Becker Crocodile Z100 - Review Hot

A very worthy splashproof navigation system that comes complete with full European maps as standard and a wickedly fast pick up system to keep you on track in any country

Navigation Crocodile

Initial Thoughts

Opening the box you get a sense of purpose from the Becker, with a larger screen layout that other GPS navigation devices available it looks perfect for motorcycle touring, the rubberised exterior feels reassuringly tough and after switching on the unti the screen is responsive and the menu appears quite user friendly to boot. Becker is one of those units that is increasing in popularity and when you look at the price of the crocodile in comparison to other motorcycle units you can certainly see why, also I was going to be resting all of my navigation success on this unit while touring France for this latest test, no maps and no clue where to go other than the Becker - lets see how it does!

Construction

As previously mentioned the Crocodile has a funny rubberised exterior and a funky textured surround to indicate its outdoor suitability, rated as splashproof I was quite reassured that this would be perfect in any weather when the auxillary input cover was in place but could not help but wonder if this compromised the system when it was removed as it exposed the optional MicroSD card and the headphone jack that I later came to realise would be required to use. Turning on the unit via the front on/off button which couples as the back button was a little odd as seemed to require a prolonged keypress to switch on (as you do to turn it off) sometimes but other times a single short press was enough, if I am honest though I would not have the on/off button and the general back button as the same button in case of accidental keypresses.

Fitting the unit you can either use a standard cigarette lighter socket and use the lead in the box and couple this with the mounting bracket and suction cup also provided, as I am a lucky chappie I got to try out both the optional cycle mount fitting and the motorcycle wiring kit which hardwires the power supply to the battery and provides an integrated  charging and traffic announcement setup, after trying 3 or 4 different places to mount the optional bike mount which consists of a mounting plate and a handlebar/tube fitting it soon became apparent that there was nowhere on my bike I could fit this without it fouling the steering - this was a bit of a disappointment as it really does look like the most secure fixing possible. Back to the suction mount again I had the issue that there was nowhere to fit the damn thing that would not foul the handlebars and I soon found that I could only get it on my top yoke, I was a little concerned about how this would work though and later this proved to be justified, I hard wired in the electrical kit and ran it all to the location of the mount with enough spare to move it slightly where required.

Setting off to France and the suction mount came unstuck after approx 2 minutes with the vibration on the bike, I refitted it and it came off again after another couple of minutes so I had to get creative! I always carry a handful of cable ties just in case and so I took the suction mount and cable tied it entirely to my brake reservoir and stem, while it was not 100% as I would like it seemed to hold in position enough to use so off we went, lets get to reviewing the unit.

The Becker auto finds locations brilliantly and upon typing the Euro Tunnel into its POI database it gave me the location instantly, also I do not know what kind of Voodoo Becker employs but the satellites picked up the unit instantaneously too and started pointing us in the right direction, for the first leg we were not filtering Motorways so down the M1 it took us, one of the first irritations with the Crocodile became apparent pretty quickly here, the Crocodile unit does not have Bluetooth or a headphone in the box so you assume that the speaker would be good enough to bark directions at you - it really isn't! I have no clue why but the speaker is so incredibly quiet and is placed on the opposite side of the unit that when you have your helmet on you can't hear it at all, 30mph and you need to just look at the screen as you have no other option. This is not such a problem though as long as you have a headphone to pop in which means removing the small rubber cover to use the jack (does this compromise the splashproof-ness? I would hope not) the headphone volume is also pretty quiet but it works ok - hopefully Becker will address this problem in the next generation of this unit.

With headset in place and makeshift mount working fine we tramped on down to Folkestone, and across to France where the Crocodile again picked us up instantly and got straight to the job of directing us to the location I had pre-programmed, this thing reacts very quickly to any changes and deviations to your route and in this regard is vastly superior to other units I have tried that seem to have at least a little lag, to test it out I occasionally took a wrong turn on purpose and ignored the sat-nav unit telling me to turn around, a few seconds later and it had recovered an alternative route and it never seemed to miss a beat, the only time I got it to make an error was on a diversion when we had to take an alternative route, we had it setup for no Motorway and no Toll road to avoid the French Peage system and stick to D roads. On just 1 occasion it asked me to go down a dirt road - fully loaded up with luggage I opted to not do this and it again picked up an alternative unit within a few seconds so off we went, then the signs for peage appeared and they dont give you an option to come off prior to getting on the things so a toll route it was.

A couple of things that did start to irritate me after a while though was the lack of contrast/brightness on the screen that meant in sunny France it was difficult to see the screen and I had to adjust the position all the time to see the map, there is no hood like you find on the TomTom unit which may be handy but in my opinion a higher brightness setting would sort this out, also the maps are very monotone and did not help the situation on a bike at all, much more colourful map systems would be a godsend and would also aid with the brightness issue too. Perhaps the most annoying problem of all though I have decided to save until last, on one hand it is easily worked around but on the other hand it is kind of essential that you should not need to...

The hard wired bike fitting is designed with a secure clamp to hold the unit in place while riding - score 1 point for this as it is much more reassuring the unit will not suddenly 'ping' off while riding, on the bottom of this are 3 pins that perform the connection to the cradle and unit and charge the unit while fitted this really didn't work as planned as the unit would sometimes show as charging and then it would not and unless you wiggle the unit in the cradle would not re-connect again very well, while this again was mildly irritating it was also potentially dangerous as I found that I had to hold it in place at one point as it was nearly out of charge - I then accidentally popped the unit off the mount and had to refit it at 130kph on a French Autoroute with one hand. After doing this I held no trust in the unit and simply charged it in the Hotel each day before travel using my Blackberry phone charger (ideal for charging my Android phone and a lot of other mini USB accessories, it also comes with alternative plug fittings for foreign travel)

Despite 1200 miles of travelling the Crocodile really did perform admirably and other than the initial niggles that I really though were going to spoil a great product I soon came to really appreciate having the Crocodile with me, the speed at which the unit picks up locations is staggering and the features such as motorway lane information and spoken street names are really helpful while touring. I think once the unit is fitted and you get used to it you will grow to really depend on it - I had to opportunity the other day to lend out my TomTom unit or the Crocodile to someone and decided to keep the Crocodile.

For the next generation version or even this one via updates the speaker and/or volume needs to be able to go MUCH higher to use without a headphone, if a headset system is they way the unit was intended for use then Bluetooth needs to be added which will unfortunately increase the price and this is the Crocodile's real forte. At nearly half the cost of the TomTom and Garmin units the Crocodile really is a great option for a motorcyclist who needs a water resistant navigation unit, the brightess and map colour could use a rethink too as being monotone for the most part it sometimes took some looking at to see where to go and finally the optional motorcycle wiring mount needs looking at a little better, I think it is juct the springs in the touch pins are quite soft and when mounted at certain angles they were not connecting properly - but the angles were required to see the screen in bright light - catch 22.