A GPS navigator for my car

It’s not perfect, but the GPS device from MapMyIndia does a decent job of telling you how to reach any placeIt’s not perfect, but the GPS device from MapMyIndia does a decent job of telling you how to reach any place
I don’t like rolling down my car window to ask for directions, but, yes, I have driven in circles and made stupid excuses for reaching late and yelled at people who stick political posters on maps and road signs. Now there is a solution. Actually, it has been there for quite some time.

A typical day for me involves meetings with customers, and I have to travel extensively since Delhi is now growing into the NCR, spread over towns in adjoining Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Finding an address is often difficult, and even if you roll down the window to ask for directions, the left turns and right turns will just leave you driving in circles again.

So, I started using a GPS about seven years ago when there were no online maps for India. This was before Maps of India, MapMyIndia, Sat Guide and other companies came along. Before we realised, the market was flooded with GPS, pseudo GPS and even mobile phones promising to help you locate places quicker.

Two weeks back I bumped into Rakesh Verma, founder of mapmyindia.com. After a long chat, I asked him to send over a unit so that I could test it firsthand. A week later, I had a brand new GPS unit installed in my car.
The first day, (I had not bothered to read the manual), I could not get it right. But, I knew it had to work. Later, I took the GPS on trips in the NCR and then to Himachal. I even packed it for a trip to Mumbai and used it in the cab. And it worked. I don’t like rolling down my car window to ask for directions, but, yes, I have driven in circles and made stupid excuses for reaching late and yelled at people who stick political posters on maps and road signs. Now there is a solution. Actually, it has been there for quite some time.

A typical day for me involves meetings with customers, and I have to travel extensively since Delhi is now growing into the NCR, spread over towns in adjoining Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Finding an address is often difficult, and even if you roll down the window to ask for directions, the left turns and right turns will just leave you driving in circles again.

So, I started using a GPS about seven years ago when there were no online maps for India. This was before Maps of India, MapMyIndia, Sat Guide and other companies came along. Before we realised, the market was flooded with GPS, pseudo GPS and even mobile phones promising to help you locate places quicker.

Two weeks back I bumped into Rakesh Verma, founder of mapmyindia.com. After a long chat, I asked him to send over a unit so that I could test it firsthand. A week later, I had a brand new GPS unit installed in my car.
The first day, (I had not bothered to read the manual), I could not get it right. But, I knew it had to work. Later, I took the GPS on trips in the NCR and then to Himachal. I even packed it for a trip to Mumbai and used it in the cab. And it worked.

So, what’s the verdict?So, what’s the verdict?
There is still time before you should go out and buy it. If you are an early adopter of technology then it is great to own this GPS device, especially since mapmyindia.com updates its maps every four months.

But, I did face a few maps, some of them very funny.
*On a flyover, the GPS suddenly tells me to turn left or right. The GPS can tell if you are higher than ground level. But I don’t think this unit was programmed and it didn’t know if I was on the road under the flyover or on the flyover.
*It was not able to detect a lane 80 metres from my house it kept assuming I was on the same lane.
*It runs Windows CE which is making it slow. At times you turn left, and know it is the correct direction, but the GPS is stuck and keeps asking you to turn right.
*The built-in bluetooth hands-free is horrible.
*There is no way to see alternate routes and difference in distances.
*Time to reach a destination does not update as accurately as it should — the GPS knows the speed of your car and can calculate distance.
*Switching on takes about three minutes, the time taken to lock on to the satellite.
*The battery life is really bad, I could not get more than 30-45 minutes on a full day’s charge. That is when I realised that you have to use it with the car charger plugged. That way the moment you turn off the engine, the GPS shuts down as well.
*The touchscreen is a nice feature. However, other keys are a little hard to press and the keyboard is a bit too small. The service should know that Marg means road, for now you have to type road in place of the Hindi name.

Still, overall, it is a nice product, though with some shortcomings. The problem is that MapMyIndia is a map maker and not a product maker—the unit is from Delphi. Maybe they need to use a different hardware. But the maps are done well, and you can actually search and reach the destination.

The model I tested, MapMyIndia Navigator NAV300, is priced at Rs 22,900, including unlimited updates of the maps.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on the 16th November 2008.