Any of prior commentators use this with the road map feature? I always like to have gadgets that do more than one thing if possible and the combined road map stuff seems tempting.... My only concern is that the road-only version gets crap reviews on Cnet and other websites
The car-gps mode on the Anywheremap ATC is pretty decent. It's not the best in the world, but I use it extensively for business travel all over the country, and it has done the job for me. Generally, I run into one of two problems at any given time.
- Old/inaccuarte map data. Part of the problem is that Anywheremap ATC users are advised NOT to put the HP Update manager on the ATC because it can corrupt the AWM software. I believe that because of this, your roadmap data can get old. There are ways around this, but I've not tried any of them. The data inaccuracies aren't THAT bad. Like, I was driving into Ft. Worth a couple weeks ago, and the GPS said exit in 1/2 a mile. It didn't know that it was a left exit elsewhere, and so I blew by the turn. Had to do a u-turn further down the interstate. Annoying, but not that bad, and besides, I bought it to be an aviation GPS. The occurences are rare, but they do happen.
- Slow on the uptake. Sometimes, in a really, really congested area at high speed, the GPS is slow to 'catch up' and give you instructions. I think part of this is how it does routing, because even though you're supposed to stay on the same highway, because it has multiple route names, etc, it will sometimes try to give you instructions where it doesn't need to. This slows it down for the instructions you DO need, but again, you just turn around and fix it. The only place this has happened to me is on the freeways around Oakland, and those are pretty damn convoluted. I usually have a decent sense of where I'm going anyway, so I often just ignore the GPS and it catches up later.
As an Aviation GPS, I really like it. It's my first, and I compared it to a lot of different units. I finally decided on it because a) it gave me pretty much everything the Garmin did for half the price b) I really liked the customer service people at Control Vision c) I talked to a large number of pilots who spoke highly of the AWM system and d) the car GPS.
There ARE some bugs with it. It doesn't like flying more than 250kts - CV is working on that problem, and a fix is coming. Most GA guys like me don't go that fast so it's not an issue. It's had some speed problems in the past and some "cosmetic" issues on the screens. CV has been REALLY good about fixes, updates and keeping the user community informed. I like a company where the President personally addresses a lot of issues.
