On test and Reviewed: sat-nav devices for pedestrians

The days of your battered and bulky A to Z could be numbered, with thearrival of sat nav devices aimed not at motorists but at pedestrians.
The new handsets, designed to help people find their way on foot around a mazeof city streets and locate points of interest (POIs), could do for thestreet map what the likes of TomTom did for the humble paper road atlas.
And it won’t mean carting around yet another bulky bit of kit because thenavigation software can come on a mobile phone – the item we are now leastlikely to leave home without, according to a recent survey.
This week Garmin, the world’s leading sat nav manufacturer, will unveil itsNüvifone – the first dedicated sat nav phone for pedestrians. It combinesall the usual mobile phone functions with the ability, so its maker claims,to navigate you painlessly – and without the need to accost random strangersfor directions – from A to B.
The phone has a 3.5in matt touchscreen and contains a GPS (global positioningsystem) receiver – just like an in-car sat nav system – that can find yourexact location to within a few yards (provided you are outdoors and it canpick up a signal from the satellites). It will come with the option ofEuropean or North American mapping.
Switching to “pedestrian mode” (the Nüvifone can also be used in a car) willtell the sat nav to disregard one-way systems and allow it to direct youdown streets a vehicle cannot enter. Type in the address or postcode of theplace you want to get to and the device will calculate the shortest routeand then guide you there. Want to get to Covent Garden? Try the database ofPOIs and the system should be able to tell you exactly where you are, thengive you real-time, street-by-street directions as you walk along, eithervia directional arrows on a 2-D or 3-D map on the screen, or using voicecommands via the phone’s in-built speaker or a Bluetooth headset. That’s thetheory.
Sat nav has already proved to be an invaluable tool for motorists, but doesthe same technology translate to the pavement? The Sunday Times was given asneak look at the Nüvifone before it goes on show in Barcelona this week,but the manufacturer was unwilling to let us test it before its grandunveiling.
Other attempts at pedestrian sat navs have proved far from flawless. The NokiaN92 and MDA Vario III smartphones claim to offer a fully fledged pedestriansat nav function, but in tests both devices were woefully unreliable whenused on foot.

A big stumbling block for pedestrian sat nav is that the GPS locator needs aclear line of sight to the satellites overhead, and it struggled whenflanked by tall buildings. Also, much of the reliability of any sat navcomes from the way it calculates your location based on your movement inmainly straight lines. As a pedestrian this is more erratic, so the deviceis less able to keep track. The sat nav function also eats battery life, andwhen we tested the Nokia in central London it gave up the ghost in themiddle of its unnecessarily convoluted directions to our destination.
The Apple iPhone is no better, however. It has no GPS receiver, can find yourlocation only in relation to the position of the nearest mobile phone mastor wi-fi hotspot, and can’t offer turn-by-turn directions or figure outwhich way you’re facing.
With time these problems should be ironed out, and most big consumerelectronic manufacturers are working on new personal navigation devices. Ifit lives up to its hype the Nüvifone, which goes on sale in the autumn,should already be streets ahead of the competition and pointing the way tothe future of navigation. For now, though, best tape your old A to Z backtogether one more time.
FAIR SHARE
miShare music copier $100 (£51) www.mishare.com
We all enjoy sharing our favourite music, photos and even videos with ourfriends and relatives, but until now there hasn’t been an easy way totransfer digital files between Apple iPods without using a computer as well.This clever little gadget changes that. You simply plug an iPod into eitherside of the miShare (there are no leads required), press its one and onlybutton, and the last song or video to have been played will be copied fromone device to the other. A more prolonged press of the button selectsmultiple files, or you can set up an entire folder of photos to be swappedwith one brief push. Each song should be transferred between iPods in about10 seconds, while video clips can take a minute or longer, depending ontheir length. However, the miShare isn’t clever enough to disable thedigital copy protection that’s found on certain songs and videos bought fromonline music stores such as iTunes. And if you want to back up entirelibraries of tunes from your iPod to another computer, you’re probably goingto be better off using specific software for the job, one good package beingMusic Rescue, which costs £10 from www.kennettnet.co.uk.
EASY BREEZY
HYmini hand-held wind turbine $50 (£26) www.hymini.com
Did you know that Britain is the windiest country in Europe? Now you can takeadvantage to fuel your own hot air, using this portable wind farm to powermobile phones and other gadgets. Holding the HYmini for 20 minutes in astiff 20mph wind is claimed to generate enough energy for a four-minutephone call or 20 snaps on a digital camera. It comes with a USB port andadaptors, although you’ll need a converter to use its US charger in UK wallsockets. You can increase your eco-friendliness with an optional bicyclemount ($9, £5) or solar panel ($25, £13). But bizarrely, given its intendeduse, the HYmini isn’t fully waterproof.
SOLO PERFORMANCE
Arcam Solo Mini hi-fi system £650 www.arcam.co.uk01223 203 200
Getting superb sound needn’t mean filling your living room with bulky hi-ficomponents. The latest addition to its Solo range from the British companyArcam is the ever-so-compact Mini, measuring 9in wide and 3.5in high.Developed from Arcam’s Test Bench winner, the Solo, but just over half aswide, the Solo Mini offers clear, detailed CD playback, DAB and FM radios,and alarm-clock features. In tests, the system delivered the same classysound as its big brother (the Solo uses circuitry from Arcam’s moreexpensive players), but has slightly less power and so needs to be partneredwith sensitive speakers such as Arcam’s matching Muso set, which can bebought for as little as £140. This new compact hi-fi system is easy tooperate thanks to a slot-loading CD drive, an intuitive remote control andsimple buttons, and there are plenty of connections for other components andMP3 players (or even USB memory devices). However, iPod owners might want tosplash out another £60 on Arcam’s special rLead dock, which allows fullcontrol of the Apple music player through the Solo’s own remote.

I still prefer this, for 6 quid