Route 66 Maxi

Route 66 is one of the best known names in mobile sat nav and now it’s taking on the dedicated in-car boys, with the Maxi and the Mini. The Maxi name refers to the fact that it uses a 4.3in widescreen display and contains maps for all of Europe.

Bling, bling

The Route 66 impresses out of the box thanks to a shiny silver logo and a brushed metal effect bezel. Don’t spoil it by touching it though – it’s plastic. An SD card is located on the right, and maps are stored on the card rather than the device so you can only use the spare space for pictures.

Route 66 makes use of Navteq sourced maps and these are displayed with some style by the Maxi. The graphical representation of the road layout is impressive and – in our group road test of sat navs - is second only to Sony’s Nav-U NV-U93T for style. Road names are marked out clearly and as you drive the route is marked out very distinctly by colour and a trail of arrows.

Roundabouts are, for some reason, represented by footballs but POI icons such as for petrol stations are clear. Also impressive is that the on screen indicators for the next turn, current time, speed and signal strength, are all transparent overlays, enabling you to be aware of more roads around your location. Which is nice.

Fuzzy logic

Destination searching is impressive, using a ‘fuzzy’ search, where you can enter partial info and it will give you options. However, it doesn’t recognise postcodes without a space in between, which is just fussy.

As with the other sat navs we’ve tested, we hunted through the POI database for a specific local cinema. While it was located under ‘Entertainment’ there was no ‘Cinema’ sub section, making us hunt through a long list of assorted entries.

Road to nowhere

When driving along I immediately looked how to activate the safety cameras alerts but they weren’t present and have to be separately transferred over – a hassle. Even more bizarre was the route the Maxi chose to take me to the cinema – selecting a minor country lane, instead of the main road, despite selecting the ‘Fastest route’ option.

Perhaps the biggest problem for the Maxi though is that hands free calling over Bluetooth and traffic info via TMC can only be added with an optional cradle that costs an extra £60, which when it comes to value, leaves the Route66 on the road to nowhere.