Shootout At the Gps Corral
Shootout at the GPS Corral
Which super-tourer has the best never-lost system?
Oh, what those castaways on “Lost” wouldn’t do for a GPS. They’d trade all the paper maps Rand McNally ever printed for just one Global Positioning Satellite receiver. With batteries.
Why so?
Simple. Maps tells you the location of every significant road, city, body of water and point of interest within a specified area; GPS receivers (or navigation systems, as they commonly are called) provide most of those same details, as well, but they also let you know where you are. Obviously, that can be one critical piece of information.
Nav systems have been available in cars and as handheld receivers for quite a while, but only recently have they become optional on motorcycles. BMW first made a system available a couple of years ago, and Honda and Harley-Davidson now offer optional nav devices on their top-of-the-line 2006 touring models. So when ordering our luxobikes, we had all three equipped with the optional GPS receivers. Since we intended to wander around in unfamiliar territory during our lap of California, we were likely to find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, asking that most troubling of questions: Where the hell are we?
Amazingly, that didn’t happen, so we never had to rely upon the nav systems to bail us out. But we did frequently use them to verify our location or determine if we were headed in the right direction.
And how did they perform, you ask? Either superbly or not so impressively, depending upon which one is in question.
Though BMW and Honda have approached their nav systems from slightly different directions, the two are fairly similar in the way they function. The K1200LT’s Navigator II is actually a variation of Garmin’s popular Street Pilot receiver adapted for use on BMWs. Its 31/4 x 13/4-inch color display is flanked by eight control buttons, but it also has touch-screen capabilities for many of those same operations. All of the system’s functions (zoomable map, turn-by-turn directions, trip computer, points of interest and a whole lot more) are operational when the bike is moving-a feature that has distinct pluses and minuses. The ability to scroll, zoom and search on the fly can be handy, but anything that lengthens a rider’s eyes-off-road time also increases the possibility of an accident. The receiver is detachable, and with the purchase of a separate battery pack, it can be used off the bike-in a car, a boat or even handheld.
Not so the Honda’s system, which is integral and non-remov-
able. The large (6 x 31/t-inch) in-dash color map display is bright and clearly legible, day or night, but is not touch-screen capable.
It offers pretty much the same features as the BMW system, along with complete U.S. and Canada mapping that includes point-ofinterest information such as gas stations, restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions and, of course, Honda dealers. Its guidance function can direct you to a selected destination with turn-by-turn directions delivered either on-screen or through voice guidance. The operation is controlled by a series of buttons on the lower right side of the fairing and one multi-purpose switch on the left handlebar. Any time the bike is in motion, all of the fairing-mounted controls are deactivated, but the display can still be zoomed and the voice-activation triggered on the fly with the handlebar switch.
In overall performance, we found the Honda and BMW navigation systems comparable. Both proved to be excellent guidance aids, each with its own set of advantages, each with no significant drawbacks.
We weren’t nearly as impressed with the Harley’s system, which isn’t actually a typical GPS receiver as much as it is a turn-by-turn guidance device. It doesn’t display a map like other systems do, providing only step-by-step directions using route number, street names and left-turn/right-turn arrows. It also doesn’t let you know where you are; instead, you program in a city, an address or an intersection and the system displays the directions to that destination, three lines at a time. It’s entirely possible to type in addresses that the system won’t recognize, and sometimes you don’t know the desired address or street name or route number; under those circumstances, the system isn’t much help.
What’s more, the screen isn’t as legible as the Honda’s or BMW’s; the information is displayed in grayish LCD characters on a pinkish-red background that can be hard to decipher under some lighting conditions. Plus, the source disc has to be in the CD player for the system to function, so you can’t listen to your music CDs while the guidance is active. As far as we’re concerned, then, this system’s limited, substandard performance doesn’t justify its $1100 buy-in.
So our on-the-road nav-system shootout more or less ended in a tie, with the Honda and BMW running neck-and-neck. Both got the job done quite nicely, always making it easy for us to know exactly where we were. But we can’t say the same for the Harley’s system. If Jack and Sawyer had to rely on it, they’d remain just as “Lost” as ever. -Paul Dean
