Explay PN 955: features, maps, features

Portable devices for navigation today are one of the most popular categories of consumer electronics. Such popularity is justified by the fact that motorists and travelers finally mastered modern technologies and abandoned the classical maps. Moreover, portable navigators allow you to track traffic jams, find the best routes and always have actual addresses. Modern models also have multimedia functions, they can watch movies and listen to music.

In this review, we will talk about one of the most affordable devices on the market. This navigator from Taiwan - Explay PN 955.

Equipment

In a nice box, in addition to the navigator, there was a place for a completely standard configuration. Explay owner PN 955 will find inside:

• A small brochure with instructions for working with the device.
• Two chargers.
• USB cable.
• Mounting.

The chargers in the kit are different. One of them allows you to charge the gadget from the mains, the other is needed for charging from the car cigarette lighter (which is extremely important, since the device does not hold the charge well).

A USB cable is required to connect to a computer (through which cards for the navigator and new firmware are installed).

Also included is a plastic car holder, which is easy to pick up and remove at any time.

Specifications

The heart of the navigator was the Chinese mobile chip - MTK, based on ARM with a clock speed of up to 600 MHz. Also, under the cover, 128 megabytes of RAM and 4 gigabytes of main memory were wormed. The volume of the latter can be expanded by using a memory card. Supported flash cards format Micro SD up to 16 gigabytes.

The device has Bluetooth version 2.0 for connecting mobile devices, and a GPS receiver with a data refresh rate of 1 hertz. There are problems with connecting mobile phones and using them as a modem, not all models work equally well, some do not connect at all.

Explay Navigator PN 955 works on the basis of the operating system Windows CE 6.0. Not the best platform, given that there are a lot of solutions on the more advanced and convenient "Android". But Windows has already proved itself, and supports modern navigation software. The Explay PN 955 is updated with a computer.

The device has temperature limits, the device can not be used at temperatures below -10 degrees and above +50.

Display

On the front panel is a small 5-inch LCD-display with a TFT matrix and a weak resolution of 800 by 480 pixels. The screen, like many similar devices, "wooden", does not react immediately, the refresh rate of the frames is low, the viewing angles also suffer. In principle, to work with maps is quite enough, but the multimedia capabilities are clearly inferior to competitors.

Cards

Maps for the navigator are provided by the company "Navitel", namely the set - "Navitel Navigator" version 5. This is a modern version of maps, rid of most of the errors and has the most complete data for the countries "Commonwealth".

The list of supported locations includes:

• Russia - 118 335 cities (of which 2 018 detailed) and a huge database of addresses, more than 1 100 000.
• Belarus - 19,160 cities (of which 119 are detailed) and 266,487 addresses.
• Kazakhstan - 6,635 cities (37 of them are detailed) and more than 150,000 addresses.
• Ukraine - 25 256 cities (79 of them are detailed) and 675 104 addresses.
• Finland - 13 594 cities (of which only one detailed) and 15 000 addresses.

The new version of the navigation service supports the function of rapid creation of routes. Cold start requires some time (1-2 minutes) to get started, but with subsequent ones, the route is created almost instantly, with a delay of 2-3 seconds. The gadget holds the signal well, does not rebuild the route for no apparent reason.

An important drawback of embedded maps is the lack of data on traffic jams. To city motorists such variant, unequivocally, does not approach.

Battery

The battery, unfortunately, is the weak side of the Explay PN 955. The navigator is able to work from one charge for not more than an hour, therefore it is necessary to use the charger on an ongoing basis. To do this, you can use a complete charger, powered by a cigarette lighter.

Additional Features

Explay PN 955 boasts a good range of multimedia functions.

Its power is enough to play audio and video files. The supported formats include:

• MP3.
• WMA.
• 3GP.
• MOV.
• MP4.
• JPEG.

This means that the device can be used to watch movies in their spare time, listen to music on the way and view photos. In order not to interfere with neighbors, you can use headphones, since in Explay PN 955 there was a place for an audio jack 3.5 mm (also known as a "mini jack").

To fit all the multimedia content, you will have to use a memory card, since the main memory will be occupied by the operating system and the navigation service.

The device also has a microphone, but using the navigator as a headset is not a good idea, since it catches little, in most cases you will have to scream so that the navigator will hear your speech.