Primo's best feature

After using iGo 8 for several years, I switched to Primo last week and the best feature so far is its ability to survive sleep. I have a Mio C320 and when you wake the device from sleep, iGo used to show up and then reboot. That took a while every time you started the device. iGo was still a very responsive software. But the restart was annoying.

In Primo, they seem to have "fixed" that. When you wake the device, Primo is there for you! This makes my Mio work just like a Garmin or Tomtom.

Just thought I'll share it with others in case someone is waiting on the upgrade for lack of features. This feature alone is worth the upgrade for me.

as far as i know the newer igo does not have this problem. any way it was only if igo was on sd card, that is sleeping when not working..

I seem to remember having read someplace that a slow or fast sd card could make some difference too. However as I said, "seem to remember having read".

LOL... I have been using Primo all week and although you seem to be able to wake it up from sleep mode and not have the device restart, there are still some flaws with this when Primo is on the SD card. Here are my observations thus far with Primo on an SD card on my Mio c320:

1. A couple times the sound got messed up after waking it up. Basically the volume went from high to extremely low after the wakeup. This was not an every time kind of thing... it happened just twice out of around 8 or 9 times I put the device to sleep. I could not readjust the volume, which according to Primo was all the way up. However, a restart did fix it.

2. Not everything is responsive immediately from a wakeup. I can best describe it like this... you wake up the device and Primo is there, however you tap the screen and nothing. It seems to take 5-10 seconds for everything to become functional again. So don't think you can just wake it up and tap the settings button and it will automatically be as if it were never asleep. Granted waiting 5 seconds as opposed to waiting for a full restart of the software is a major improvement.

So it does seem that NNG heard our cries about the restart after wake-up in igo8 and have addressed it with Primo. I haven't gone back to igo8 and I am doubtful I will. Eventually I will add the option of which maps to use (TA or NT) before starting Primo and then will probably ditch igo8 altogether. The only reason I keep it around is for the rare occasion I need to use a TA map (like when in Savannah). It will soon be gone for me, which I know I will hear a lot of reasons on why to keep it.

On my Clarion EZD580 (Mitac) I've had a similar but opposite result. I've always run the software from the internal memory, not SD card, and it's always ready to go as soon as it wakes. iGO8 would go in and out of sleep without any problems. With Primo if I use the hard button to put it to sleep it will wake with the WinCE task bar showing. I can minimize the task bar to a gray line but I don't know how to make it go away completely. It's just a minor annoyance that I haven't been able to correct. If it goes to sleep with Primo's auto shutdown feature it wakes up with no task bar, so I just unplug it and let it shut down on it's own.

That is weird... I wonder if something similar would happen on a Mio device. Funny that NNG seems to "fix" the restart issue, but it introduces a new problem for people with Primo on their internal drives.

The other major bug in igo8 that is fixed on Primo is the really annoying "parking lot freeze" bug. I think this is completely fixed in Primo as I have not experienced it at all.

i did not have this bug in igo8.

I've really been enjoying Primo for the few hundred miles I've been testing it, it runs really well on my device but I find it slightly more difficult to navigate the menus. The quick menu is nice, something I always liked about the Magellan versions of iGO8. Primo doesn't have the dynamic volume feature, I really miss that on the motorcycle. Hopefully it will be implemented in a future release.

kamoteka wrote:The other major bug in igo8 that is fixed on Primo is the really annoying "parking lot freeze" bug. I think this is completely fixed in Primo as I have not experienced it at all.

I think they fixed that in later releases of igo8.... I know I haven't experienced that in any of the 2009 releases of igo8. I was also never a problem in igo Amigo. Since Primo seems more based on Amigo then igo8, it makes sense the bug isn't there.


I think people always have a hard time with change, but I do think that NNG looks at igo8 as a thing of the past and Primo more as the future. However they were also all hyped about Amigo and that never caught on like igo8 did. Primo might be different since it comes with so many features with the default skin that you need a skin in igo8 to use.

I embrace primo personally. I am hoping that it will only get better (in terms of routing and the such) as newer releases become available. Nothing against the skinners, however the fact that I can use the default skin and have it do everything I need is a major plus in terms of an overall liking of Primo over other NNG releases.