It seems the UK is waking up to the need for GPS systems in car and the manufacturers of new cars are only too happy to oblige with hugely expensive second rate systems, just look at BMW £2500 for a system you have to enter the address with the volume knob!

So we have spent the last few months trying to test as many aftermarket solutions as we can, many are well known names and some like this weeks unit are not so well known, the Kane Car pilot system has been around for a while now and this is the latest Car Pilot Plus software.

The bundle claims to include everything you need of course that does exclude a PDA to run it on but then you do get the GPS receiver, software, UK and European maps, mounting system and even a memory card for the software to sit on. The mapping data is from Navtech which is the power behind many of those expensive new car systems and when combined with the latest generation of SiRFII technology in the GPS receiver it provides and accurate and quick location fix, in fact the inbuilt lithium ion battery ensures that the TTF (time to fix) from a warm start is about the fastest we've tested.

The software had a strangely familiar look about it, with thin lines rather than fat roads as used by most of the system available in fact it wasn't long before we discovered why the Kane system is in fact using a large chuck of the Destinator software we tested earlier in the year. It seems that Kane have taken the SDK from Destinator to wrap the car pilot plus around and they've done a good job, we won't review the software in detail here as you can read the Destinator review for that.

The kit is easily assembled and connected, perhaps those who have a hatred of routing cables might want to use a Bluetooth kit like tom tom 3 but it works well despite the rats nest we created up on the dashboard, once up and running we used the Destinator screens to programme a route to deepest Buckinghamshire.

The Car Pilot plotted the route quickly and got us underway with clear instructions both audible with a nice female voice and also with directional info on screen, the audio was a bit limited by the Ipaq 2210's speakers but this is an issue with any aftermarket system that relies on a PDA's own speakers. The choice of on screen display started a small discussion but we eventually ditched the map view which for our money was too difficult to read while driving with very thin lines and small text, instead we opted for a 2D view which did seem better than the standard Destinator look and feel but not by much.

We managed to get the Car Pilot Plus into a pickle by ignoring instructions, at first it re routed us, but after a few extra wrong turns it got totally stuffed and tried to navigate us back to a point on the A413 where it could get us back on track. Not many systems can cope with LP's deliberate mad driving but a few namely tom tom and Navman PIN did manage to keep up.

A nice extra is the Kane Speed Minder which acts as a speed camera warning system, this treats the cameras as POI's and keeps them as a separate database, there are a full set of POI databases available in the Kane community.

After a day of use it became difficult to separate the Kane Car Pilot and Destinator 3, which gets us onto the subject of value for money, the Kane system is £399 in total excluding a PDA, Destinator 3 which is the largest section of cost retails at £150 for the software only and is becoming hard to buy in the UK, as its being phased out!

So £399 for the Kane Car Pilot Plus seems a little steep for a rebadged Destinator 3, which might explain why it was so difficult to find someone with a system to loan us! of course you do get everything you need, but for just £26 more you can pick up a brand new Tom Tom Go all in one unit which does everything better than the Kane apart from perhaps the quality of some of its maps.

More Navigation Systems -

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