Mapopolis 4.37 is out - Page 3

sidewinder33625 · 02-03-04, 09:30 AM

Well, used the new version on the way to work and I like the change in the map text as they are more legible. Have not had chance to use any of the other added features. As far as voice guidance, unfortunately I must agree with some here. Most of it is basically unintelligible. It wasn't great on the Axim with the pre-recorded version but at least you could understand that one.

Street names sounded like foreign language and I could somewhat pick out certain words like 'turn'. Of course this is in a moving car so there is also ambient noise which makes it worse. If you look at the screen after the fact you can get an idea of what was just said but I could not understand it out of the blue. The problem is that when you turn up the volume, it distorts the voice even more. I noticed only way to get a decent quality is at lower volumes which of course you can't hear in the car. I have tried adjusting the speed to fast and slow and to me it did not make much difference either way.

If only Axim came with a half way decent speaker it might have been better. As it stands now it might help if you have a quiet car like a Lexus or something but then you probably already have a built-in nav. I have not had a chance to try but it will probably help greatly if you have amplified speakers or playing through your car stereo using cassette or FM adapter.

Its a great concept but not very well executed at least on the Axim. I'm sure Mapopolis will come up with a solution of maybe having a choice of using pre-recorded voice like before. But then again, I mainly use it on vacations and trips and in those occasions I use a cassette adapter on the wife's suv so this is not a big deal for me. Just wanted to report my findings.

onthego · 02-03-04, 06:28 PM

For those of you who can't get the volume up without distortion, I recommend the Arkon Powered Multimedia PDA Mount. I've had one for about six months and it has solved the problem of road noise, being able to listen to the radio, etc.

David