Magellan CrossOverGPS (Preliminary)

I couldn't remember exactly when I decided to settle with Magellan CrossOverGPS, after thumbing through numerous user guide books and online stores. I believe I decided to purchase this unit after reading the review by GPS Magazine on Dec 11 (timestamp is provided by del.icio.us).

This unit met several of my criteria:

1. SiRF III chipset.
2. Tracking
3. Turn-by-turn voice directions with street name
4. Custom POIs.
   

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Who cares about integrating GPS with data network? I'll wait until someone fix the coolest hack of 2007.

And I receive my unit today, I could have had it yesterday, but I was out of commission and couldn't function half of the day.

The problem with this unit is immediately noticed when it is fired up: satellite lock is taking too long (~5 min on open air, impossible in the building).

Then the unit presents me with 6 applications:,

1. Vehicle Nav
2. Marine
3. Outdoor
4. System
5. Music
6. Photos
   

Since I will be sitting in a vehicle most of the time when using the unit, I give Vehicle Nav a try. The review by GPS Magazine is correct, it mentioned the unit's processor being under-powered. Indeed, the application takes a while to be fully loaded.

First, try the street address, it could search a street by city and zip code. The strong point of using this unit: it eliminates wrong entry by disabling the key and auto complete features.

Taking the unit to the street, the rerouting calculation is prompt, other people give bad reviews on the re-routing recalculation time, but I don't have a problem with it. Maybe it is easier to detour in Southern California?

On the way home, I turned on the tracking feature via outdoor application. The resulting log was exported to SD card, converted to KML format using Perl, and uploaded to Google Map.
Checking the map, I found that it is fairly accurate, since it tracked the movement of the car at the correct lane of 605 freeway (north bound instead of south bound or out of the freeway).

I couldn't wait to take the unit to the trails and uploading the results.