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Starting the software (SmartST Professional) for the first time prompts a tutorial on basic program control, which can be repeated on the next start if you need. It also seems that every time the software is started you must agree to a disclaimer of responsibility, and see a splash screen, which is irritating. The software will then present you with a screen asking you to wait for the GPS unit to find some satellites, a procedure that can take a random amount of time due to the nature of the beast. From this screen, a left-press on the D-pad will take the user to the main menu. From its stylish, gradient-filled bars and tasteful icons, one can access all the features and functions of the software. Pressing right on the pad when a route has been planned toggles between a text instruction screen and the normal map view, while pressing up and down controls zoom level.
 | Points of interest are also available, and you can choose which ones you want to be represented
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The options screen is tabbed, and provides a decent list of preferences to change, including colour schemes (manual day/night setting, for example), voice prompting, distance units, route planning options and points of interest. The only unique feature in these options is the ability to record your route - an interesting capability, and useful for backtracking or proving expense claims, perhaps. In a separate menu is the volume control, which is large and highly visible, presumably for use on the road. The volume setting is saved for when you next start the program, but it doesn’t seem to reset the volume to the level it was at when you started the software.
The next port of call is the GPS Status, which follows the now familiar beautiful aesthetics of the Navman software. It shows the currently connected GPS system, and its status, at the top, followed by co-ordinates, angle and speed. In the middle is a large coloured circle (shaded, of course) which indicates the fix state; it is surrounded by indicators for satellites currently in view. Finally, there is an up-time counter and a numeric indicator for the number of satellites and whether you are pinpointed in 2D or 3D, with altitude. The up-time indicator is replaced by a GPS-obtained time and date when satellites are contacted. I was not able to get a fix indoors, even standing at the window, and so Navman are right when they suggest usage only outside. Within a few minutes of stepping out the door, I had a full fix on five satellites, and the software kept me fully informed of the quality of the view of each satellite with coloured icons. All in all, the GPS Status view couldn’t be better.
The first option on the main menu is ‘Quick Nav’, which allows one-tap access to three favourite destinations, your recent destinations and a return-trip function. The second is ‘Destination’, allowing you to navigate to a range of options: addresses, POIs, Favourites and Recent destinations, as well as Intersections - presumably a left-over from the US version of the software. When a route has been planned, it’s also possible to view a list of text instructions for it from the main menu.
Setting a destination is easy, once you realise that by ‘area’ they mean ‘city’ or ‘attraction’ or ‘county’ too, and that you have to select your country from the icons at the top of the screen before you can search. Although the software is intelligent enough to complete words for you (and it does this quite well), it can’t handle misspellings or sound-alikes. It has support for house numbers, but not postal codes - which can be a good or bad thing, depending on the situation. Navman decided not to utilise postcodes to save on space, and also because the product is international, while postcodes are a national phenomenon. When your address is selected, you either have the option of showing it on the map, highlighted, or to ‘go’ to it, which requires a GPS connection to plot the route unless you have set a point of departure manually by tapping and holding on a map point.
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