Navicore Personal

If you often find yourself juggling between driving and map-reading when on your way to an unfamiliar destination, investing in some navigation software for your mobile phone will undoubtedly relieve the strain.

Navigation devices come in two forms: those that carry all data (including the application, maps and all navigation info) on the actual device, and those that get most of their information from another computer, which is accessed via GPRS or 3G.

Navicore Personal fits into the former category as everything is supplied on a memory card. The main benefit of this method is that navigation and route-planning information can be accessed much quicker because it is stored locally.

Also, navigation data is not lost when mobile phone signal strength is weak. Currently Navicore Personal is only available on phones with Symbian's 60 or 80 series software, which includes Smartphones from both Nokia and Siemens.

The Navicore Personal package consists of a GPS receiver and an MMC memory card filled with the application and a map of the UK. Worldwide maps are also available but these are supplied on separate memory cards, which have to be swapped when entering another country.

The maps and the application take up about 160Mb of the 256Mb-sized memory card, so there is plenty of space on the memory card left to use. The GPS receiver connects to the mobile phone via Bluetooth.

Route planning and navigation is quick and easy. Calculating a route takes a few seconds and if you digress from the original course, it doesn't take long before new directions are displayed.

Another important factor is accuracy, and Navicore doesn't disappoint. We were very confident listening to the spoken instructions, which were clear, timely and concise. It also meant we could keep both eyes on the road.

Every road name is given on screen, and you can choose to display places of interest, hotels, petrol stations, hospitals and other useful locations.

Initially, it's annoying to learn exactly how the software defines some road situations. Sometimes, a roundabout is presented as a junction and vice versa, and sometimes it advises to 'keep left' when 'turn left' would have been more accurate. But this is not a major gripe.

The navigation software can also be used without the GPS receiver as an atlas. Roads or places of interest can be located through manual scrolling and zooming in, or by entering postcodes or address details.