Joe:

I took a good look at the Sygic website today. Overall, I'm quite impressed with what their product appears to be able to do - provide route guidance with lane direction, provide traffic (though not by FM RDS, they use the cell network), identify speed limits on roads, support and use road attributes, and provide speed camera warnings.

I have not downloaded the application (at $70 for world coverage, that's a bit too expensive to download strictly for 'try-out' purposes, although it is certainly a reasonable price for the application and cartography). So, I have a few questions for you, as I presume this is the application you use.

1) What about the 'waterproof' issue? Are any of the Android smartphones waterproof (for example, IPX-7 rated, as most motorcycle GPS navigators are)? I use an iPhone, I know it is not waterproof.

If one puts the phone inside a waterproof case, is it still possible to control the navigation application via touch?

2) I note that Sygic states that their cartography comes with a lifetime licence for the Android platform. But, their application runs on both the Android and iPhone operating systems. Do you know what the cartography licence (and availability of free updates) is for the iPhone? I couldn't find that information on their website.

3) How much space does the cartography take up? My iPhone has 64 gb of storage (it is an iPhone 4S), of which about 30 GB could be made available for storing maps. Typically, there is a direct relationship between population of an area and map size for the same area. By way of example, how much space does it take to store all the cartography for South Korea (population 50 million, roughly the same as Germany)?

4) How does one cope with the cartography storage limits when moving from one country to another, or when traversing a large country such as the USA? Can zones of coverage be removed and added from the phone at will, using a Wi-Fi connection, or is computer support needed for storing all the cartography that won't fit on the phone?

5) I was a bit surprised to see that Sygic claims (on their Apple App Store website) to use the same cartography as Tom Tom. Is this commercial or open source software? I'm not familiar with Tom Tom cartography. Do you know who the major provider is, for example Navteq, Magellan, Nokia, OSM, etc.?

6) It appears that if one buys world coverage ($70) plus most of the bells and whistles offered as options (traffic notification, speed cameras, HUD, etc.), the full initial purchase cost will be about $100 to $130. Nothing wrong with that. But, how does this company generate ongoing revenue? Do they charge for application (software) updates? Or is it truly a 'pay once, use forever' service?

7) How is route planning carried out? Can it be done on a computer (rather than the phone)? My experience with route planning for aviation done on phones is that the phone is a lot more difficult (cumbersome) to use for route development and route planning than a traditional computer application, followed by transfer of the route to the phone.

Based on my initial review of the product, conducted by only looking at their website and app store entries, it is attractive. The only significant negative I can see (aside from relying on the phone itself for processing power and speed) is that they don't offer comprehensive coverage of many lesser developed countries (e.g. the Balkans), only 'major transit routes'.

Would appreciate whatever answers you can provide.

Michael