Navman's TravelAssist is a mobile phone-based GPS solution that brings NavPix photo navigation to your handheld. It uses the latest Navman mobile maps and comes supplied with a choice of Bluetooth GPS receivers sporting the latest SiftStar III navigation.

You can pick up the TravelAssist for a range of Symbian S60 and Pocket PC handhelds; the software is supplied on an MMC card that slots into your phone or PDA and installs itself automatically. When you start up the application it requests connection to your Bluetooth receiver and calculates your location.

Pleasingly this is done with a minimum of fuss with the Navman. Time-to-first-fix is refreshingly fast and we didn't encounter any problems with the Bluetooth connection from the phone. Once the receiver has been paired and your location found, you're free to use the controls on the phone to navigate through the menus on the software and plan a route.

This is easy thanks to eight-digit postcode support, or you can choose a POI or NavPix destination if you already have some saved. For those unaware, NavPix is a photo navigation alternative to the usual address or postcode entry. The NavPix tool works with the camera on your phone, allowing you to snap a picture of a famous landmark, area or simply the front of your house, at which point it stores the latitude and longitude of the position from which you took the picture. You can then use these photos to navigate instead of an address or postcode. It's a bit of a gimmick, but with the camera already built in you might find yourself using it more than you'd think.

Elsewhere you'll find a trip planner for setting up multiple waypoints, a Flight Information tool that allows you to check flight times based on arrival or departure locations, and a handful of basic settings for changing the voice and measurement units.

We were impressed by the clarity of the maps during a journey; while basic they are clear and easy to follow even if your mobile has a relatively small screen. Voice directions are also clear and accurate in relation to your position on the road. So far we're pretty impressed then; the TravelAssist is certainly very adept at getting you up and running with a minimum of fuss.

Putting the software through its paces unfortunately shows up some of the problems with such a mobile-based solution. To start with it's worth mentioning that you get free traffic information for a year - a nice bonus if it works. Unfortunately this rather enigmatic system seems to find traffic en-route in the form of blue spots on a map of the country. While you can choose to 'avoid traffic', you're not informed of the fact that you're being re-routed or given any information on how far off the route you're being taken.

If you do take a wrong turn, it seems to take an age for the software to calculate a better way of getting to your destination, continually directing you to turn back to the point at which you went wrong. This happened in situations where we knew for a fact that it was far quicker to continue on an alternative route, and seemed to be based around the software's over-reliance on motorways as the fastest option.

It doesn't help that the time-to-destination display is extremely misleading. If you do make a detour you obviously want to find out how much longer it'll take you, but the information given by the Navman certainly doesn't help. We were told, for example, that it would take an hour and a half to drive the 40 motorway miles home; in fact it took just over 30 minutes.

There's no night-mode, which aside from being quite frustrating after daylight hours could actually be considered dangerous, as the maps are very clean and white, making them dazzling in near-dark conditions.

The refresh rate on the map isn't particularly fast either, at about one screen per second, making it a little troublesome to navigate complex junctions and large roundabouts with multiple exits. While your position on the road is accurate, the visual representation of it isn't, at least not until you give the screen time to refresh.

These faults, along with the fact that you're not given a lot of versatility in terms of planning your route, leave you rather frustrated after a short time. Features found on the most basic dedicated GPS unit, such as viewing waypoints to your destination or customising the map interface, won't be found here.

You're given a fair amount of control over POIs and can download additional content and information from the web direct to your phone, but this isn't really enough to save the TravelAssist from its inherent faults. While it wouldn't be as portable or convenient to carry around, you could pick up a basic GPS unit with far more functionality for around the same price.

Despite a promising start and capable performance in terms of basic navigation, there aren't enough customisable features here and the lack of a night mode, over-reliance on major roads and poor information on your journey mean we can't recommend the TravelAssist over more capable rivals such as Route 66.