Destinator 8

June 18th, 2009 nk Posted in GPS | No Comments »

Recently I tested a copy of Destinator 8. I was impressed by some aspects of the program and disappointed by others.

First the good:

Destinator installed easily on both my dedicated GPS (a Mio) and on my Win 6.1 phone. The map display is nice and clear and it navigates fairly well. I was very impressed by the programs ability to use TTS (pronounce the names of streets) when run on my phone. The phone has limited memory and iGO TTS fails because of lack of memory. Destinator works fine and pronounces everything, though with a somewhat strange accent – at least in English.

Now to the bad:

The Points Of Interest (POI) database is on the small side, but maybe acceptable taking into account the very small (relatively) size of the map files.

There are some other inconveniences: the program can’t find the GPS port automatically. It has to be entered manually in one of the .ini files. It also doesn’t automatically switch to a nigh or day display – this has to be done manually.

The menus are also somewhat awkward. To change the rout calculation method from Fast to Short (only these two options are available) you have to go through several menu layers.

Another thing that bothered me was Destinator’s limited ability to accommodate setting a destination by pointing on the map.

A VERY big weakness of the program is its inability to add via points to a route. It maybe only me, but I couldn’t find a way. If someone does, please comment on this issue.

In summary: Destinator 8 is a fairly good navigation program (except for the via point issue) and I will use it on my phone, though I am not going to uninstall iGO just yet. The TTS on my phone is, to me, worth the other inconveniences.