8. Finding A Restaurant

In GPS speak, a "Point of Interest" is a business address saved on the GPS. You can think of the POI database as a pre-loaded yellow pages. Most modern GPS devices come pre-loaded with a Points of Interest database, allowing you to find nearby businesses, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and more.

Navigon's 7100 has 4 million POIs (Points of Interest). 4 million is a respectable number for similarly priced models; Magellan's Maestro 4000-series units have 4.3 million POIs, and Garmin's nuvi models have around 6 million.

Navigating to a POI is a similar process to navigating to an address:

Figure 54: Choosing a POI as a Destination Address

To search for a POI, tap New Destination -> Search for POI from the Main Menu, as shown above in figure 54.

Figure 55: Telling the GPS Where to Search

The 7100 lets you search for Points of Interest:

• near your current position (Nearby)
• in a specific city (in a City)
• across the entire map region (Nationwide).

Unfortunately, Navigon doesn't provide an option for finding a POI near a specific address. For example, it's not possible to search for a restaurant near the destination address - a frequently used option available on most other GPS models.

After telling the Navigon 7100 where to search, the following POI categories are available to choose:

• Zagat Hotel
• Zagat NightLife
• Zagat Attraction
• Zagat Golf
• Zagat Restaurant
• All Categories
• Gas Station
• Parking
• Restaurant
• Hotel or Motel
• Bank
• ATM
• Airport
• Railway Station
• Car Dealer
• Motorcycle Dealer
• Car Rental
• Shopping Center
• Tourist/Nature
• Culture
• Sports
• School & Education
• Government Office
• Health Care
• Exhibition
• Post Office
• Places of Worship
• Marina
• Business Facility
• Public Phone
• Public Toilet
• Border Crossing

Searching for POIs on the Navigon 7100 works better than entering an address, but would still benefit from tweaking. When looking at the details page for a given POI, tapping on the Back arrow returns you to the Main Menu rather than the previous screen, and you have to start all over. Scrolling through the POI results can be tedious, as you can only scroll one line at a time. Also, as with most of the interface on the Navigon 7100, the text is too small and difficult to read.

There's also no option for searching for a POI near the destination address, nor is it possible to search near recently found or saved addresses.

Figure 56: Finding a POI Along the Current Route

When navigating to a destination, it is also possible to search for POIs along the current route by tapping on the Options button from the map screen, and then on POI on Route.

Figure 57: Viewing POIs Along the Current Route

Navigon's screen for displaying POIs along the route is nicely done; it's easy to see the distance between the POIs, each of which can be routed to by tapping on the arrows to the right of the screen.

9. Zagat Guide Data

Navigon is one of the first GPS companies to incorporate Zagat guide data, and the 7100 includes five Zagat destination guides for over 70 U.S. cities. Zagat guides contain high quality reviews and ratings for restaurants, hotels, and more. Zagat guides typically have higher quality data than AAA or Michelin.

Figure 58: Zagat Guide Data

The following five Zagat guides are included on the Navigon 7100 and contain data for over 70 cities:

• Zagat Hotel
• Zagat NightLife
• Zagat Attraction
• Zagat Restaurant
• Zagat Golf

Figure 59: Choosing a Zagat Guide Sub-Category

Some Zagat Guides have additional sub-categories of information. For example, when searching for a Zagat-rated restaurant, it's also possible to view Top Decor, Top Food, Best Buy, Top Service, and Most Popular lists, or select Restaurant All to browse all Zagat rated restaurants in the chosen area.

Figure 60: Viewing Zagat Guide Reviews

The details page of a given POI allows you to start driving to the business' address by tapping on Start Navigation, viewing the restaurant (or other POI, depending what you searched for) on the map by tapping on the cryptic map icon to the left of the telephone icon, or calling the restaurant by tapping on the phone (requires a bluetooth compatible phone to be paired with the 7100).

To view the Zagat ratings for a given restaurant, tap on the "i" icon in the lower right corner.

Figure 61: Viewing the Zagat Ratings for a Restaurant

Zagat rates restaurants on a scale of 0-30 for food, decor, and service, and provides an average cost per person (not including alcohol).

Figure 62: Reading Zagat Reviews

In addition to the ratings, Zagat provides a written summary of the restaurant.