Review: HP Ipaq 314 Travel Companion

A quality all-round GPS

This slimline device features full maps of Western Europe, a vibrant 4.3in widescreen display and a range of additional multi-media features to provide entertainment to users on the move.

The 2GB of built-in memory stores the preloaded maps, so the SD-card slot is free for multi-media content to be loaded. These work very well and, where competitors often make it awkward to load and play back content, the Ipaq will automatically scan any attached memory card and populate a playlist.

The audio player uses ID3 tags to organise tracks, the photo viewer offers a range of slideshow transitions and the video player had no problem playing our test files. Impressed with the ‘travel companion’ features, we took the device out on the road to see how it handled traditional in-car navigation. Again, it worked extremely well.
The device had a pretty fast time to first fix of less than two minutes, and we noted that the GPS receiver did particularly well in retaining our location, even when there was no line of site to satellites.

The 600MHz processor means all the device’s navigational functions, along with route calculation and recalculation, are extremely fast and responsive. In addition, it is possible to drag the screen to scroll around maps, and a mechanical scroll wheel mounted onto the right-hand side of the device allows you to zoom from street level up to 3,000m away.

The Ipaq 314 represents extremely good value for money, although the mapping and general travel assistance is not quite up to the high standards set by Tom Tom.

Distributors: Bell Micro, Computer 2000, CMS, ETC, Enta, Gamma Global, Ingram Micro, Interchange, Interface, Livingston, Lynx, Micro Peripherals, Portix, Target, VIP, Westcoast