Satnav challenge 3: town-to-town

Posted on 20 Jul 2010 at 17:41

Route: Merrist Wood Golf Club, Coombe Lane, Guildford, GU3 3PB to TGI Friday's, Unit 6, Crawley Leisure Park, London Road, Crawley, West Sussex RH10 8LR

Sometimes, even the best laid plans go awry. Having this time managed to get the address right, challenge organiser Barry was confident road test three would separate the satnavs from the satnots (see me in my office – Ed).

The journey from Guildford to Crawley had at least three potential routes, each with little to choose between them in terms of duration. There was a motorway route that put unnecessary miles on the clock, but had the advantage of uninterrupted pedal-to-metal action. Or there were two shorter ways to cut across country using both A- and B-roads.

Surely, with features such as live traffic updates and historical road speed data, there would be a difference of opinion between our four satnav systems?

Google's garbled voice synthesis told Jon to head towards Brian instead of Brighton

Alas not. In a show of unity that would make Cameron and Clegg proud, all four decided that the A3, M25, M23 route was the way forward. Only roadmap Tim, wary of the southern tip of the M25’s reputation as Europe’s largest car park, decided to plough across country, determined to secure a victory for man over machine.

Yet, even though our satnavs had signed the motorway treaty, there was still a difference between the journey time of Barry’s iPhone CoPilot and the other satnav drivers, who all finished within two minutes of one another. So what went wrong?

CoPilot decided to steer Barry out of Guildford via a different route to the others, pitching him straight into a road closure. He was forced to follow a signposted diversion, but the temporary signs disappeared halfway through, coincidentally close to some smirking teenagers. Barry resorted to the satnav to get him out of trouble, but at the end of the road CoPilot wanted him to take a sharp right on a junction clearly marked with a permanent no-right turn. Keen not to acquaint himself with the Surrey Constabulary, Barry turned left – and ended up back at the same road closure he’d started at. Using nothing more than (hitherto absent) common sense, Barry found a way past the roadblock at the second time of asking, but a combination of bad luck and outdated maps had cost him 15 minutes.

Speed test

The CoPilot was more at home on the motorways, with an excellent lane guidance system that pops up a graphic of the junction ahead, complete with realistic-looking road signs and thick arrows to show you exactly which lane you need to be in. Priti was equally impressed with the lane guidance on the Nokia Ovi Maps, although she complained that the cramped screen on the N97 made it difficult to figure out what all the icons and text flooding onto the display meant.

Google Maps was a treat to use on the motorway, according to Jon, even though there was no lane guidance and the garbled voice synthesis told Jon to head towards “Brian” instead of “Brighton”, leaving our perplexed reviews editor wondering whether he’d accidentally activated the Google Gaydar.

Roadmap Tim was also hearing voices: voices inside his head telling him he was an idiot for going cross-country. “Navigating in town centres without GPS is so difficult,” Tim moaned, having traversed Guildford, Horsham and finally Crawley town centres, where he became spectacularly lost, until some kindly folk in a garden centre took pity on him and directed him towards our restaurant stop. Where he promptly ordered a large cake and two cups of coffee.