Customer Reviews

Cydle T43H 4.3-Inch HD Radio Receiver with GPS

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this device instead of renewing my XM NavTraffic subscription. So far, I have been very pleased. Driving in the Los Angeles Area, I find the data to be much more accurate than XMs... and delivery over HD Radio is about 10X faster than I had become used to. I do wish that the device had a little larger screen, but the quality of the display and software's ease of use are quite good. After 60 days, I'm still very happy with my purchase and a few of my friends have bought one too.

GPS works Fine, Traffic is one of the better I've seen. Maps outdated, hopefully there will be future updates. Routing seems on par with the garmins I've owned. Bottom of screen is very informative but text is small and a little hard to read at a quick glance.Very nice screen with choice of screen colors. HD Radio works fine but outputs to tinny sounding speaker.

This is quite an amazing little device because it can do so many things.At least initially it takes a second individual to 'play' with it while the first is driving to discover all its features. I wanted an HD radio, my husband a GPS so we purchased this. Found out that at least in our area not many HD radio stations to make that part worthwhile or any HD radio for that matter. However we can take the SYM card from our camera to show pictures/video on the larger screen. And being able to get traffic alerts without having to pay for a service is quite handy since we don't drive in metro areas that often to warrant the expense of a subscription service; yet it was nice to have while driving through a congested Chicago. Also handy for locating lodging as it identifies even B&B's. A great value!

Battery does not carte. Hd reception is poor and you can't use head phones and HD antenna at the same time n

4/30/10 update: The traffic function came on and has been working for the last 2 days. I dunno if someone read the review and then flipped a switch here in SF but its on now so I'm upgrading my rating today. It does not select the most favorable routes when directing me around but it is useful in unfamiliar areas. I'm upgrading to 4 stars due to the supercoolness of HD, FREE traffic and media player all in one. Using SD cards, all passengers can watch movies on long trips. You also have a portable 4.3" slideshow player for vacation/travel photos. If you're gonna read from your cell phones card, have the SD adapter handy.

4/15/10 I have been using this GPS in the SF Bay Area for 3 weeks, primarily in San Mateo County but also in the East Bay. I drive a lot around residential areas making home health house calls.
I was very excited about getting this device. I purchased it specifically for the traffic function but I am very disappointed. This unit has an external antenna that you plug in and suction cup to the windshield. You have to navigate to a screen to scan for an HD Traffic radio signal (from ClearChannel) but it also has an "autoscan" feature to locate one for you. I have found a very limited number of stations and they drop off frequently and the device does not display any information. I was surprized at this being in such a large metro area! Even when it did work, the lane speed function did not seem to be accurate and it did not note the construction at 880/92 freeways or other expected slow-downs. We also just returned from a trip down 101 to Santa Barbara. Not a single station south of San Jose.
My other major gripe is the lack of a printed owners manual. You will need to download the 99-page PDF file from the website, sheeeeesh! They should include some type of manual that you can put in the glove box if you need to reference it while driving.
The unit does have HD radio and a plug that you can patch into your car stereo if you have an external mini plug input. Not a big whoop for me.
It also has built in Media Player using SD flash cards. I never accessed this feature but thought it would be neat to use as a portable picture/video player. However, I have these functions on my smartphone so never tried it yet.
In summary, I wish I could return this device but am past the 15-day return period. I'd even pay the 10% restocking fee so that I could get a cheaper unit. The bells don't do it for me and the whistles don't work.

Like a previous reviewer posted, I too recently took a drive from NY to VT. It is roughly six hours from Long Island to my destination and the Cydle GPS had just came in the mail the previous day. I have used the Sony Nvu in the past and the Tom Tom to base comparison on.

The unit does take quite a while to boot up. After going to the navigation section and entering my route, I waited and waited. Granted it is a 350 mile drive, but not what I expected. At one point during the drive I took a shortcut that I always do and the unit actually froze trying to recalculate the route. During later endeavors, the unit would just reboot itself in the middle of my commute. Not cool when in downtown Manhattan.

The battery life is pretty bad by itself, so always bring the charger. The speaker is downright awful. It is muffled and the volume does not go as loud and any other GPS unit I have used in the past.

On a lighter note, the live traffic reports did work well driving through Connecticut and NY.

I assumed that some of my issues would be solved by doing the updates from Cydle's website. I did all of them, the unit still reboots itself if it deems necessary.

Overall, I wouldn't purchase this unit again. I could care less about watching movies or listening to MP3's, I just need navigation. If the hardware was upgraded to being a quality unit, I would have been more than happy.

Please note: I ask that you take my review with a grain of salt. I have experience with only one GPS sat-nav, which is a stock BMW sat-nav system for the last three years. That system is as easy as it gets.

Since I'm driving a new car soon, I decided to forego the built-in stock GPS system, offered as one of their options. They go for about $2,000 at the dealership, more than I'd like to spend. So I decided to shop around for a GPS that'll get me from point A to point B, with limited difficulty.

I never owned a Garmin or a TomTom so I can't compare those units. I've only used the stock BMW sat-nav, preinstalled in the car. It served me well over the last three years - only a problem every once in a while, but trustworthy most of the time (with no real bells and whistles).

I got the Cydle in the mail from Amazon two weeks ago. It came with an HD antenna, a window mount, car charger and USB cable, including the Cydle unit. It was charged when I took it out of the box, recharged it for several minutes after, full-strength... then turned it on. The battery is not very good - it runs out of juice pretty quickly, when you leave it unplugged and doing a little navigating in the unit.

- It takes a while for it to load up - before it gives you the option of what you want to do... routing, HD radio, etc.

- HD Radio works fine - but not sure how much better it is than your regular car radio. I couldn't get any channels aside from free radio - so I wasn't sure what to expect.

- The GPS routing voice IS muffled. Not clear and difficult to hear when you're in the car. It's so bad that you have to ask others in the car to keep quiet so you can hear the instructions... horrible. If voice navigation is important to you, then this product will not work for you. But that was the least of my problems...

- When I brought the Cydle on a trip with me last week (NY to Vermont)... it took 15 minutes to finally come up with a satellite signal - it kept telling me that it was "searching for a satellite signal and to please wait a moment". It read it found 30 signals but it couldn't connect. I cranked up my stock BMW sat-nav afterward, loaded in the address, and within a second, it told me where to go. Ingenius, huh?

This cydle unit was no help and was...eh hem... "radio silent" for the first 15 minutes of my trip. Not a peep out of it until it miraculously found a GPS signal and began giving me instructions. I don't live in a remote area (the NY suburbs), so I'm not sure what the problem was. Did I have to preload it online??? If so, WHY?

- Also, I learned what the size of a 4.3 inch screen is like. Not big enough for me. The touch screen on the cydle unit is frustrating to use - you have to double-click on almost everything. And when you attempt to return to a previous screen, it takes you back to the home menu screen instead (that's not what I wanted to do!!).

- Speaking of menus, this unit has a lot of options of what you can do. But to navigate around takes patience (and skinny fingers).

- Bluetooth? I have bluetooth in the car already... so I didn't need/use it. But given the example of the voice navigation, I wouldn't be so optimistic.

- Other options like Points of Interest... I'm not a big fan and didn't use it. If I want coffee, I will let fate guide me to the nearest coffee shop.

- Lane Assist... I didn't notice it giving me lane assist but I lost interest of the cydle unit 14 minutes into my drive.

- The manual gives you some very basic information - nothing else.

If you're a novice user like me, I guess this cydle unit will navigate itself straight into the trash - or at least back to Amazon. I'm now looking into a larger Motonav or a larger Garmin. I have zero confidence in this GPS but I'm giving this 2 stars, with the outside chance that I'm retarded and missed an initial step when using the unit. The other reviewers liked it so much they gave it 5 stars... perhaps the other reviewers have a higher threshold for pain than I do.

Thanks for reading.

I bought this Cydle gps last month and have been very pleased with it.

It has HD traffic from a company called Clear Channel which gets the traffic warnings to me much quicker than the Garmin 1490t which already went back to the store.

The routing is also better than the Garmin and so were the exit warnings. I can change so many of the settings any way I want. I have a lead foot so I set the speed setting to tell me when I go over the limit by 15 mph on the highway and 10mph on side roads. Just saving the cost of a few tickets would pay for this amazingly inexpensive gps.

I am glad I could get this before too many people heard about it and the stock runs out. This should be a big seller if people realize how easy it is to change the settings. The Garmin did not let me change more than a few settings and never gave a tts warning when I went over the speed limit.

Get this while you can.