8. What, No SiRF?

One of biggest surprises on the Alpine Blackbird is that it doesn't use SiRF's new high-performance 20-channel GPS receiver. Instead, the Blackbird uses a 16-channel receiver. Although GPS performance was better than the old 12-channel parallel receivers (like those used on the old Magellan RoadMate 700/800 series), the Blackbird was unable to match the speed and sensitivity of SiRF's mighty Star III chipset.

In my testing, the Blackbird took longer to acquire a strong signal than other units that use SiRF's chipset. Moreover, the Blackbird lost its signal (when driving behind tall buildings or through short tunnels) faster than SiRF based GPS units, like the Garmin nuvi 660 or StreetPilot c550.

I can only assume Alpine's decision not to use SiRF's Star III chipset on the Blackbird was financially driven. Although with the OEM cost for SiRF's receiver running around $11, it's hard to understand why Alpine didn't spring for the better receiver. After all, what's more important on a GPS than its GPS receiver quality?

Figure 41: Route Summary

Tapping on the Menu button while navigating brings up the "Route Summary" page, shown above.

Figure 42: Maneuver List

The "Maneuver List" screen, shown above, displays a text list of all the turns you'll have to make while routing to your destination address. This screen looks fine, although I wished Alpine had implemented a route exclusion feature, which would have allowed me to tap on any given maneuver and tell the unit to avoid that road. Magellan's RoadMate's have this feature and it can be very handy if you know a given road is congested at the time of day you are driving, or if you know that a road is closed to due to flooding, for example.

Figure 43: Audio Menu

The Blackbird includes an integrated MP3/WMA player, which can be accessed via the "Entertainment" button on the Main Menu.

Figure 44: Listening to Audio

The Blackbird's audio player supports MP3 or WMA music files. Music files can be stored either on an SD or MMC memory card. The Blackbird doesn't support playlists, although you can group music files into sub-folders. The M.I.X. button turns on random shuffle, and the repeat button repeats the songs on the memory card.

The Blackbird includes an integrated FM transmitter, making it possible to listen to guidance instructions and MP3s via your car's stereo system. To setup the Blackbird to broadcast music and navigation voice guidance to your FM radio, the unit must be cradled in the dock and the 12v cigarette lighter adapter must be connected.

Then, turn on your car's radio and find an FM frequency that is not being used. The Blackbird can only broadcast on the following frequencies, so you'll want to find an unused channel from the following list: 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7. 88.9, 106.7, 106.9, 107.1, 107.3, 107.5, 107.7, and 107.9 MHz. Next, turn on the Blackbird, go to Main Menu -> Setup -> System. The default frequency is 88.1 MHz. Turn on the transmitter button on the System Setup screen. Make sure the Blackbird and the car's stereo system are on the same frequency, and you should be all set.

In my testing the Alpine FM transmitter worked well -- better (stronger signal and clearer) than the Garmin nuvi 660, not too surprising given Alpine's roots as a car stereo company. I'm not sure why Alpine chose to restrict the number of frequencies you can choose to broadcast on, but in my usage this wasn't an issue.

9. Viewing System Information

Figure 45: The Information Button

The Information page is accessed via the Information button, located on the Main Menu

Figure 46: Information Menu

The information menu page allows you to view a demo of the Blackbird, check the GPS status, view system information, or view stats about your current trip.

Figure 47: System Information

Tapping "System Information" from the Information menu allows you to check the application and database version installed on the Blackbird. This is also where you can find the unit serial number.

Figure 48: Viewing Trip Information

The Trip Information screen shows various statistics about your current trip, including Diving Average (average speed since the trip was last reset), Overall Average (average speed since start of the trip), Maximum Speed (maximum speed since start of trip), Driving Time (time vehicle has been moving since the trip was reset), Idle Time (time vehicle has been stopped since the trip was reset), and Total Time (total elapsed time on the trip). Many GPS units have a "trip computer" function -- I've never quite understood the value of it, but I suppose it could be interesting now and then to look at the stats on a long trip.

10. Setting System Options

Figure 49: Setup Menu

The Blackbird allows you to customize the display, guidance, clock, measuring unit, and FM frequency settings. From the Main Menu, tap on Setup to access the Setup menu, shown above in figure 49.

Figure 50: Display Setup

Customizing the display - this screen allows you to adjust the Brightness, color scheme, POI icons, and the Home icon. More options are available by tapping on the down arrow (shown below in figure 51)

Figure 51: Display Setup, Page 2

Here you can set additional display settings, including:

• Map Orientation - North Up or Heading Up map views (you can also toggle between North Up and Heading Up on the map page by tapping the Map Orientation icon).
• Trail - The trail feature allows you to turn on and off trail dots that appear wherever the vehicle icon traverses. This can be handy for off-road navigation, or Geocaching.

Figure 52: Clock Setup

In order for the GPS to provide accurate arrival times, it's important that the unit be set to the correct time zone. The Clock Setup page is where you'll tell the Blackbird what time zone you are in. Unfortunately, you have to manually tell the Blackbird if you're observing daylight savings time. Some other GPS units do this automatically, and it would be nice if the Blackbird automatically detected daylight savings or not.

Figure 53: System Setup

The System Setup page allows you to configure the FM transmitter, enable or disable touch tones, and setup the remote control:

• FM Transmitter - When set to ON, the FM transmitter broadcasts music and voice prompts to an available frequency on your FM car radio
• Frequency - This is where you set the frequency to the best available station for broadcasting audio to the FM radio.
• Remote Control - This feature allows you to turn on the ability for the system to receive remote
• Beep - By default the Blackbird emits a high-pitch chirp every time you touch the screen. If you're already familiar with Alpine's car stereo equipment, the beep will sound familiar. I found the noise annoying, and ended up turning it off.

Figure 54: Reset All Settings

At any time you can reset to the factory default settings via the "Reset All Settings" menu.

Figure 55: Guidance Setup

Turning voice on and off - this screen allows you to turn ON or OFF the guidance voice prompts. The Blackbird doesn't do text-to-speech, but it does announce some major highway names. Given the price of the Alpine Blackbird, the text-to-speech feature should really be included on the unit.

On the plus side, when the Blackbird did announce a street name or a maneuver, the voice was clear and easy to understand.

Figure 56: Measuring Unit

This menu allows you to change between miles and kilometers.

Figure 57: Traffic Setup

The Blackbird docking cradle includes an integrated traffic receiver that connects to NAVTEQ's Traffic RDS service. The unit comes with a free 90 day traffic trial subscription, after that it'll cost you $60 / year to subscribe. Traffic data is only available in select U.S. cities. You can check if your area is covered by visiting www.blackbirdtraffic.com. In my testing I never actually received any traffic data warnings, so I couldn't fairly test the traffic integration feature.