The Navman ‘S’ series range consists of the entry level S30, the mid-range S50, the S70 and top-of-the range S90. This reviews looks at the Navman S50.

The S50 boasts a good set of features for the price including a 4.3’’ widescreen, safety cameras and Bluetooth. I’ve found previous sat nav systems from Navman to be disappointing so I was interested to see if the S50 would buck this trend.

Overall the S50 shows that Navman is continuing to develop and improve their systems although there is still room for improvement, especially in the area of the cradle design.

Box Contents

This is what you get in the box:

• Navman S50
• Vehicle suction cup mount
• Vehicle power cable
• USB cable
• Drawstring soft cloth carry bag
• Documentation pack

Detailed Specifications

• Unit dimensions: 140mm(W) x 80mm(H) x 20mm(D)
• 4.3’’ widescreen
• Bluetooth
• Display resolution: 480×272 pixels
• Weight: 198g
• SiRFstarIII GPS receiver
• Battery life: up to 5 hours
• Preloaded TeleAtlas 2007 Q4 maps of UK and Ireland
• USB connector
• SD/MMC Card Slot
• 256Mb internal flash memory 64Mb SDRAM
• Navpix (does not include camera)
• Safety camera free trial

First Impressions

The S50 is nice looking system with a large 4.3’’ widescreen display. It is lightweight too at just under 200 grams. There is a USB port and SD/MMC slot underneath the unit. The left side of the unit has a rubber cover which when peeled back reveals a connection socket for an external antenna (not included), plus microphone and headphone sockets. The right side of the unit has a loop for connecting a lanyard (sold separately).

Overall the construction looks good although the mostly plastic design doesn’t look as rugged as I would have liked. Perhaps some rubber incorporated into the design would help to cushion the unit if it was dropped. I could easily see this unit crack if dropped.

When the unit is first switched on you are guided through a small tutorial on the screen. If you’re a complete novice to sat nav systems then this is a good idea as it shows you the basics to get you started.

GPS Signal

Initial GPS reception was a little disappointing. I was unable to acquire a GPS signal indoors when switching on the S50 for the first time. I had to stand outside for about 10 minutes before a satellite signal was established.

This shows the Navman is not as strong at acquiring an initial signal as the Garmin and Sony systems reviewed on this web site, both of which acquired a GPS signal indoors when switched on for the first time. Thereafter though the S50 was quick to acquire a signal when switched on. The S50 uses a SiRFstarIII GPS receiver which have always performed well in previous tests.

Maps

The S50 comes with pre-installed regional maps depending on which country it is purchased in. This review looks at the UK and Ireland version. If you need European maps then you will need to consider the S70 or S90. Navman use TeleAtlas maps which on the whole have performed pretty well in previous tests.

Usability

I found the S50 user interface well designed. The various on screen options are clear and easy to read. It won’t take you long to figure out how to move around the various screens.

My only minor niggle was the positioning of the POI shortcut icons within the main menu. These allow quick access to Points of Interest (POI) like fuel outlets, ATMs and food outlets.

The main menu consists of 3 screens. The option to navigate to a specific POI is placed on page 1, whilst the shortcut POI options are on page 2 and 3. It is easy to miss the shortcut POI options on page 3 if you’re not familiar with the system. I would have liked to have seen all the POI options grouped together on one page.

Cradle

The cradle is by far the worst aspect of the Navman S50. I did not like it at all. It’s a shame as the S50 represents an improvement over previous Navman systems, but it is let down by a cradle that is awkward and fiddly to use.

There are two areas I don’t like.

The first is how the in-vehicle power cable from the cigarette lighter socket plugs into the S50. Navman have designed it so one end of the power cable has to slide into a groove on the cradle before the S50 can be placed into position on the cradle. It is quite a tight fit and not the easiest thing to do.

Why Navman couldn’t allow the power cable to simply plug directly into the S50 or a socket on the side of the cradle I’m not sure. It makes attaching and detaching the power cable from the cradle so fiddly and time wasting. If you’re taking the S50 in and out of the car on a regular basis then it becomes annoying. The only explanation I have is that Navman wanted to ensure the power cable is kept in place and doesn’t become detached from the S50 whilst driving along, but it seemed a strange setup to me.

The second complaint is fastening the cradle into position. There is a cradle wheel to tighten the cradle into place once you have chosen the correct position. The problem is that this wheel is located on the back of the cradle. This makes tightening the wheel difficult to do. You have to reach over the top of the S50 and squeeze your hand between the windscreen and the back of the cradle to tighten the wheel. Quite frankly I found it a real pain.

Quick in-vehicle setup of a GPS system is important when you’re using a sat nav system frequently, so I’d like to see Navman completely overhaul their cradle design for future products. The current design is not user friendly in my opinion.

Navigation

In my tests the navigation worked as well as other sat nav systems I’ve tested from the likes of Garmin and Sony.

Full postcode entry is supported, although like previous Navman systems I’ve tested it did have difficulty recognising a couple of postcodes. No sat nav system is perfect when it comes to recognising postcodes so it would be unfair to criticise too much in this department.

The S50 supports various methods of navigation. You can navigate to your home address, a list of favourite destinations you use on a regular basis, and a list of recent destinations.

You can also navigate to a Point of Interest (POI). The main menu also includes shortcut POI icons which allow you to navigate to the nearest car parks, food outlets, hospitals, tourist attractions and ATMs.

I was surprised to see no routing profile options available. You cannot set the routing profile depending on the vehicle you’re driving (such as car, bicycle, pedestrian, etc.) This is a shame as many other sat nav systems offer this feature and it is certainly useful to be able to navigate by foot once in a while.

There is plenty of refinement when it comes to choosing the navigation profile though. Many sat nav systems just offer you a basic fastest time or shortest route profile which doesn’t offer you any opportunity to fine tune the route selections. The S50 uses a sliding scale design. Move the slider completely to the left and it will choose the shortest route, move the slider to the right and it will choose a faster route. Move the slider in between these two to fine tune the routes selected. You can tweak this setup until you have the system working as you want.

By default the S50 will read aloud each letter as you enter an address using the on screen keyboard. I couldn’t really see the need for such a feature and quickly found this irritating. You can switch this off via the Preferences–>Volume settings screen.

The maps are clearly displayed and easy to read and there are plenty of options for tweaking how the maps are displayed. Here is an example of a typical map view.

If you prefer the directions in text only mode then that is supported too.

Another useful feature is support for multi-stop trips. You can enter several destinations together and then navigate to each one in turn. One you reach your first destination, the S50 will then navigate you to the second destination and so forth.

On the open road the S50 performed very well, choosing the same routes I would have selected had I not been using a sat nav system. In fact in one area it outperformed Garmin and Sony by detecting a short-cut route that I knew about.

The only minor grumble is that the S50 did have problems calculating the number of exit points on roundabouts in a couple of tests. This is an issue I’ve seen before on other Navman systems and is due to a fault with the TeleAtlas mapping software.

The voice instructions will say “take the 4th exit from the roundabout”, when in fact it is the 3rd exit. This is caused by incorrectly counting a one-way road that joins a roundabout as an exit point.

This is a minor issue I’ve observed only in a couple of specific areas but it is worth noting. In my experience, just like recognising postcodes, no sat nav mapping software is perfect.

The voice instructions are clear and easy to understand, although I’m not a fan of the female voice used on this system. She sounds like a strict school teacher who repeats the voice directions in a slow laboured fashion as if you didn’t hear her the first time. I’d like to see a more user friendly voice used in the future.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the S50 supports WAAS and EGNOS. This is a feature I’ve only previously seen on more expensive systems so was a bonus. WAAS/EGNOS is a series of satellites and ground stations which improves the accuracy at detecting your current location. WAAS is used in North America and EGNOS in Europe.

A typical GPS system can detect your location with an accuracy of 100 metres or less. WAAS/EGNOS has an accuracy of 3 metres or less so it was nice to see the S50 support this feature.

The S50 also supports NavPix where you can navigate to a geo-tagged photo. This is basically a photo with the GPS co-ordinates stored inside it. The S50 uses this data to navigate to the position where that photo was taken. It’s an interesting idea although I’ve always considered it a bit of a gimmick.

Bear in mind though the S50 does not include a camera. You can only navigate to photos you’ve taken with another camera capable of geo-tagging photos (or used some software utility to geo-tag the photos), which you then transfer to the S50. If you want a camera built into the GPS to save all this hassle then you would need to buy the top of the range Navman S90.

Speakers

The built-in speakers deliver enough power for the voice instructions to be clearly heard. I did observe a high-pitched whistling sound coming from the speakers. This was only audible when driving at very low speeds (say less than 10mph) or when stationary in traffic. I don’t know if this was just a fault with this system or a more general problem but it was a niggling annoyance at times.

Safety Cameras

The Navman S50 comes with a free trial of safety cameras which come ready to use straight out of the box. It will detect fixed, mobile, average speed and red light cameras.

In my tests the S50 correctly detected fixed cameras, although I was unable to get it to detect any sites where mobile cameras can operate. The Garmin Nuvi systems for example will warn you when approaching an area where a mobile safety camera sign has been placed at the side of the road. The S50 did not warn me of any of these areas.

I was unable to test how accurate it was at detecting average speed or red light cameras as there were none on the routes I used.

Overall I think the S50 will perform fine at warning you of fixed safety cameras, although I feel the Garmin Nuvi systems overall perform better in this department.

TMC

The Navman S50 does not support TMC out of the box. There is a traffic option on page 2 of the main menu but it is disabled. You can purchase a TMC cradle if you want to enable traffic alerts. These typically retail in the UK for £50 or less.

Bluetooth

The S50 can be paired up with a Bluetooth compatible phone for hands free phone calls. You pair your mobile phone with the S50 via the Phone–>Search Phone option from the main menu. Initially this option was disabled, but I was able to fix this by turning the S50 off and back on again.

By default your phone address book is not automatically transferred to the S50. You need to press the refresh button on the S50 once it is paired with your phone before your address book is transferred.

There is an option in the phone settings screen to allow automatic importing of a phone address book. Select the menu option Phone–>Setup–>Phonebook to do this.

Overall the hands free calling worked well. The S50 can receive your SMS test messages too, although I couldn’t see any way to reply back to an SMS using the S50 like you can on the Garmin Nuvi range. I’d like to see Navman consider adding this feature in a future release.

Preferences

From the main screen you can setup the following preferences.

• Route Options – this enables you to set the route type (shortest distance to fastest time), preference for motorways (less or more), avoidances (toll roads, unsurfaced roads, ferry routes), driving alerts when speed exceeds a given limit and GPS logging.
• Map Display – here you can set the colour and scheme (automatic, day, night).
• Map POIs – this screen allows you to decide what POIs, if any, are displayed on the map.
• Volume – here you can adjust the speaker volume and set whether the system should speak the keyboard letters as you enter an address.
• Screen – set the screen brightness for both day and night time usage.
• POI alerts – this covers fixed, mobile, average and red light safety cameras. You can specify at what distance you are warned of an upcoming safety camera.



• GPS status – shows satellite signal strength plus you can set the GPS mode (normal, WAAS, EGNOS).
• Language – here you can enable/disable voice guidance, select the voice (UK female, UK male) and select the language.
• Traffic – traffic alerts are disabled. You need a TMC cradle (purchased separately).
• Power – displays battery status and when the system should turn off automatically (e.g. after 5 mins if running on batteries).
• Keyboard – set the keyboard type (a, b, c or QWERTY). Some people prefer a QWERTY keyboard so it is nice to see the S50 offering this choice.
• Units – this screen allows you to set the time (12 or 24 hours), distance (metric – km, imperial – fractional miles, imperial – miles and yards) and position format (decimal degrees or degrees, minutes and seconds).



• Start Up – enable/disable the tutorial and language selection screen that appear when the system is switched on.
• Saved Info – here you can delete recent locations, favourites, avoidances and reset to factory defaults.
• Bluetooth – this option allows you to setup bluetooth pairing with a mobile phone.
• Tutorial – run the tutorial that appears at startup.
• Shop Demo – runs a demo so you can see the Navman S50 in action.

Summary

The S50 represents a welcome improvement over previous sat nav systems from Navman. It boasts a good selection of features including a 4.3’’ widescreen, Bluetooth hands free calling, safety cameras and WAAS/EGNOS support. When you consider the price tag of just over £100 it represents very good value for money.

The Bluetooth was a nice addition but I’d like to see further improvements in this area like the ability to send SMS text messages.

From a navigation perspective this system will perform as good as any other system out there.

Overall the S50 is a nice looking system that performs well, but it is let down by a poorly designed cradle that is in desperate need of a redesign.

Good Points

• 4.3’’ widescreen
• Bluetooth hands free calling
• Safety camera warnings out of the box
• WAAS/EGNOS support

Bad points

• No routing profiles such as car, bicycle, pedestrian, etc.
• Cradle poorly designed
• Slight whistling high pitched sound audible from speakers at low speeds
• Voice instructions too harsh – need a more friendly voice

Where to buy

Buy the Navman S50 Widescreen Sat Nav from Lemon Digital. Quote “Technical Itch” when ordering for a special price promotion discount.

Buy the Navman S50 Widescreen Sat Nav from Amazon.

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