ALK CoPilot Live 8 for Windows Mobile Review

I bought this for my HTC Touch Pro 2. Disregarding the price I would rate this product as poor. First of all, the map is old -- at least the map for the USA. I would estimate it to be about 5 or 6 years old. The reason I say this is that I live in a residence that is about 5 years old -- relatively new. This means that the street names does not exist before that. I typed in my address to look for it in CoPilot 8 and what a disappoinment -- it does not exist. I verified this again by typing the address of a friend whose residence is also new -- about 3 years old. Again the address does not exist. I have contacted support about this and so far all they can tell me is to re-install the product.

There is still bugs I think in the product, I have a few crashes already especially when I hide CoPilot do something else and then come back to it. I also wish that they add "tracks" feature in the product. This feature leaves trails on where you actually drove through.

My only wish is that CoPilot 8 updated the maps -- for free of course.

Besides that, because of the price, I still like this product. It is feature rich. I like the Walk mode. If you could hold off buying it though, I say wait until they update the maps and fix some of the bugs.

I purchased Co-Pilot v8.0 (Europe) for my Sony Ericcson Xperia. The outcome has been a bitter disappointment which leads me to believe that ALK have released this product version before they have sorted numerous bugs. At no time have I been able to view the maps and the product either crashes or hangs indefinitely between screens. How it gets such glowing reports from reviewers is beyond me. My advice - steer clear.

Customer service and Tech Support services are abysmal, often with inadequate interest or informnation and in refusing to allow refunds to dissatisfied customers they appear to be exploiting their remote and anonymous position.

Worth an update I think. Windows Mobile thinks nothing is running when Co-Pilot 8 is running and locks the phone (if you have that security feature set). ALK admitted this bug very quickly but has yet to issue the promised fix. ALK have confirmed that any previous traffic or other subscriptions you may have had in Co-Pilot 7, plus any trips or favourites you may have saved, will be lost when you upgrade to Co-Pilot 8. ALK has also confirmed that Co-Pilot Central version 2 no longer has the ability to plan trips on your PC then transfer them to your phone. What it largely seems to be now is a central point for buying additional things from ALK! (To be fair, it does also have useful back-up features.) Note also that I had made at least three corrections to Co-Pilot 7 mapping through their support site, but none of these have been incorporated into the maps for Co-Pilot 8. The only thing I got wrong on my previous post relates to the use of my GPS receiver - that wasn't an issue related to Co-Pilot 8.

Comment lombardo8 said on 17th August 2009

I have a slight problem though. I have screen lock set up on my phone (HTC Touch Pro 2) at 5 mins. When Copilot is running I expect the screen to stay unlocked as the phone is in use but it still locks out at 5mins. This definitely didnt happen when I used Copilot 6 on my previous phones (Charmer or TyTN 2). Anyone with a solution to this problem?

I found a solution to the problem first you need to download 2 programs called (slide 2 unlock) (phm Registry Editor)

here is the download links (slide 2 unlock) http://67.43.3.117/~acs2co/S2U2-download-2.04-QVGA.html (phm Registry Editor) http://www.phm.lu/downloads/download.aspx?{940B734A-C437-41C7-ADED-2A4418802FD3}

install slide to unlock first then phm editor
the edit the following key with phm editor

Edit the Registry, under \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\A_C\S2U2,
add key ExceptionEXE0 (STRING) with the name of the application (e.g. iexplore.exe).
A total of 10 (0-9) ExceptionEXE can be added.
Set ExceptionEXEisFG to 1 for checking if it's running in foreground only;
while set to 0 for checking if it's running in foreground or background. Remember to restart iLock2 after the changes.

Regards Michael