Ironically, just after saying how happy I was with my GPS I had a really bad weekend with it! Luckily it wasn't a show stopper by any means, but it proves to illustrate how far from perfect the solution is.

Fry's isn't a Point of Interest?

My first problem was trying to find Fry's. If you don't know they're a very large electronics retailer. Now possibly it was because I bought my GPS at Circuit City but when I tried looking for Fry's (with an without the apostrophe) it was strangely absent from the database. Circuit City and Radio Shack both are.

Luckily thanks to Windows Live Search for Mobile it was no effort to look up the address, tap it into the GPS and get driving directions to the door.

I don't have a flying car.

My second problem was with a junction. I knew I needed to get off the freeway onto NE8th Street. The GPS however wanted me to get off the junction onto 28th Avenue which would then lead onto NE8th. Problem is the junction connects to NE8th and 28th is actually an unconnected flyover at this junction. Short of driving up a wall I wasn't going to make it. So the GPS recalculated and I decided to let it do what it wanted. That didn't include staying on the road we wanted but instead I was redirected back to the freeway, down a junction and took a couple of cross-streets to reconnect with NE8th. I've since changed the preferences on the GPS from 'fastest' to 'shortest' route as I think the freeway obsession is possibly a little much.

I was only going one way!

The final moment of amusement this weekend was a one way street. Which the GPS wanted me to do the wrong way down. Now luckily I think before blindly following directions so didn't turn into the single lane road with big "No Entry" signs. It's not a newly one-way street either, it's been like it for at least a year. But sadly the November 2006 version of the map that I have is wrong - and thanks to annual upgrades will be wrong for quite some time.

I'm sure that as I drove past the road to take the next right and go round the block the "recalculating" announcement had some frustration in its tone ;)