One look at the Navigator logo embossed below the screen of Nokia's latest phone, and you'll know what it's built for. Simply punch the one-touch navigation button below its four-way keypad, and a colourful 3-D map greets you even as the unit attempts to pick up a satellite signal.

To start, key in your destination. Select if you are driving or going on foot, and if you would like the shortest or quickest route, and the 6110 will voice-guide you to your destination.

The smartphone can also automatically search for useful places such as petrol kiosks, banks, and doctors near where you are, and point the way to them.

One afternoon, I used the gizmo to direct me to Conrad International Centennial Hotel to attend a wedding luncheon. Running on Navteq's navigational software, I found the 6110 to be a pretty competent GPS device.

It gave me clear instructions over its surprisingly loud and crisp speakers, which made it easy for me to keep my eye on the road while driving. The 2.2-inch screen may be smaller than that on a full-fledged GPS unit, but it is bright and clear. Its light sensor adjusts the brightness of the LCD accordingly - pretty nifty!

In fact, I find it much more intuitive and easier to use than Mapking, another popular map software for mobile phones and PDAs.

But the 6110 isn't perfect: once, the navigation software suddenly stopped while directing me home. Another time, the map froze while the voice directions continued to work. There were a couple of times the phone stubbornly refused to latch on to a GPS signal until I rebooted it.

It also asked me to make U-turns at places that would have landed me in trouble with the Traffic Police.

The GPS function drains battery life quickly - using it for an hour or so left me with three bars of battery life.

For local users, Singapore and Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur and Johor Baru) maps are pre-installed on the memory card. Singapore users can also download extra features such as voices, additional city maps and travel guides.

While traffic information, weather and safety camera features are currently available for use in European cities, Nokia says that there are no immediate plans to introduce them here. What a pity: they would have been ideal to advise you on where the traffic jams are!

Other than GPS, this quadband slider phone is endowed with goodies such as HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), a 2-megapixel camera, an MP3 player and FM radio.

Unfortunately, Wi-Fi is missing, so you can't surf for free with Wireless@SG. Of course, you can still surf with HSDPA, but the usual data charges apply.

It's a great work tool, too, with push e-mail and attachment viewers for Excel, PowerPoint, Word and PDF files.

FINAL SAY

The Nokia 6110 gets my nod as an easy-to-use GPS system. Available in black and white, it comes with a free Navigator Kit (which consists of a windscreen mount and car charger) worth $126 while stocks last.