Co-pilot Gps Review

[timewalker]

Well I've been Using Copilot for about a month now and can give you all some feed back on this rather pricey program

First of all Just to clear things up.. I have it set to avoid local and one lane highways ( I drive company and dont care about how much fuel I use


It's trip planning SUCKS it doesn't have the facilities in it to make a good two+ day plan.. you can tell it you want to stop every X hours for X min.. and it will put a little dot on your path but that still doesn't help you really..

I've emailed them a couple times about adding some ( I want to drive 500 miles today and mark that on the path ( and or offer parking locations within 20 mile radius of 500 miles))

If you zoom in or out while your in driving mode you will have to manually zoom after that or restart the program... ( if you do not mess with the zoom it will zoom in or out while your driving to give you extended views or close views depending on how far it is to your next turn or change on the road ( like stay on I-95 as us-xx splits off ))



Now as far as some reports I've read on the product about it trying to reroute all the time because it thinks your off the road your on.. havn't seen that happening

Some of the annoying things about the program to me is.. For instance it told me last night to get onto 285 SOUTH (off i-75s) as we all know there is east or west 285... that was mighty annoying as it wasn't telling me to take east or west..


Someof the good points I pull off to goto a truck stop it almost immediatly starts telling me how to get back out on the road I belong on


This aint much of a review But it does tell ya some of the good and bad points

[Malaki86]

Well I've been Using Copilot for about a month now and can give you all some feed back on this rather pricey program

First of all Just to clear things up.. I have it set to avoid local and one lane highways ( I drive company and dont care about how much fuel I use


It's trip planning SUCKS it doesn't have the facilities in it to make a good two+ day plan.. you can tell it you want to stop every X hours for X min.. and it will put a little dot on your path but that still doesn't help you really..

I've emailed them a couple times about adding some ( I want to drive 500 miles today and mark that on the path ( and or offer parking locations within 20 mile radius of 500 miles))

If you zoom in or out while your in driving mode you will have to manually zoom after that or restart the program... ( if you do not mess with the zoom it will zoom in or out while your driving to give you extended views or close views depending on how far it is to your next turn or change on the road ( like stay on I-95 as us-xx splits off ))



Now as far as some reports I've read on the product about it trying to reroute all the time because it thinks your off the road your on.. havn't seen that happening

Some of the annoying things about the program to me is.. For instance it told me last night to get onto 285 SOUTH (off i-75s) as we all know there is east or west 285... that was mighty annoying as it wasn't telling me to take east or west..


Someof the good points I pull off to goto a truck stop it almost immediatly starts telling me how to get back out on the road I belong on


This aint much of a review But it does tell ya some of the good and bad points

I'll add a little to that:

For the zooming, you don't have to restart or anything - just go back to the 'view' menu and re-select the view you want - that resets it

Some stupid things CoPilot does:

1 - anytime you're on a route and another route 'joins' the route you're currently on, it will tell you to stay on the current route when the other route splits off. Umm - I was on this road and I don't care about that other one, unless I'm supposed to take it.

2 - night driving mode - 2 things here - 1) it needs to have the mode switching changed so it changes at dark/day whereever you are, on a certain day. It doesn't always stay light until 7pm Eastern time. 2) The night mode colors are horrible: The 'buttons' on the right are too bright. the route is too dark and too small to see when zoomed out to a distance of over roughly 50 miles.

3 - It won't disable the screen saver, at all.

4 - Try driving straight through Columbus, OH on either I-70 or I-71. CoPilot always wants to route you around the city, even if you're in the dead center. It will try to send you to to the loop, and then around. And, yes, hazmat was turned off.

5 - Save Current - This is supposed to store your current location so you can retreive it again with just the name. Well, you can, but I've yet to see it have the location (physical) anywhere close to where it's supposed to be. I checked one that I stored, and it had me going 50 miles away to a completely different city. I checked the info in the POI database, it has the correct address. It just has no idea where it is.

I agree with the planning mode being horrible. I want to be able to plan a trip, no matter if it's 2 hours or 5 days worth of driving. I can use MS Streets & Trips to do this. It's just a matter of putting the starting time and how long I'm going to be at each stop.

I've sent them e-mails of suggestions as well, but have never heard anything from them.

In fact, here's my last email I sent:

Guidance Mode:
Disable screen-saver/monitor power settings - To get rid of the annoying screen blanking automatically when the screen saver starts up. I wouldn't use this setting in the planning mode - only when it's in the Guidance mode.

Darker colors for night - Use darker colors in the night mode, mainly for the color of the buttons on the right side of the screen. The display is too bright to be used in night mode. A great example of good night colors is Microsoft Streets & Trips 2007's.

Automatic Day/Night according to sunrise/sunset for current location - My computer uses the eastern time zone, and the day/night setting uses that time. When I'm in different time zones, it's wanting to be in the wrong mode at the wrong time of day. This could be expanded to also calculate the sunrise/sunset time of the current location.

Delete/Clear route confirmation - On too many occasions I've accidentally hit the 'Clear' or the 'Delete' button while in the Guidance Mode. There should be a confirmation pop-up asking whether or not to actually delete/clear.

Delayed auto-snap - Many times I want to drag the map window so that I can see further down the road just so I have an idea of what is coming up. CoPilot automatically re-places the map in the original location. When dragging the map (even with the auto-snap enabled) there should be a delay built in so that you have a chance to look at the map, maybe 30 seconds.

Local weather - This would require a full-time internet connection, which I have. Add a 'Weather' button to the main screen. Inside this menu would be options for Local weather (current location) and Destination weather. For the local weather, if the vehicle is stopped, maybe a 36 hour forecast for the local, otherwise just give current weather conditions. For the destination weather, provide a 36 hour forecast.

ETA to final destination - Along with showing the ETA to the next stop, show an ETA & Driving Miles remaining to the final destination on the main screen.

Keyboard shortcuts - Provide keyboard shortcuts to the main buttons on the Guidance Mode

Smaller 'buttons' - Make smaller buttons on the screen in order to allow for a larger map display.

Default 'Add POI' - Allow to search from the same POI's set in the POI Alert setting to make adding a POI stop easier while in the guidance mode. 99% of the time when I need to add a new POI stop to the route, I use the same searches as what is set in my POI Alert settings.

POI Alert Sound - Provide an option to play a sound whenever a POI Alert pops up. A lot of times while I'm driving, especially at night, I turn off my display, and therefore have no idea when a POI Alert has came up.
Planning Mode:
Current Location as Start - Add this as an option to the route planning instead of having to manually add the current location with an address.

Scheduled stops - Allow times to be set in the waypoints/stops to provide a better final ETA. For example, Leave the current location at 8am, stop at waypoint 1 for 10hrs, stop at waypoint 2 for 10hrs then continue to the final destination. This would be an EXTREME advantage to Over-The-Road truck drivers. Again, for an example of how to do it would be Microsoft Streets & Trips.

All in all though, it's a great program. Until there's another full-screen program out that's made for trucks, I'll keep using it.

[mowman]

The North/South prompt when the road is marked as East/West thing is pretty common. I think it has to do with how the names of the roads are stored in the program's internal database and which direction the road actually is going.

Route planning is a tough animal. I've found that the software does a very good job of calculating an ETA, which - of course - will change based on driving conditions.

I've "enhanced" it a bit by creating a simple spreadsheet I can cut and paste the driving directions (which include odometer and clock) into that will give me times - based on my actual start time.

While planning my route, I'll have a good idea of where I'll be when I run out of hours and can look at some alternatives. I'll not only get out the truck stop guide (which has more info than the internal POI database), but do online searches for local Wally Worlds, Home Depots or Targets.

It's really helped me get to places that I can get out of the truck, walk around a bit and see some people.

I'm pretty happy with it, but I have to admit I got my copy at a severe discount.

[yellow wolf]

i just got one and will be testing it in a week or so,i get lost easy,lol

[mistergreen]

I use Co-Pilot 9 with the GPS and leave it on driver assist. I found all the other modes to be a little on the annoying side. I also get the directions from my company to verify that the routing is close or not since some of the roads are named differently or not on there at all. For a backup I do have MS Streets and Trips as well which seems to be the best at finding odd roads but horrible at truck routes.

Just because you have a short cut with the program, you should still pull out yer atlas and double check visually on where it is sending ya. Some of the roads Co-Pilot sends me on are restricted (yes I have national network and 53' trailer options checked)

[rickstephens]

ive had copilot for a week now not to bad still go to the map i find it wants to send me to old locals if the co has moved the other day in birm ala co qualcom says exit 261 copilot says 262 said something to the final des and cust said that was there old address. but maybe that was just me still learning dont know not to sure how much i trust it

[Malaki86]

Here's a couple of other issues with CoPilot:

1 - Save Current - This is supposed to save your current location so that you can easily call it up again. It works MAYBE 2% of the time. I've been in the exact same location, but with the previous save, it's wanting me to drive to a location up to 50 miles away.

2 - The 'Live' features are pretty screwed up. If you exit CoPilot, you have to go to the live website, log in and do a 'Change Device' for tracking to work when you restart CoPilot. Also, on many, many, many occasions it has my invitations (people who can track you) tracking other people. I logged onto my account one day (for my tracking) and it was showing me in Hubbard, OH. That's fine, except I was in Baton Rouge, LA. So, I started sending the other person messages. Both of us received them.

I've written and called them on many occasions about these 2 issues. Every single time they tell me that there will be a patch released 'next week'. Well, that 'next week' has yet to happen, even though it's been about 3 months since I started contacting them.

[rustylugzz]

had it, hated it,sent it back,bought a garmin,havent missed copilot

[bouncer]

Well let's hope they fix it with the new version.

[Malaki86]

Well let's hope they fix it with the new version.

I agree. The tech support people at ALK I've talked to said the new version is 100% rewritten.

[BiGG T33]

Which verison you guys got?
i just bought laptop truck 9 and i was told i can upgrade to 10 when its available...date keeps getting pushed back from what alk keeps telling me...

[Malaki86]

That's what I'm running - Laptop 9