For the review we used the nuvi 760 and a Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 5 and a built-in GPS receiver. Most of the software is the same, but where appropriate we will highlight the differences between the two.

Intro

The RoadTour Heritage guide is the brain child of history buff Daniel Taylor who hit on the idea for RoadTour five years ago while walking round the Roman baths in Bath with his wife.

“We were listening to one of those walk-around hand-held audio guides which really bring the history to life and I got so absorbed that I very nearly walked away with it,” he said. “I felt truly inspired and began wondering about other heritage attractions nearby.”

“It struck me that it would be great to have an audio guide in the car, alerting you to all the historical sites in the area. At the time the technology wasn’t really there, so I chewed on it for a few years and honed the concept. It’s only during the last year that the devices have become powerful enough to make it happen.”

“We hope our guide will tempt people to pull off the motorway or A-road and visit some of the wonderful sites which have helped shape Britain’s history. But even if they don’t, their journeys will be enlivened and filled with interesting stories and snippets about the country through which they’re travelling.”

Installation

There are a few options available to you in order to get access to the software. You can either buy it was a Garmin device, download the software in digital format, SD card or order it on CD.

Installation on the Garmin and Windows Mobile device was pretty straightforward, the latter involves installing the software first via active sync and then the main bulk of the software was installed onto a spare expansion card (via a card reader). You will need at least a 1GB card in order to add the software.

Note: For Windows Mobile the software needs to be activated with the product key supplied, but we think there is a trial version available on the website so you can try out the software before you buy.

For the Garmin you simply need to insert a spare SD card into the device and attach the main unit to your computer. When it has installed the software can be accessed via your Extras Menu.


Software/Interface

The great aspect of the RoadTour guide is that it integrates seamlessly with your devices interface (Garmin). As a result you will not need to learn any new interface skills or to be honest the options are so easy to use, you would not have any trouble either way.

On the Garmin, once your device has picked up a GPS signal it will display the closest places of interest that you can visit, but you can also manually search for historical places as well.

On the whole you get access to historical guides of 600 sites, including castles, historic buildings, residences, country houses, gardens and monuments throughout the UK.

Each POI has around 1-2 minutes of audio, at least one image for the Garmin, phone numbers (which you can dial from your device via a compatible Bluetooth handset), opening hours and submission prices.

Navigation to the place of interest is then possible with a simple press of the Go Button.

For the Windows Mobile Interface it differs slightly as you would expect, but we must point out that the software is currently a standalone product, with no-integration at this moment in time with leading SatNav software (this will change, so we have been told).

The Windows software gives you control over what places of interest you want to visit (via a Range meter), so you can say set for a 10mile radius. It then allows you to set your GPS receiver and will display a list of categories along with a search option - to find your historical places of interest.

Once you have found a historical place of interest you can get similar information to the Garmin version, but it does seem to offer additional images and facility info that the latter does not include.

Driving Tests

For the Garmin we put the software to the test. Essentially because the RoadTour interfaces seamlessly with the exiting Garmin software, you can navigate to destinations just like you would do if it were a standard place of interest.

The audio commentary can be accessed manually as we mentioned earlier - before embarking on a journey - or it can be set to kick in whilst driving.

This will happen when you are near to any historical landmarks, but we found this to be a bit distracting and the audio commentary gets interrupted by the SatNavs own voice directions anyway - which causes even more of a distraction.

In the end we opted for the prompt mode, which simply gives you the option to pull over and then listen to the commentary safely.

One thing we did notice with the software is the delay you get when browsing the map via the RoadTour destinations selected. Due to the higher graphical detail of the 760 and the speed of our SD card, we recks this was the primary cause of the delay when rendering the map.

This does not happen when driving, but we recommend a fast SD card to use the software at its best.

Audio Quality

The Audio commentary on the Garmin was well narrated and definitely had the feel of the audio guides you get when you are walking around the landmarks themselves.

The information was also interesting, but we would have wished for more content as there is only one set of commentary per location and from what we could tell only one image available on the Garmin version.

The audio commentary on the Windows product was not as clear, we could even hear the original tape recording noise - for the voice over - in the background. But as we mentioned earlier it does contain more features, with additional images, facility info, text versions of the audio guides and links to websites.