Driving Ms. Fiona
As a former U.S. Army Ranger, I said that I would never buy a GPS. Then I got lost four times making a trip of about fifteen miles in an unfamiliar area. If someone had been selling a GPS on a corner for a thousand dollars, I would have purchased it then.
I had bought TomTom Ones for my son-in-law and son-out-law, and they both loved the devices. When it came time to purchase my own GPS, because of my aged eyes, I opted for the XL, which I guess stands for Extra Large. The XL offered lots of customizing options, including route preferences, all of which were easily programmed. The first thing I did was to change the voice from the default voice to the sweet brogue of an Irish woman. She told me to get on the motorway rather than the freeway and that I was coming to a roundabout rather than a traffic circle. Her given name Kathy didn't sound very Irish, so I called her "Fiona". I also changed the cursor from a blue arrow to a little red sports car to make it more in keeping with my geezer mobile.
Fiona shows me an oblique map of my route, and tells me when to make turns or change lanes. Of course the real test of a GPS is whether it gets you to where you want to go. I couldn't find many places around home to test Fiona, although when I couldn't find a COSCO on Long Island, I told her what I wanted and she led me to the door. On the other hand, she couldn't find a Starbucks.
I decided that the ultimate test would be a 2000 mile road trip to the Gaspe Peninsula. I trusted Fiona enough that I didn't bring any maps. For the most part, she was reliable, except on a few occasions where the highway made a big arc around a small town, and then she led me across a chord through the center of town. On the other hand, when the highway would have led me all around the tip of Gaspe, she showed me a shortcut across the Peninsula that saved thirty miles. Occasionally, she seemed to lose a satellite and showed me driving through a field parallel to the highway, but she usually corrected herself within 30 seconds.
Fiona can be programmed for a multi-stop trip, to a specific address, a town center or a point of interest.
Her menus showed that she could be linked by blue-tooth to my mobile phone, presumably for traffic updates, but my phone told me it didn't support that service. I believe this service is not available in the US, but it would have been nice if the documentation had made that clear.
Fiona's maps can be updated by computer, and while she came with U.S. and Canada maps, other maps are available. I wish that I had had Fiona when I rented a car in Japan that could only chide me in Japanese.
Now I have 2 problems: my girlfriend is jealous of Fiona; and I have two women giving me instructions when I drive.
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