Maction technologies adds another feather to its hat with the Papago! R5800.

AS MORE Malaysians are seeing the benefits of buying a GPS, the competition amongst manufacturers is heating up. Consumers now have a decent array of brands to choose from and features are constantly being upgraded and expounded upon.

The leading GPS brand in Taiwan, known curiously as Papago!, has released some surprisingly impressive products and the R5800 is no exception.

At a glance

Most GPS units from any manufacturer are designed more or less the same way, making the exterior unremarkable save for its size.

The R5800 has a whopping 5in screen which is the biggest we have ever reviewed. Obviously there is a major advantage to having such a big screen where you can see all the details of your journey as you go.

One drawback which we did not expect was that we needed to choose the windshield mounting location a little more carefully or risk losing a little road visibility.

The mount is also of excellent quality as the suction cup is strong, reliable and sufficiently adjustable. However, never leave the mount attached when your car is parked in the sun as the heat could warp the plastic.

Follow the arrow

Papago! uses Malfreemaps and utilises a Mapking-like interface which makes for a very elegant routing experience.

An arrow represents the vehicle instead of an animated car. Turns are clearly visible and current location updates are impressively constant.

This model also has a “junction view” function which shows a 3D animation of the road with an arrow pointing at the road to take when an exit is near.

The animation appears in a split-screen so as not to lose sight of the actual routing and the large screen really helps here.

There are around 780 junction views for Malaysia and more will be available with map and firmware updates.

Another major feature of this model is that it displays many buildings in 3D to make the routing more realistic. It is a fun feature to have but we think it is more amusing than helpful.

It was useful once or twice when we were trying to orient ourselves to where we were in the real world.

There are four routing display modes available — 3D, 2D, text and travel computer.

The first two are self-explanatory but text mode is simply a spelled out list of the current and upcoming street with the turn that needs to be taken.

Travel computer is a mix of 2D and text mode with only the next turning crudely animated. We are not sure why anyone would buy a high performance 3D enabled GPS unit and then switch to either text or travel mode but the choices remain available.

Search it

A major gripe with the Papago! is the speed and effectiveness of the all-important search option.

There is a bit of lag when browsing through the options which is odd considering the performance during routing was excellent.

Also, the search interface is unnecessarily complicated. For example, with the points-of-interest (POI) search, you have to go through four steps before actually being able to key in the place you're looking for. These steps are not immediately obvious either.

When you key in the text, the interface will eliminate letters that will not form a valid street name or POI, and that is handy to have.

Conclusion

We were quite impressed with the Papago! R5800. Although the search options are far better on other GPS navigators, the actual routing, coupled with the 3D additions, is world class.

There are myriad advanced settings and detailed drive information (speed, distance to destination and such) is displayed during the journey.

The price is also very reasonable considering its size and features. The Papago! R5800 gets you there and makes you feel good about it.

Pros: Speedy routing; excellent junction view integration; heavy-duty mount.

Cons: Complicated search interface; lags in certain areas.