or anyone who has ever taken a wrong turn and
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mind himself hopelessly lost, an in-cab satellite iavigation system that tells you exactly where you [re and which way to turn at every junction sounds Ike a guardian angel. But is it? Robin Meczes tries out Ine modern system to find out.
Weve all done it: taken that one wrong turn and found ourselves in the back of beyond with no idea of how to get back to our original route; no map to hand and no time to waste on silly mistakes. Modern navigation systems like BirdView, tveloped jointly by Hitachi and Nissan, aim put an end to all that. So, when CM recently nrowed an Almera Tino 2.0 SE+ fitted with Le system for a drive from South London up Middlewich, Cheshire and back, we were Ltrigued to see how it performed.
To begin with, there wasn't much to see, a w buttons on the dashboard being the only ue that the system was even installed. Use Le correct one to switch on, however, and the Teen glides smoothly out of the top of the ishboard and folds out into place.
treet name
's then up to the user to key in a destination, hether by town or street name and number. It's easy to input a town or street name sing the on-screen keyboard and the single iultifunction key that combines a normal mputer keyboard's four cursor keys and turn key. Moving around the keyboard is iade easier as you type a town or street name ; the unit consults its database of possible cations and automatically rules out letters that cannot possibly follow the one you've just typed in, making the whole process a lot quicker.
Alternatively, you can type in an initial letter and bring up a list of possible destinations beginning with that letter to scroll down.
The database also contains lots of points of interest and possible destinations, such as hotels, petrol stations and restaurants. For each of these it includes full address and phone number—useful if you want to phone ahead and make a reservation. A user-definable address book means you can even add your own frequent addresses, like a usual start point or most-visited destinations. Nice touch.
Once you've put in the destination, the unit takes a few seconds to compute the route and then starts telling you what to do, showing turns on the screen map one by one and issuing voice commands in a smooth-sounding female voice, Her voice was the only option but at least we could adjust the volume or turn her off altogether if desired.
The colour screen itself, while small, was pretty perfectly formed with clear maps and a useful night-time mode that cuts out all the screen glare in the dark. It even switched over to night-time mode automatically when the vehicle lights were switched on.
Viewable screen size is around 13ox8omm.
Maps can be zoomed from the whole of the British Isles down to a scale of about 8 omm to a mile. Views can be a standard road map or isometric (a bird's-eye view from above and behind the vehicle). The screen can also be split into two, for example to show a general map of the area with local landmarks and a more detailed street-level map with your exact location at the same time. Another nice touch,
Other times
Commands, both on-screen and verbal, are issued automatically as you approach a turning or junction but the unit can also be asked for guidance at other times if required.
The routes BirdView chose for us were logical, and if you do find yourself making a mistake it simply recalculates from your new position without fuss.
However, on one occasion around 14 miles from home when we decided to leave the M25 a junction earlier than it suggested, BirdView insisted for the next nine miles that our best bet was to double back to the M25 and take up its originally suggested 4-mile route. Something slightly wrong there, we think. Worse, it carried on doing this until we were just five miles from our destination, at which point, thankfully, it finally saw the sense in continuing straight on with the, by now, much shorter and quicker route...