Landrover GPS
Navigation Unit
The built-in Landrover GPS system is one
of the best units tested
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Recessed into the
central part of the dashboard (thereby shading it from
direct sunlight), the large (7" diagonal) screen GPS display
has touch controls plus two extra buttons beneath the
screen, and can be seen here in split screen mode with a
second screen window on the right hand side of the main
display window. Part
of our series on GPS - additional articles to be
published in coming weeks - see links on the right. |
The Plenio VXA-3000 offers a
lot of product at a very reasonable price. It is well
suited for 'average' GPS users, but not so well suited for a
'power' GPS user, and because of its marvelously massive screen
size and corresponding increase in weight, it is not quite as
convenient a unit for a road warrior to travel with.
Costing little more than one
third the price of a top of the line 7" screen equipped Garmin
StreetPilot 7200, the Plenio unit is following the trend to
greatly reduced pricing in GPS receivers, while still offering a
good feature set and user interface.
Recommended for people seeking
a middle of the range type unit.
Landrover LR3 GPS Overview
In 2005 Landrover upgraded
their previous very rudimentary GPS system to a state of the art
full 'moving map' type GPS receiver, offering a large 7"
diagonal screen with an unusually high resolution (640 x 480).
Map data is stored on a DVD that is read in a unit mounted
underneath the front passenger seat.
The GPS unit itself is
located in the top part of the dash, in the middle island
between the driver's instrumentation and the passenger's glove
compartments. This is a good location for the driver, and
it is not necessary to look down too far (and away from the
road) to see the GPS display.
The unit is excellent in
operation and moderately intuitive to use and program. It
has very sophisticated capabilities, a good user interface, and
a wonderful split screen display that greatly enhances the
amount of information you can conveniently see at a glance.
Landrover was so proud of
their new GPS system that they created some rather cheesy
television advertisements that purport to show a Landrover
navigating a plane. Here's an
excerpt from one of them, and some more
background on the project.
While it is unlikely the
excellent of the GPS unit will encourage you to buy the
Landrover that is wrapped around it, you can be reasonably
assured that for most uses, you're much better off paying the
extra cost to order the GPS unit when specifying your new
Landrover rather than paying a probably lesser amount to buy a
third party aftermarket GPS unit and adding it subsequently.
Using the Unit
The unit switches on when
you turn the ignition to the first position, and stays on until
you turn it off again. When the unit first powers up, you
have to press an 'Agree' key whereby you agree to a bunch of
legal nonsense about Landrover not being liable for errors in
the maps or if you have an accident as a result of the GPS unit
- this becomes a tiresome hassle after a while.
Much more bothersome than
the little starting up ritual of agreeing to their lawyer
language is the way the unit will automatically disable most of
its programming functions any time your vehicle is moving.
Again, safety considerations have caused Landrover to do this,
but these limitations can be very annoying, and doubly so if you
have a front seat passenger who could be perfectly safely
programming and managing the GPS/navigation duties while you are
writing. A sensible compromise would be for the 'front
passenger seat occupied' sensor to also allow the GPS to work
with no limitations if a front passenger is present.
With these limitations, it
becomes necessary to stop the vehicle to enter a new address -
this can be a major hassle if you're on a freeway, for example.
Nothing was needed to cause
the unit to immediately start showing exactly where the vehicle
was. But you'll probably want to tweak the settings for
your personal preferences - for example, I turned on the split
screen on mine, with the right hand screen having a 2 mile scale
and north up setting, and the left hand screen using being set
for 1/8th or 1/16th of a mile and direction of travel north.
This gives me the two critical pieces of information I most
commonly want - on the right hand screen, I have a 'map type'
view which shows me where I am in the general region I'm driving
through - the strategic view, and the left hand screen (the
tactical view) shows me what is happening immediately around me,
with the same orientation as what I'm seeing in real life - if
something is on the left on the map, it will be on my left in
real life, too.
The unit quickly powers up
and gets a satellite lock almost instantly (most of the time).
If it doesn't lock onto the satellites immediately, and/or when
you're in a tunnel or somewhere else where there's no satellite
signal, the unit has a dead reckoning feature that continues to
computer where you are based on your speed/distance/direction of
travel. This can be a life-saver in unfamiliar cities
where regular units can sometimes lose signal and then get very
confused, causing you to drive several city blocks without
having any idea where you are!
As a techy type, I'd have
liked the unit to have a satellite information display like the
Garmin units, showing how many satellites are feeding signals to
the unit and where they are in the sky, and giving an accuracy
calculation, and I'd have liked the unit to show the exact time
received from the satellites, too (or have this fed into the
car's digital clock). Some more 'trip computer' type data
would also have been welcomed, and a way to download or upload
points of interest and routes would be a further bonus.
But, much as I'd like these
extra features, I'm not sure I've ever been disadvantaged by
their absence.
The Bottom Line
Landrover's GPS unit is an
excellent unit in terms of capabilities and performance.
It is relatively easy to learn, and has extra layers of
sophistication to keep power users satisfied.
Feature Analysis
Feature |
Test
Unit |
Model |
pre-installed Navigation system option in
2006 Landrover LR3 HSE |
Price |
Not
priced separately (standard in the HSE) but probably about $1000 -
$2000 option in the SE and regular models) |
Review
Date/Details |
Tested
April 2007, with unit unchanged from when
vehicle was received in Dec 2005. |
Warranty |
Included
in new vehicle warranty (4 years/48,000
miles) |
Support |
Through
the local dealership. This is a
potential inconvenience - the car mechanics
aren't necessarily familiar with the
operation of this high tech electronic unit,
and aren't conveniently available on call
for help.
Landrover (and other similar vehicle
manufacturers) need to offer a direct to end
user (800) number giving technical support
in the operation of the increasingly complex
and sophisticated vehicle electronics
included in modern day motor cars. |
Inclusions |
The unit
comes with :
-
The installed unit in the vehicle dash
-
External antenna mounted on vehicle roof
-
Map DVD with maps for the US and Canada,
preloaded into the DVD reader under the
passenger seat
-
Instruction manual
|
Runs out
of the box |
Yes,
everything is pre-installed in the vehicle. |
Size |
The
screen measures 3.8" x 6.2".
The rest of the unit is behind the dash and
its size is neither apparent or relevant. |
Weight |
n/a |
Mounting
Accessories |
Preinstalled in vehicle and can't be easily
removed. |
Screen
Size |
The unit
has a lovely large screen, with a 7"
diagonal.
3.8" x 6.2" = 10:16 aspect ratio
Another nice thing is that the unit is
mounted high up on the dash panel.
Some other vehicles (eg Mercedes) have their
units low on the dash, making it more of an
inconvenience to move your gaze from the
road ahead to the unit and then back up to
the road again. |
Screen
Pixels |
The
screen is believed to be a
regular/traditional VGA screen with 480 x
640 pixel resolution.
126 pixels/inch vertically
103 pixels/inch horizontally
This is excellent pixel density and
allows the screen to very clearly display
all information. |
Screen
Colors |
Unknown
but sufficient. |
Screen
Visibility |
Reasonably good. The unit has some
shielding around it to reduce the amount of
direct sun reflection, but it can't be
tilted or swiveled. |
Screen
Backlighting |
Yes,
multiple levels offered. |
Day/Night Mode |
In
theory the brightness automatically changes
when the headlights go on or off, but there
is no change in the color settings. |
Controls |
The unit
itself comes on when the ignition is
switched on and goes off when the ignition
is switched off.
There are two buttons beneath the unit to
toggle through different screen modes (the
left button selects on-road or off-road mode
and the right button selects GPS,
4WD/vehicle information, or setup options).
All other controls are presented on the
touch screen. |
Interactive help files available |
No |
Limited
functionality when moving |
Yes,
most options will not work while the vehicle
is in motion. This is very annoying
and can also be very inconvenient. |
Graphics
processor speed |
Very good |
GPS
Receiver |
Unknown but excellent sensitivity and very quick
satellite lock.
It very rarely loses satellite lock while
driving, and has outperformed other test
systems with built in antennas. |
Max
number of satellites simultaneously tracked |
Not stated, but believed to probably be 12. |
WAAS
enhanced |
Unknown |
Dead
reckoning capability |
Yes - it seems to receive feeds from both
the steering and also the wheels so it knows
if your direction is changing and the
distance you are traveling. |
Satellite display |
No. Unfortunately no information on
satellite reception is available. |
Accuracy
calculation |
No |
Can the
unit show you your current latitude and
longitude and compass heading |
Yes, it
shows latitude and longitude on the off-road driving screen,
and has compass headings on all screens. |
Can the
unit show you your current altitude |
Yes, but
rather than showing an 'exact' number of
feet above sea level, it rounds to the
nearest 50'. |
Can the
unit show you the exact time |
No |
External
antenna capability |
Yes.
The unit has an external antenna mounted on
the center rear of the roof. |
CPU
processor speed |
Not
known, but the unit performs calculations
and screen updates and everything very
quickly. |
Trip
Computer functions |
None.
This is in a separate part of the vehicle,
and displays averages not instantaneous
measures for fuel economy plus advises miles
to go before the fuel tank is empty. |
Battery
Type |
Connected to the car battery. |
Battery
Life |
n/a |
Power
Input |
The unit
is prewired into the car. |
Auto
Power On/Off |
It
switches on and off when you turn the
ignition on and off.
When you turn the ignition back on, it
automatically resumes any existing journey
navigation. |
Mapping |
Map
provider |
Navteq |
Countries provided |
US
and Canada. |
Update
policy, frequency and cost |
Updates
on DVD are issued every year or so, and cost
about $200. |
Other
countries also available |
In theory, yes, but are you really going to
take your Landrover to Europe? |
How is
map data loaded into the GPS receiver |
Master information is on a DVD-rom disk,
information is loaded into the receiver from
this disk via a reader drive underneath the
front passenger seat. |
Can the
entire US be loaded into the unit |
Yes.
The unit holds all of the US and Canada. |
Speaks
Directions |
Yes, can be switched on or off, and
over-rides other sound sources through the
car sound system when it needs to make
announcements. |
Speaks
Street Names |
No, but does speak some Highway names (for
numbered highways). |
Languages spoken |
You have a choice of eight different voices
for speaking the commands, including UK
English, Spanish, and American English by
both a man and woman. The system can
display its prompts in a wide variety of
European languages as well as English. |
2D/3D |
Yes -
you can independently set each of the two
halves of the split screen to either 2D or
3D |
Can you
choose between North up or Direction of
Travel up |
Yes -
you can independently set each of the two
halves of the split screen to either North
up or Direction of Travel up. |
Split
screen mode |
Yes.
This is a wonderful feature - I always have
the screen split with the left hand screen
having a detailed 'direction of travel up'
map of the immediate vicinity, and the right
hand side of the screen showing a larger map
of the region in 'north up' mode same as
you'd see on a map. |
Map
Scale Shown |
Yes, and
you manually set the zoom level rather than
be forced to accept the tyranny of an auto
zoon feature. |
Number
of POIs provided |
Unknown
but seems to have comparable information to
other units claiming over 1 million POIs. |
Number
of user POIs that can be added |
100 |
POI
information includes phone number |
Yes, you
can program a lot of information into each
POI entry, and if creating a POI with a
phone number, can then phone the POI's
number if you wish, if your phone is
connected via Bluetooth or the specific
hardwire connection available. |
POI
proximity alert |
No |
Speed
limit warner |
No |
Does it
show both miles and kilometers |
Yes |
Route Planning |
How to
enter addresses and other data |
Your
choice of either QWERTY or ABСВ
table layout with forward predicting
of the next letters in the name you're
entering. You type onto the unit's
touch screen. |
Can you
build a multi-stop journey with waypoints |
Yes |
Will it
solve the 'traveling salesman' puzzle |
No |
Can you
program assumed speeds for different road
types, and if so, how many different road
types? |
No.
The unit does calculate/predict how long it
will take to get to your destination, but
this prediction is useless - it is based on
your recent average speed and makes no
allowance for road types. For example,
if your journey is 50 miles on the freeway
and then 15 miles on surface streets, while
you're on the freeway it assumes you'll keep
driving (perhaps at 70+ mph) even when off
the freeway and on the surface streets. |
Can you
choose different settings for different
types of vehicles |
No |
Can you
program preferences for road/route types |
Yes,
you can choose to prefer or avoid major
roads, restricted roads, ferries
and toll roads |
Does the
unit present you with multiple route choices
to choose from |
Yes.
You are shown three routes on a map and
given information about distance and
estimated traveling time. You can
'drill down' to get more statistics about
each route - eg time on freeways, if ferries
are involved, etc.
The three routes are shortest, quickest, and
normal. |
Can you
choose between fastest/quickest and shortest
route options |
Yes |
Will it
show breadcrumb trails? |
Yes |
Extra Features |
Bluetooth |
More or
less, and not really needed. Other functions in the vehicle do
have Bluetooth capability, and you can do
things such as calling the phone number
associated with a POI via Bluetooth. |
Export
data to laptop |
No |
Can it
play MP3 or other digital audio |
No |
Can it
play MP4 or other digital video |
No |
Can it
display pictures |
No |
Integrated with real time traffic reporting |
No |
Integrated with other location services |
No |
Other features |
It has
voice recognition so you can command/control
the unit via voice command. This is
useful when driving, but the voice
recognition system doesn't work very well
for my voice/accent, and there's no way to
'train' the system to recognize different
voices/accents.
Can be set to detour around areas (for
example, where road works might be, or
traffic accidents). |
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Originally published
11 June 2007, last update
21 Jul 2020
You may freely reproduce or distribute this article for noncommercial purposes as long as you give credit to me as original writer.
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