Many People ask us about the differences between Pocket Navigator and Maptech's Outdoor Navigator.
Outdoor Navigator is a subscription service that allows you to download maps and charts from a web site. While this appears at first sight to be an excellent deal, there are many restrictions on what you can do with the system.
A large part of the value of a digital mapping system is in the planning phase, and what we call the review phase. For these "at home" activates, a full size PC is much better than a PDA. While the PDA excels at real-time navigation and field data capture, Pocket Navigator has always had a tightly coupled desktop companion software package that excels at planning and review. Outdoor Navigator, however, has no desktop companion, and it is not possible to even view the downloaded maps on the PC.
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Pocket Navigator |
Outdoor Navigator |
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Display maps on PDA |
Yes |
Yes |
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Map compatibility |
Multiple sources, worldwide |
Outdoor nav, USA only |
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Seamless Maps |
Yes |
No |
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Real-time GPS navigation |
Yes |
Yes |
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Plan routes |
Yes |
No |
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Track log capture |
Yes |
No |
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Display maps on PC |
Yes |
No |
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Share routes tracks with PC |
Yes |
No |
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Handheld GPS upload / download |
Yes |
No |
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In conclusion, Outdoor Navigator may be OK as a simple real-time navigation tool, but the lack of any PC tools for viewing maps and overlay data severely limits it's usefulness.