7. The BMW And The HP Rx1950 Navigator In The French Alps And Near Geneva

Setting up my itinerary with the BMW 3 Series driver interface console and the HP rx1950 Navigator involved two very different interfaces and systems, considering one is housed in a luxury-model car while the other is embedded in a PDA. I needed to drive as quickly as I could from my hotel in the ski resort town of Les Contamines, France, in the French Alps, to the outskirts of Geneva just before the Swiss border, which was about 25 miles away. When I was in my hotel, I could use the IPAQ to check my email using Outlook Express with the hotel's Wi-Fi network and combed over a document that someone sent me that I opened with Microsoft Word. However, as I mentioned above I could not get the Michelin GPS software to function until the PDA was fastened in its cradle and the device's power cord was plugged into the BMW' cigarette lighter.

The BMW 3 Series and HP's IPAQ rx1950 Navigator both did the job.

The rx1950's dashboard and windshield fastening system proved maddeningly difficult to attach. Regardless of which way I turned the device in the cradle or how I turned the lever above the suction cup, I was unable to get it to stick to either the dashboard or windshield. The cradle comes with a circular piece of plastic that can be glued onto the windshield or dashboard with an adhesive material. However, I could not get the suction cup to remain stuck to the circular piece of plastic now glued to the car's windshield. To add insult to injury, it took me over 20 minutes of hard scrubbing with a sponge, soap and water a few days later to remove the adhesive residue once I took the plastic off. I was reduced to just leaning the cradle against the bottom part of the dashboard as I drove, while I often had to pick it off the floor when it fell after I drove around a sharp curve.

Once activated, the HP device by default automatically loaded the GPS menu, which served up the usual fare of destination-choice categories, including favorites, points of interest or address. After inputting the country, city and street address where I wanted, a velvety woman's voice said I had to make a right at the next roundabout after calculating my itinerary in less than a minute. The destination-selection protocol is also roughly the same as that of the Garmin and Navman devices tested in this review.

It was then time to activate the BMW's navigation system. I first turned a knob located in front of the arm rest with which I navigated the dashboard console. There has been much debate about the myriad often-complicated settings drivers are faced with in BMW models, ranging from seat adjustments to temperature controls to driving modes. In the case of the navigation system I tested, it was fairly dumbed down, so that once the navigation menu was accessed, the country, city and address selection was just as simple to input as that of the rx1950 Navigator.

As I drove, there were hardly any differences between the rx1950 Navigator and BMW's voice prompts that sometimes signaled that I should turn left or right at the same time. Both voice directions were equally accurate, with the occasional indication to make a wrong turn, especially when I drove along a new roundabout or road that had not yet been added to either system's database.

Additionally, the BMW's screen offered more detailed maps and names of side streets. While the HP listed the name of the street or highway to be followed, the BMW could detail the names of the adjacent and parallel roads and streets with the zoom function. It was also easy to explore the BMW's map in any direction from where I was positioned in order to manually explore alternative routes. When I was jammed up in traffic in Geneva, for example, I scanned the side streets and was able to navigate through traffic-free avenues and alleys to the main highway away from the traffic. However, was this added feature and a more versatile and intuitive map really worth the $1,500 plus price difference?