Review: AA Navigator Vive satellite-navigation device

The market for budget priced GPS solutions is on the up and AA’s new Nav-cam sits firmly on this side of the fence. Priced at a bargain £150, you wouldn't expect it to be packed with features, but it’s fair to assume it’ll get the basics right. Unfortunately you’re left wanting.

Update: Philips has since provided us with a different review unit after claiming the initial test kit was faulty. We've posted our revised thoughts at the bottom of this review.

The ‘new’ 2007 mapping software leaves a lot to be desired, while a fairly low resolution 3.5in display certainly isn’t easy on the eye. Maps appear blocky and awkward, and a combination of garish road colours mixed with washed-out backgrounds often leaves you squinting in confusion to find your position.

A series of what appear to be coded street colours make it difficult to work out which router you’re supposed to be following, and if you do make a wrong turn it takes an age to update the screen with a new route. Setting up a journey is relatively easy, but aside from this the interface is rather baffling - don’t expect to be able to make quick changes on the move.

You don’t get much information on screen and must navigate to a separate menu to make the tricky choice of which single piece of data, be it speed, estimated time of arrival, current road etc, you want to appear on the main display.

Other options such as waypoint display and alternate routes are available, but again are awkward to get to and just as awkward to use.

An mp3 player and photo viewer are built in, but neither works in tandem with the map software, which limits their appeal. You will find an AA sponsored POI (point of interest) database, which is pretty comprehensive, and an additional SD card slot for upping the capacity. It's also a relatively light and compact unit that’s easy to carry around.

However, a handful of nice features don't come close to evening out the poor map display, frustrating and often inaccurate directions and a poor user interface.

It’s certainly priced cheaply enough, but you should rightly expect more for your money. The cartographic giant may have put its name to this new navigator, but its reputation far exceeds the performance on offer.

UPDATE:
Since we reviewed the AA Navigator Vive, AA got in touch to inform us that the unit we were sent was actually faulty. On being provided with a replacement, we thought we’d take it for a spin to see if it addressed any of the issues we had with the original device.

The problems we had with frustrating and inaccurate directions now seem to be solved, the Vive replacement recalculated routes after wrong turns a lot quicker and the blue road indication that shows your current position appeared to be a lot more stable, making it clearer to work out which route to follow.

AA also informs us that after an initial free six month period, the price for annual speed camera updates has dropped to £29, and that MRE (major roads of Europe) are now included with no increase in the retail price.

With the improved performance in mind, we've upped the overall score to from 2/5 to 3/5.

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