Signothefish, funny to see your post. I moved to Wisconsin back in Feb from Raleigh. I was out at RTP with IBM and they moved me up here. How are things there? I am getting home sick!! I regularly log on to WRAL just to see the news and of course check out Linda Loveland .
I would LOVE to know how it performs at the I43/I94 junction in Milwaukee. That is a MESS and not one GPS I have used has gotten the routes correctly (TomTom, CoPilot, TeleNav)! I know it is all under construction, but it would be nice if the DOT could provide changes to a site that all GPS programs could access regularly (monthly) and update points. If you can test it I would appreciate it. That would be the ultimate GPS test IMO given the cluster fubar there.
While nice I don't think what you are asking for is practical. Mapping changes would simply be cost prohibitive. As it is is takes over a year for most all programs to update their maps-and at a cost of at least $100 per copy to consumers.
If it's that important you can look at one of the AIO devices (I'd recommend Garmin) that has traffic alerts and guidance built-in. Will cost you a subscription though that's extra.
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Over FIFTY PDA's owned! From a Palm Pro to my current Dell X51.
Signothefish, funny to see your post. I moved to Wisconsin back in Feb from Raleigh. I was out at RTP with IBM and they moved me up here. How are things there? I am getting home sick!! I regularly log on to WRAL just to see the news and of course check out Linda Loveland .
Howdy, from your old stompin' grounds, SVX. IBM is not too far down the road from where I work. I imagine it's not so good to be that far from the beach. :cry: BTW, I-540 between I-40 and Hwy 55 is opening tomorrow. It's about time!
Signothefish, funny to see your post. I moved to Wisconsin back in Feb from Raleigh. I was out at RTP with IBM and they moved me up here. How are things there? I am getting home sick!! I regularly log on to WRAL just to see the news and of course check out Linda Loveland .
Howdy, from your old stompin' grounds, SVX. IBM is not too far down the road from where I work. I imagine it's not so good to be that far from the beach. :cry: BTW, I-540 between I-40 and Hwy 55 is opening tomorrow. It's about time!
Yeah. Go figure they actually start making progress AFTER I moved! I swear I thought NCDOT was bad until I moved up here. There is a fifth season of the year called the Orange Barrel Season which occurs between May and August overlapping Spring and Summer. You cannot go anywhere without seeing a darn barrel. At least they get it right thought the first time "cough" I40 stretch between 147 and highway 54 in Durham "/cough" and the first I540 leg I believe from Creedmore and Capitol which had to be redone.
* How accurate were the routes? Did you try different profiles (shortest vs fastest, etc) to check for accuracy? Did you compare any of them to ones calculated by other software to see which ones were consistently better?
OK, I have some answers for you. This one I could have answered right away, but I thought I'd try to get some info on the rest of them before answering.
The routes were very accurate. I recently took OCN6 on a trip from Milwaukee to Rapid City, South Dakota. I also had TTN6 on my primary PDA. TTN6 was intended as the actual nav software on the trip, since I had used it and its quality and accuracy was known. OCN6 was along to be evaluated. At any rate, when I used both packages to route to a particular destination, the routes were just about always identical and quite accurate. This seems to apply regardless of the profiles used.
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* Was the estimated time of arrival pretty accurate?
It seemed to be. Again, when running in parallel with TTN6, the ETAs were similar, although OCN6's ETAs were a few minutes later than TTN6. I'm sure that's due to different assumptions of speeds in the profiles.
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* Does it have elevation display. If so, is it accurate?
Elevation is displayed through the GPS Status screen. As far as I was able to check, it seems to be accurate.
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* How fast do the routes calculate- particularly for long distances? Did OcN6 seem to perform any unnecessary calculations using multiple waypoints before or during navigation?
I tried a 2200 mile route with one intermediate stop. This was calculated in approximately 45 seconds. The same route took just under a minute with TTN6, so both were pretty much comparable. I wasn't aware of any unnecessary calculations at any time.
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* You mentioned an extensive and informative POI list. Were there any POI's you were surprised to see missing (such as established department stores, etc)? Do phone numbers show up for the POI database?
I tried a number of different department stores in my area, as well as some that are not in my area. OCN6 found all of the stores in my test, with one exception. I tried Macy's, one of the major dept stores in my area. For some reason, it didn't find the closest one, a former Marshall Fields store about 10 miles away. On the other hand, it found a different Macy's that's also a former Marshall Fields store about 60 miles away. But overall, it did a pretty good job. And it does have phone numbers available.
I couldn't compare to TTN6 as I have been throughout in this review, since department stores aren't a POI category.
When I'm out and about today, I'll try to check into the elevation thing. Hope this helps.
Thank you, Doug! Those are all very positive assessments. And some of the items I mentioned were sticking points in OcN5. It looks to me to be a hands-down winner over previous versions and comparable to its competitors.
I would LOVE to know how it performs at the I43/I94 junction in Milwaukee. That is a MESS and not one GPS I have used has gotten the routes correctly (TomTom, CoPilot, TeleNav)! I know it is all under construction, but it would be nice if the DOT could provide changes to a site that all GPS programs could access regularly (monthly) and update points. If you can test it I would appreciate it. That would be the ultimate GPS test IMO given the cluster fubar there.
I feel your pain about the Marquette interchange mess. Fortunately I don't work downtown so I've been able to largely avoid it. I had to brave it a couple of months ago to go to an art show (my cousin had an exhibit there) and TTN6 was able to get me there by rerouting around the construction, but it wasn't easy even with the nav software. I can only imagine how bad the same scenario would have been without it.
The maps in OCN6 show the standard pre-construction roads, just like TTN6. So other than using its "avoid" capability, it wouldn't do any better than the other packages you've tried. Mike hit the nail on the head regarding the logistics of ongoing map updates, so it seems that there isn't a good PDA based solution to the problems of large scale road construction.
Hi Doug... good review. Sorry I wasn't able to get into the initial discussion, as I've been away camping in the backwoods (so to speak) of Vancouver Island and giving my version of OCN6 a good run.
A couple of things readers should know.
a) Software on a card -- while this is good in that it doesn't require activation, they should know that the software is hardwired to that specific card. This means that they cannot copy the software to another, larger card if they don't want to keep switching cards. However, as noted, OCN does provide cards of various sizes, but be aware that the 2GB version has many more POI's loaded than the 1GB version. Best bet is to order the larger card, then copy all the maps to a separate location, then delete the unneeded maps from the OCN card to free up some space.
b) Canadian customers should know that the Contacts import will not work at all for Canadian addresses. This is a known bug in the software that they are working on now, I believe. Also, just to be clear -- OCN does not 'use' the contacts db on the unit on an ongoing basis. It reads it at the first installation, then does its own import of the data into its own db. I don't believe this is 'interactive', so adding new contacts or updating addresses may not show up in the OCN POI's.
c) Saving POI's -- there is also a bug in the MyPOIs section of OCN, where it will not save new POI's in the folders you define. It seems to pick the first folder created, and even this is not consistent. Again, they know about this and are working on it.
d) Routing -- OCN6 tends to prefer major roadways in navigating cities. There may be a shorter and faster way to a point using side roads, but OCN6 tends to stick to the main thoroughfares. It's not a bad choice, it's just that these tend to get congested first, and until we get consistent implemenation of TCN information, you may have to use your 'first hand' knowledge of the city to avoid getting stuck in a long line.
Map accuracy -- OCN6 uses maps from NavTeq and I've found out that most of the maps for the US and some for Canada are less than a year old! This is great, and OCN has mentioned that they will be providing some way to update maps in the future, separate from the software. For me, I found these maps to be the most accurate and complete, from a Canadian perspective of any of the nav systems I've worked with.
One other feature that I found useful on longer trips was the AutoZoom. With this enabled, the Cockpit view will change its map view dependent upon distance to the next maneuver. If it's a long way away, the map will zoom out to show less detail but more of the road ahead. As you get closer to the next intersection/manueuver, the map will zoom automatically into much closer detail of the upcoming intersection.
Thanks for the additional information, Don! You do what you can as a reviewer, but nobody knows the software better than someone who uses it all the time.
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