Better known for its car stereo and speaker systems, Blaupunkt also has a range of sat-nav devices.

The Travelpilot Lucca 5.3 is its high-end model with maps covering western Europe.

Despite the ‘5.3’ in the product name, the stylish-looking device has a 4.3in widescreen display. There are just three physical buttons, with everything else controlled by finger on the touchscreen.

The screen isn’t as responsive as others we’ve seen and entering addresses and postcodes was tricky with the relatively small buttons. There are also separate keyboards for letters and numbers, so you have to switch between the two, which is time consuming.

We also had trouble getting the device to recognise a couple of postcodes; when entering the PCW office postcode of W1A 2HG it refused to let us go any further than 'W1’, leaving us to enter the road name instead.

The Travelpilot will also accept voice commands when specifying addresses. We were sceptical at first, but it actually worked extremely well. It’s a bit fiddly, since you have to go through the menus and find the voice button, but it managed to recognise most road names we gave it. A physical button linking directly to the voice input would be ideal.

The mapping doesn’t feature enhancements, such as 3D landmarks, but its simplicity aids navigation. Meanwhile, the audio commands during navigation have a very disjointed feel and aren’t as smooth as some competitors. The Travelpilot will also attempt to read out road names; it’s obviously not perfect, and the text-to-speech conversion results in an almost underwater-style voice, but it’s a useful feature.

Other features include Bluetooth for hands-free calls, TMC traffic updates and speed camera warnings.
The Travelpilot has some interesting features, but it needs to have £50 knocked off the price to make it a real contender.