There aren’t many sat-nav devices that come in under £200, and those that do tend to be a little less impressive than their more expensive counterparts, so we were interested to see what Acer could muster for the price.

Better known for its notebook and desktop computers, Acer already has plenty of experience in the portable technology department thanks to its range of PDAs.

With the p610, Acer doesn’t stray very far from the established blueprint for in-car navigation devices. The p610 is a slim, pocket (or handbag) sized unit that comes with a windscreen mounting system and a cigarette lighter power cable. It has a USB port for connecting to a PC and uses SD or MMC memory cards as for storage.

As with many other GPS devices, the LCD screen is touch-sensitive, but in the p610’s case the display is unusually large (4in), making it much easier on the eye than most.

Being, as it is, at the budget end of the scale, the p610 lacks some of the features you might wish for in a sat-nav device. There are no traffic alerts available out of the box, for example – a separate TMC antenna is required if you wish to stay up to date with what’s happening on the roads. There’s also no mains adaptor in with the package, which makes it hard to power up the unit’s rechargeable battery without taking it out for a drive first.

This may not irk many users, but it limits the p610’s usefulness as a pedestrian navigation device and also means that the unit’s built-in mp3 player, photo browser and contacts functions aren’t quite as useful as they might have been.

Nevertheless, the Copilot 6 navigation software that the p610 uses is fast and accurate. The supplied Navteq maps (covering most of Western Europe) appear to be up to date and we experienced no particular performance issues during operation.

Copilot’s one big drawback is that it doesn’t support full (eight-digit) postcode address searches. Tapping in house numbers and road names each time is a bit of a chore, but one that many users may be happy to live with for such a low price.

Also consider:
Medion Gopal PNA465
It may be frill-free, but the GoPal PNA465 is as up to date as they come

Tomtom One Europe
A good value package that is marred by too many pay-for services

Navman N40i
A pretty strong device in all areas, but the poor-quality in-built camera is unnecessary

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