen or onto the supplied plastic disk which can be glued to the dashboard. As this is an active mount, below the suction cup there’s another mini-USB connector for the power supply to the holder and the PND. The other end of the mount shows a metal ring, onto which the unit is clicked and in the centre of this ring we see the electrical contacts. The ring is connected to some sort of half-sphere which acts as a universal joint, allowing adjustment in every direction. Because of the metal connection, it’s a very solid design.This active car mount for the 8110 is also fairly big. End to end it measures no less than 23.5 centimetres, and opinions on this will differ. We believe drivers of French cars will be happy because of the usual deep dashboards of their ‘voitures’, but we found that when it is used in a car with a not-so-deep dashboard, the SatNav quickly imposes into the ‘free space’ of the car. Thankfully, the sleek design means it doesn’t end up TOO intrusive.
Use
After turning the system on for the first time, the user is presented with five choices: Navigation, Music, Photos, Telephone and Options. Four large grey buttons present the first four choices, while the Options choice is located in a task bar on the bottom of the screen. This task bar is always available and shows different options, depending on the feature that is in use at the time and this can substantially reduce time spent hunting through the menus.For example, when the ‘Navigating’ button is chosen, it still remains possible to access the ‘Music’ and ‘Telephone’ functions, as smaller buttons for them now appear on the task bar. This greatly enhances the ease-of-use for the motorist.
Combining the ‘Photos’ function with one of the other functions is not possible however, but then again, you shouldn’t want to look at photos while navigating!
The menu structure in the Navigon software is very clear and leaves nothing to be desired. Thanks to the screen size of the 8110, the buttons can be large enough to be accompanied by clear text labels too. When
entering a destination, the user interface is very clear and friendly. To enter the name of a country, city or street, a sort of keyboard is provided, on which the available letters diminish as you’re typing, meaning you’ll never be able to type in a non-existent name. As well as that, a list of suggested names is offered which begin with the already tapped in letters.
Operating the Navigon 8110 is easy as pie. After entering your destination, a press of the ‘Start Navigating’ button begins the route calculation. The software is lightning fast in plotting routes, giving a calculated route from Holland to the Algarve in Portugal in just 12 seconds. Our standard ‘benchmark’ trip to the San Marco square in Rome takes only about 20 seconds. (to compare this result with that of other high-end units from TomTom, Garmin and Mio, please read our special 'Three high-end models compared')
After the entry of a destination address, the user can also take his pick from a number of offered Points Of Interest. The POI’s are divided into 18 main categories, each with their own sub-categories. For example, the ‘Restaurants’ POI has ‘Steakhouses’, ‘McDonalds’, ‘Asian food’, ‘Subway’, ‘Grill’, etc. sub-divisions.
Here we find a major drawback though: the 8110 does not have any feature to add your own categories or personal POI’s.
The ‘extra’ functions of Music, Photos and Telephone operate in exactly the same way. Clear buttons and texts help the user to use a selected feature with ease. Obviously a great deal of though has gone into the user-interface, our only negative impression being that there is often a small “lag” between screen taps and the unit responding.
Navigation
The main function of the 8110 is course navigation, and here the device really excels. We’re very happy with the way the manufacturer has taken the user seriously and thought through the whole way the device and its navigating software operates.The presentation of the Navteq mapping material is also very clear. The view is already perfectly good in standard mode, but Navigon have added all sorts of smart extras to make the on-screen image reflect the surroundings as realistically as possible. There is an extensive choice of options like Reality View, Panorama View 3D, Lane Assistant Pro and 2D/3D view. With the help of these, you should have a hard time still driving the wrong way.
The ‘Lane Assistant Pro’ shows you which lane to take when approaching complex traffic junctions, and it does so by using coloured arrows to guide you into the correct lane in time. This is a very handy feature on motorways, but can also be a help at complex intersections on secondary roads or even in busy city centres. The Lane Assistant Pro is shown in a small rectangle on the screen and clearly shows all the available lanes with the lane that should be followed clearly indicated.
With ‘Panorama View 3D’, Navigon is the first manufacturer to implement an overview of the surroundings where height differences are shown. This offers the motorist an even more realistic view of their surroundings, which can only help with the orientation.
The ‘Reality View’ aids the motorist by showing images of actual road signs at certain locations or motorways or at exits. The road signs consist of three or four indications shown on signs above or next to the road. Here also, coloured and flashing arrows indicate to the driver which way he/she needs to go.
Obviously, while navigating, the user is also given clear and specific vocal route indications. Text-to-speech is not available for all languages yet, but for those who have to do without, the indications on the screen really make up for it with the current and next street name prominently shown. The spoken route commands are loud enough and easy to understand although the voice quality is not the best we’ve ever heard: it all sounds quite ‘tinny’.
If you were to deviate from the calculated route for whatever reason, the unit must initiate a re-calculation. These are completed very swiftly once it starts, but in our opinion it takes the software to long to realise a re-calculation is required. A bit of software tweaking would be a good thing here.
Traffic
Of course, a high-end device like the 8110 cannot go without real-time traffic information and this model comes with a TMC module actually built-in. So, YES, this means no separate TMC antenna is required - the necessary aerial is integrated in the 12 volts charging cable.Of course this means that if you want to use TMC whilst navigating, you’d better plug in the power cord! A small price to pay for not having another wire and pod dangling off your sleek SatNav and because of the active mount, fitting or removing the 8110 does not necessarily mean plugging in the power cable every time.
During our test with the 8110, we quickly found that the TMC signals are well received by the unit. When the signal becomes too weak, the software quickly changes to a different TMC broadcast channel that does have adequate signal strength. The device is capable of picking up the free TMC signals where available, and for countries like the UK, France, Germany and Finland, a (as far as we can tell unlimited) subscription to a Premium TMC service comes in the purchase price.
The information on traffic incidents could be better though. The software calculates an alternative route when this is necessary because of the traffic density, but we would have liked to see more on-screen information on the current road status as well.
Extra functions
The Navigon 8110 features a few extra functions apart from the essential navigation, one of those being the FM transmitter. This enables the SatNav to send it’s sound through the car speakers, making the route indications even easier to understand. This also enables a passenger to engage in a phone call, or enjoy playback of the MP3 files stored on the device.
Navigon has included an option into the FM transmitter software that automatically locates free frequencies. In many European countries the whole FM band is pretty crowded, and this sometimes makes it hard to locate an available frequency. When a long distance has to be covered, it gets even worse and you may spend some time looking for available frequencies. The Navigon 8110 does all this tedious tuning for you. Good stuff!
A negative aspect worth mentioning is how the FM transmitter also passes the ‘tinny’ sound we mentioned through to the car speakers. So the mediocre sound quality of the device is not (only) because of the small loudspeaker, but also due to the inherent low quality of the voice files themselves. This suspicion was confirmed when we played a couple of MP3 files on the 8110. Even though the sound is still a little lacking when played on the internal speaker, the quality is a lot better than the voice files, and when we play the MP3 files though the car speakers by using the FM transmitter, the sound quality is excellent.
Putting MP3 files onto the player is done very simply by connecting the 8110 to the PC and copying them onto the SD card of the device. A 2 GB card is shipped with this device as standard, but this card already contains the mapping material of Western Europe, so there’s only 130 MB left for additional MP3’s, photos or other data. A larger card may soon be needed…
The MP3 player itself has limited functionality, but is easy to operate. The user clearly sees which tracks are located on the SD card, and these are easily selectable. Since there are only five buttons available for controlling the sound, it’s not hard to figure out which button does what. As said, it’s also better to use the FM transmitter to send the music through your car stereo. Usefully, WMA files are supported as well as regular MP3’s.
Just like with the MP3 player, the photo viewer is nicely implemented. Navigon has shipped a couple of dozen demo photos with the device and these photos can be viewed one by one or in a slide show, giving a pretty good result on the large screen of the 8110. This could be a very handy feature to give your holiday snapshots a temporarily storage space if the SD card of your camera should become full, but it’s not possible to connect a camera directly; you need to connect both devices to a computer in order to copy the files.
Hands Free
The Navigon 8110 features a Bluetooth module that can be used to pair the device with a mobile phone. Once that is done, hands free phone calls can me made. That’s the theory at least, because we noticed that pairing our Nokia E51 with the 8110 was not an easy task. It took us several tries to get it all working, but once we had finally succeeded, using the hands free phone feature was a piece of cake. You can still dial the number on your phone, but you can also dial it on your screen and copying the contacts list from your mobile phone is easy. Nothing radically new here, most other competitors also offer this but it is nicely implementedUnfortunately the low sound quality of the device rears its ugly head here too. We found the incoming volume of calls to be too quiet, and the device seemed to have troubles working full-duplex: when both parties talk at the same time, it’s sometimes hard to understand the person who is calling via the SatNav.
NavigonFresh
Navigon ships its units with the ‘NavigonFresh’ PC application. This software enables installation of new software, maps and services onto your device. The PC software is very user-friendly just like the navigational software.During the short period in which we were testing the Navigon 8110, there were two software updates. The device arrived with software version 7.0.5, which we updated to 7.0.7 and shortly thereafter to 7.0.8. This gave us an excellent opportunity to test how easy the process of software updating has been designed. And we can say: very easy: Of course, the download itself takes some time, but the total process of downloading, unpacking, uploading and installing onto the SatNav took no more than 20 minutes, which is very acceptable.
NavigonFresh is also used in combination with the FreshMaps subscription to download new mapping material. The buyer of a Navigon 8110 will receive a free bi-annual subscription to FreshMaps. All map updates within the first two years after registration are free for download, but since our test model came with the most recent maps pre-installed we’ve not been able to test this feature.
One last function of NavigonFresh is making a backup of the complete contents of the system. A complete backup is made, and the user can also choose to save or restore more than one version of this backup (for example, a backup from different maps, or with different version of the navigational software).
The PC software is without error and very easy to use. It’s also very nicely designed, which adds to the pleasure of using it.
Accessories
An aspect we usually leave out of our reviews is the availability of accessories. In the case of the 8110, it’s worth having a look at the available options though. There’s a remote control available, which enables safer use of the device whilst driving. It’s a good thing this accessory is available, but for a top of the range model, we really would expect this to be part of the package.For motorcycle drivers, there’s the Navigon GiPSy. This is a bag made of high-quality fabric, with some strong magnets built into it. With these magnets, the bag can easily be clamped to the petrol tank of a motorcycle and the Navigon 8110 can be slid into this bag, with the screen still viewable through a transparent and waterproof window. We did ask ourselves if the 8110 would still be easy to control by somebody wearing thick motorcycle gloves, but at first sight, the GiPSy bag looks like very innovative accessory.
