We managed to secure a Road Angel 6000 for review and quickly set about installing it in our test vehicle ready for a week of commuting to put this unit to a dual test one of in car satellite navigation and the second in keeping our license clean by warning of both fixed and mobile speed traps.

The RoadAngel 6000 comes with a mounting cradle which uses a sucker mechanism to secure itself to the cars windscreen, it seems good and solid and is not dissimilar to the latest TomTom Go cradle in design. There is also an optional vent mounting system which like the sucker mount is designed to allow for quick release which is essential given the recent targeting on in car systems by speculative car thieves.

The unit is powered either from a 12 / 24 volt supply using the supplied power cord or by running form the internal rechargeable battery which runs for a quoted 8 hours and we managed to get just under 6 hours during our week long review period. Sliding the unit into its mount proves a tight and sturdy fit and the RA 6000 looks attractive and all bodes well for our week long tests.

First up the unit powers up for the first time and we time the TTF or Time to Fix which is a key indicator of the amount of time you could be sat in a car park waiting for enough satellites to lock on to. The very first time is always a bit longer but the 10 minutes we spent waiting was a bit extreme and may be what you could expect if you ever crossed the channel and then powered up. Later tests showed a variance of anywhere between 40 seconds and 3 minutes to get lock which is again a bit longer than most systems and indeed longer than the other Road Angel products we have tested especially when you consider that this is a SiRF Star III chipset device.

At first everything looked great with an effective looking user interface and simple input mechanism for user data, preferences and addresses. We started with a basic route to test the SatNav capabilities and left all settings on their defaults. Using a full UK postcode we set in a destination which would require a small amount of local roads and a large chunk of M25 driving. The Road Angel 6000 set about processing this information and had the route in just under 40 seconds. We started out of the office car park and the on screen instructions and map scrolled along in a familiar and reassuring manner and the voice prompts kicked in good and loud. It soon became clear that the route chosen was not the one that we have used for the last 10 years. That said it was a feasible one and not too off beat so we followed the route without deviation and managed to arrive at our location fairly stress free and while not overly impressed it was a passable performance, but tomorrow is another day.

Day two and this time a similar route but one where we would misbehave in order to test the re route functionality and also be able to take in a few speed camera sites. Again all started well enough and we were soon off heading towards our first camera site where the road angels speed camera database would come into its own. The speed camera detection functionality works as it does in all of Road Angels products by comparing the vehicles current location to a database of known fixed speed camera sites and also frequently used mobile camera sites. As we approached a Gatso that has been in place for many years the screen on the navigation unit changed to have a sidebar and a red alert symbol which then counts down to the location and the audio alert increase in intensity as you approach. As you get close the screen is entirely taken over by the camera warning screen and the roads speed limit is displayed as a reminder.

This all seemed to have worked perfectly as we'd expected from a company who specialises in stand alone warning systems, we were far more concerned that the navigation part would be lacking. So when we came across a second camera we were very surprised when the speed warning was for 50mph when the road was now a 40mph stretch and had been so for at least 6 months. All a little concerning, as any doubt in the reliability of a warning system can render it useless as you lose the relaxed driving style when you double check what the unit tells you.

The second day was a bright day and we set off on a second journey, this time a longer trek and decided to test the re routing capabilities of the Road Angel 6000. After following instructions to the letter we deviated at a roundabout and the unit set about re calculating a route which involved taking us back to the roundabout, this was quick and effective, however we chose to ignore the re route and went further off track.

Now we were closer to the next motorway junction and our TomTom would have realised this and taken us to the closer junction and re joined the main route there, but this was not the case with the RA which just insisted on taking us back to the roundabout. We've seen this in a few lesser systems and hoped that road angel would have got this cracked, sadly it seems they haven't and despite having quality maps and a useable routing algorithm it seems that any deviation from the route is going to cause problems. We also played with the waypoint function whereby you can set in a series off drop off points, ideal for a rep or visiting salesperson, this seemed good until we got stuck in one menu where the options are not highlighted so it's all too easy to accidentally select the wrong waypoint.

Not a good day and we hoped that day 3 would bring better results with a return to a central London commute and a chance to try out the congestion charge warning which worked as expected and advised us we were going to enter the charge zone. We also tested many more speed camera sites of varying types including Specs and a few mobile locations, all were detected but again the speed limit was wrong in two locations. As this was a bright September day we tried to adjust the screen to a brighter level to cope with the suns low angle, but it seems that the screen is actually quite dull and the backlight just isn't up to the task of direct sunlight. It was on this day that our first crash occurred mid routing it just froze and eventually required a power up / down to come back to life, based on Windows CE this is always a worry and up until this point we had not seen any instability.

Our daily commutes during the rest of our test days proved that this crash was by no means isolated and we had 4 more freezes before the week was up, one of which was at a very critical moment in the middle of a strange town!  It seems that the Windows CE underpinnings of the Navigator and the RA nav software are not gracious bedfellows which have the ability to leave you stranded for those vital few seconds.

Updates to the speed camera database are provided via host PC and then delivered to the unit via a USB connection, these updates are free for the first 6 months and then £ 3.99 a month for a further 12 months (minimum period). Meaning the subscription is going to cost you a further £48 if you have any intention of keeping the unit up to date.

Being based on Widows CE brings some extras like a photo viewer and Mp3 playback, these are not much use on a navigation system and it seems that all that CE brings is an unreliable base OS. Combined with inaccuracies in the Road Angel speed data this makes for a system which over the course of 5 days we could not relax and trust.  Despite the reduced price of the 6000 model which comes with 6 months updates and then a £3.99 a month direct debit for updates it fails to deliver a convincing performance on either major feature.

Overall the Road Angel 6000 promises that unique combination of routing and speed camera avoidance at a lower price than other popular systems. However the Great Britain navigation system is marred by poor re routing and a dim screen and the core speed camera database seemed more than a little inaccurate on road speeds. Combine this with the number of crashes we saw in a one week period and the £240 + £48 subscription costs look less like a good deal.

Published - 25/09/2006

2nd Take

Following our review Road Angel made us aware that the Navigator 6000 has a new firmware version available which should address some of the short comings we found. The revised firmware did seem to speed up a warm TTF with this reduced to under 30 seconds, however we did still experience a few occasions where the unit had been out of the car for 12 hours and the first TTF took a few minutes, long enough for us to get to our local petrol station 2 miles away.

Navigation is improved and it doesn't insist on doing a U turn to go back to the "old route" when you go wrong, so the back on track style feature is much improved but still not as efficient as the TomTom range or Navman for that matter. The unit will still try to get you to swing round using a  side road for quite some time before giving up and plotting a more sensible return to the planned route.

It may just be us but the GUI seemed to be a little quicker with the Windows CE operating system causing a few less pauses and moments of contemplation although just occasionally they prove to be still there. A minor niggle for us on the second test was that in a nosier car the RA speed camera alerts are just too quiet so much so that a passenger though it was the alarm on their watch going off.

The updated firmware and other associated tweaks do make the 6000 a better device but still the navigation lets down the Road Angel speed camera system and adding these two functions together makes for an awkward unit.

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