Unfortunately I didn’t have time to do any in-car videos but here are a few images I took while testing.
For more details on Mapfactor PC Navigator 9, see the Mapfactor website. Thanks very much to Mapfactor for the pre-launch testing opportunity.
- Mapfactor Navigator moves to V8.1
- Mapfactor PC Navigator 7 review. (On Everun UMPC)
- Pocket Navigator 7 on a UMPC
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May 26th, 2009 at 11:08 am
New article: Mapfactor PC Navigator 9 Released. UMPCPortal Test. http://cli.gs/aPqWU2
May 27th, 2009 at 1:49 am
It’s disappointing to see that they still only offer maps for UK or Europe with no options to buy extra maps for North-America or any other countries.
I’ve contacted them before about this and been fobbed off with the useless links on their website to TeleAtlas and Ordnance-Survey, neither of which offer extra maps for “Mapfactor” or “Navigator” or “Directions” etc…
I found the situation even worse with Garmin-Mobile-PC – as I was told that I could use the Europe and North-America editions on the same computer (an SC3) and then found that they can’t be installed side-by-side after purchasing them. And don’t even think about asking their technical support for help – they haven’t a clue about these products and give different answers every time you contact them (which have always turned out to be incorrect – Garmin have an incredible 100% failure rate on technical support for all my queries regarding Garmin-Mobile-PC).
TomTom are plain frustrating – they have all the map options you could wish for and will sell you all the maps you want to buy in an easy user-friendly way, but don’t have any software for Windows. Arghhh!!!
So I haven’t been able to find any navigation software for Windows that allows me to have Europe and North-America maps on the same computer. The only solution is to use different (rival) products for different countries/continents – such as Mapfactor-Navigator for Europe and Garmin-Mobile-PC for North-America etc… – which is a real pain as you have to remember how to use different products with different menus and settings etc…
Given the current situation I don’t think they’ll ever tempt many business travellers to use their netbook/UMPC instead of PND, which I think is a shame, and also a missed opportunity, as most of my colleagues have to carry one or more PNDs as well as their netbook/UMPC – when they could have just taken their netbook/UMPC with navigation software installed. I can only guess that there is little interest in this – especially as you don’t even see any decent navigation software in stores – it’s only available online. I must only be one of a handful of people in the world who want to do this…
Tomas Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Hi Mark,
You can have both US/Canada and Europe on the same PC, in the the same program – who told you that this is not possible?
Regards
Tomas
Mark Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Hi Tomas,
Sorry but I don’t know which company & product you are talking about. If you read my original post you will see that I have tried and failed to get Europe & North-America maps on the same program & computer with 3 companies/products: Mapfactor-Navigator, Garmin-Mobile-PC and TomTom.
I can’t remember who told me to use the links to TeleAtlas and Ordnance-Survey from Mapfactor-Navigator – but I can’t find any maps to buy for Mapfactor-Navigator via these links. Also, I can’t find any links or pages or options on the Mapfactor-Navigator website to buy extra maps – neither is anything mentioned in the FAQ. It’s just a dead-end every way I turn – and I don’t think most customers would spend as much time and effort as me – most customers looking for navigation software would just give up at such user-unfriendliness and unhelpfulness.
However, websites like TomTom make this easy and obvious – as they actually want customers to buy extra maps and products. It’s just a shame they have no navigation software for Windows as they are clearly the winner for website design and customer service.
Websites like Garmin-Mobile-PC have poor confusing websites that are hard to navigate with broken links and out-of-date (often incorrect) information – which most customers would just give up on – but if you put in the hours and manage to find the “correct” page to Garmin-Mobile-PC you will see that the links to buy extra maps just don’t work – a final kick in the teeth after all the hard work you’ve done and all the time you’ve spent trying to get extra maps. And, as I posted before, technical support & customer service will just waste even more of your time (and money) with 100% incorrect information/answers. Out of the three I’ve tried – this is definitely the worst!
Good luck to everyone else – but please let me know if anyone finds a way out of this particular maze I’m stuck in…
Tomas Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 8:02 am
I am from Directions/Mapfactor and we do sell Navigator with maps of many countries. If you look at the bottom of http://www.mapfactor.cz/en/products/mapfactor-navigator-software/pc-navigator-9/, you will see list of all coutries we do. However, if you want all these countries in one product, please inform us at the time of purchase as you would need an appropriate key.
Mark Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Thanks – I was using the wrong website at http://directions.ltd.uk/laptop-navigation/ (a UK website) instead of the Czech-Republic website you have just posted.
Thanks Mapfactor – I can now buy a single product with all the maps I need – fantastic!
May 27th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Interesting. I guess, since the previous version worked on an Everun (classic), the new version would too?
I hope it only takes 10-15 minutes finding the GPS the first time you turn it on, not every time!
Still no demo version from Mapfactor. Shame!
Tomas Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
normally it takes less than 1 minute, I cannot see why it took so long for Steve and yes, it is done only once
Chippy Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
There’s definately a problem with the Viliv S5 in this case. Sync with the Kohjinsha SC3 was quick.Correction: The problem with finding the GPS was that there was 12 COM ports on the S5, mostly virtual COM ports created by the Bluetooth software. Searching through all bitrates on all com ports took a very long time.August 28th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Tomas,
any plans to include maps from Oceania – Australia and New Zealand?
Oompa
August 28th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
not at the moment, sorry
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:49 am
Wow! Thank you! I often wanted to write in my site some thing like in which. Can I get important part of the post to my blog?
July 16th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Does this softwre re route like tom tom can not any thing about it also was looking bat Navigator 10
Denis
July 16th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
yes, it re-routes automatically
version 10 is the latest release, I hope Steve will review it soon