Since Navman joined forces with Mio earlier this year we've been waiting to see what interesting developments it'd come up with on new devices.

The S30 3D is part of a new range of updates to its existing range of navigators, and is the low-end model in a series that includes the S50 and S70. The latter two offer advantages like a 4.3-inch screen, Bluetooth calling and European maps, but we thought we'd take a look at the budget-priced model to see how it compares to devices from rivals like Binatone and Acer.

This particular design only offers a 3.5-inch display but still carries the 3D landmarks unique to the range, along with a preinstalled safety camera database and UK and Ireland maps.

It's not a particularly appealing design at first glance, though; the bezel around the screen seems overly large and makes it seem a little cheap-looking. Considering how light it is, along with the fact that Mio's devices were so nicely designed, we were expecting a bit more effort here.

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You'll find a car kit in the box that includes a cigarette lighter charger and windscreen mount and, though it does support TMC updates, you'll need to pick up a traffic antenna separately if you want this functionality.

Planning a route and starting a journey is particularly easy thanks to the well designed interface, which offers large buttons that are easy to access on the move despite the relatively small screen. It's quick to plan a route and maps are detailed and clear, showing road names and POIs without obscuring the directions or road layout.

Though there's no text-to-speech for reading out road names for added clarity, it does ‘speak' the letters or numbers you enter when typing an address or postcode, which we found surprisingly useful. There's a nice degree of customisation on map views that allows you to switch between 3D and 2D at the touch of a button, plus quick zoom controls and a trip information display that shows details like time and distance to arrival and current speed. You'll also find an icon that clarifies the distance to and nature of the next turn-off, which works nicely alongside the clear voice directions to make it easy to work out where you're going.

There's also a decent array of options for configuring the current journey, main display and behaviour on the move, and shortcuts to find the closest fuel, parking or SOS (hospitals, clinics etc.) locations.

The headline 3D landmarks only pop up when you're close to an area where these buildings have been rendered, for example around the Houses of Parliament or Big Ben. While nice to look at this is a bit of a gimmick, and doesn't enhance the usability of the device in any way other than from an aesthetic point of view.

We were impressed by the usability and on-road performance of the Navman but it's worth mentioning that it doesn't offer any extras such as a multimedia player or travel guides. It's up against devices like the Acer V200 and Binatone X350 at this price point, which do offer things like Bluetooth and media playback. But while impressive, neither is quite as nice to use on the road.

Navman has produced a nice, navigation-only solution in the S30 3D. It's not worth upgrading for the 3D buildings and it would have been good to see a more compact design and a couple of extras, but you're unlikely to find a better pure-navigation device at this price point.