Review: Blue Media BM6380GPS sat nav device

Poor interface and features make this one to miss

The Blue Media BM6380 is distributed by Evesham; it’s based on a cut-down Pocket PC, and has an array of buttons on the front panel – there’s a four-way navigation grouping with ‘OK’ in the middle, plus zoom buttons, back, navigation, power and a button to take you to the device’s main menu, from where you can also access a music player and photo viewer. There’s a small volume control at the right.

When we started setting up the unit, we had trouble – until we realised that it wanted the date in US format.

Even then, the interface was nasty; select the time zone, press the OK button and you’re taken back to the previous screen before you can set date or time. And the buttons may feel positive, but they’re way too small.

The navigation software provided is Destinator, which we reviewed in the January issue of PCW and it wasn’t our favourite then. It’s even less so with this cock-eyed interface.

For example, tap the screen and a menu appears with options. But you can’t select from those options using the navigation buttons – you have to tap the screen some more.

The same is true when entering info using the on-screen keyboard or menus – the hardware buttons don’t do anything.

This gets worse when you realise that the speaker’s too quiet to hear and the screen’s cluttered with tiny icons. And when you finally grab it from the cradle to try and enter an address with the stylus, you have to unplug the power cord first.

The receiver itself worked fine, and the routes were reasonable, but the awful buttons, the poor support for them in the software, and the fiddliest way we’ve seen of finding an address suggest the BM6380 was put together by a team of non-drivers with extremely sensitive hearing.

This article is part of a group test of satellite navigation systems. Others are:
Intro and Editor's choice
Blue Media BM6380GPS
Evesham Nav-Cam 7000
Garmin Street Pilot i3
Magellan Roadmate 300
Medion Go Pal PNA350
Mio 268+
Navman ICN520
Novogo A30
Tom Tom One
Viamichelin X930
Top-of-the-range options
The choice between all-in-ones or PDA add-ons
Europe's GPS constellation