AvMap-Motivo Review

AvMap is Italy's premier company when it comes to satellite navigation. With several products in their stable, the AvMap Motivo is a mid priced range unit with several features that do more than just navigation.

It is advertised at being thin, light and ergonomic (who knows how they measure that), but it weighs in at 250 grams, which is actually more than most of the other units reviewed recently. It is slim however at only 23 mm and the 4.3 inch TFT LCD touchscreen is clear and comes with a night vision feature.

Actual navigation is supplied by the well renowned high performance SiRF star III GPS receiver with 20 channels and AvMap's own satellite navigation software. Nearly 2 million European points of interest are preloaded and the system covers some 34 countries with Tele Atlas maps from Lithuania to Liechtenstein, Poland to Portugal, and of course UK as well.

Information for route planning is provided for the shortest or fastest routes, or you can choose to avoid toll roads etc. Destination searching is through full address with house number and through 7 digit postcode search. The virtual keyboard is easy to use and with the large screen display and big touch buttons it is not as small and fiddly as some models on the market.

The 2D birds' eye view of your route gives plenty of detail but it is no different from looking at a map (but a whole lot more expensive) although the detail and colours are clear enough, but a 3D viewpoint is also available. Speed camera locations are included in the POI menu and you can set an alarm to pre-warn you to drop speed (if necessary) as you approach.

Added features include an MP3 player to listen to your favourite tunes, a picture viewer for all those holiday snaps and an MP4 player so you can kick back and watch a movie once you arrive (hopefully) at your destination.

In days of yore a map was the means of getting around the country but this seems to be considered archaic and we struggle to find technology that can perform our tasks better than we can do it ourselves. It is one thing to splash out on a system that will give you up to date weather and traffic information, clear and concise directions, alerts and warnings and great graphics, but to buy a basic moving map that you can play movies on seems a bad investment.

Within its price range it is neither good nor bad, but for £50 less you can buy yourself a real navigation asset in the form of a TomTom One or Mio C220 and for £50 more you can get the Full Monty with a Clarion MAP670 complete with traffic info and Bluetooth connectivity. Better surely to stick with a GPS that will deliver what it is intended for and get an iPod and MP4 player to do the rest.