The 5" widescreen display sports Route 66's software with maps provided by NAVTEQ, its external design is something you have to get used to, as most manufactures tend to head down the 'small is best' route the 220 goes in completely the opposite direction with a device weighing 550g and measuring approx 160mm wide by 90mm tall.

At the back of the unit you get a large speaker which comes into play during your navigational experience and when listening to music.

More surprising is the use of an old fashioned flip-up antenna, you would think that with such a large device the could find a way to integrate this with in the unit.

With a press of the front mounted phone button you can pair the 220 with a compatible Bluetooth mobile, but though it has a pair option it did not seem to detect our test mobile. We found out that you have to initiate the pair procedure from your mobile instead and then it works a treat.

Interestingly there is the inclusion of an AV-IN socket to the side, which compensates for the lack of video playback we feel (you still have the music player but there is only basic play controls on offer). When used with the supplied AV cable it allows you to plug in an external DVD/video player and view the contents on the screen. We tested this by rigging up our DVD player and watched the Matrix to good effect, the screen and sound quality was great. However we can’t see many people dragging portable DVD players around but none the less it’s a feature that is good to have.

Inside the box you get a large cradle to fit the girth of the 220, a mains adaptor, car charger, cradle,  a 30% voucher to redeem against RAC breakdown recovery, 2GB SD card with full European maps installed, TMC aerial, TMC Pro Subscription, AV-IN Cable and a pouch for your 220 that looks like a giant sleeping bag - but it works to protect your investment so its all good.

The size and weight may put a few people off whilst driving due to its size becoming more a distraction, so careful placement of the RAC in your windscreen is paramount, but for those who drive larger vehicles, such as 4 x 4 which place you further back from the windscreen the larger 220 comes into its own and offers an easier way of viewing the screen directions whilst driving.

The Route 66 software on offer is pretty easy to use for newcomers, as it tries to go down the TomTom route by providing screen with large icons, but unlike TomTom the menu options are kept down to two menus, for various settings and adjustments.

Entering navigation destinations is simplified to some degree by allowing you to enter postcodes, partial/complete addresses or fuzzy search from one screen. The latter is the best feature as it allows you to input parts of the address to speed up the search process or think if it like an SMS text message when you want to shorten the word great you use gr8, same sort of thing here. Though this sounds fine on paper its one screen input method can produce a long list of search results, meaning it could take you longer to pick the correct address from the list.

There is also more work needed for setting up the unit, mainly with adding POI speed cameras and the like as these are not enabled as standard and though there appears to be planning options you can not run through demos of your route before hand.

During testing we could not fault its accuracy or its ability to re-calculate routes, we normally drive the wrong way for about 20 minutes to test its performance and it coped fine.

The device could pick up our location relatively quickly but it’s intermittent like most devices, outdoors with clear skies its times varied from over a minute to within around 20 seconds.

The 5” display did pick up the direct sunlight a touch whilst driving but was still viewable and did not cause any problems. Voice directions sounded great through the speaker and each destination was spoken clearly, though you will only find basic directions spoken such as turn left – no text to speech function unfortunately.

Map detail was a touch sparse, more so in the 3D maps which looked a bit crayoney but the standard directional aids compensated for this.

With the 220 you get a TMC Pro subscription which offers a life time subscription and this worked well and acquired information quickly about any traffic hot spots or accidents within our location and was useful addition.

Speed cameras were detected but are displayed in a speed circle sign and we felt that at times they could have been more pre-warning when they were coming up.