Customer Reviews

GPS Navigation For Dummies FD-350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

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

 

 

I was a little dubious when I ordered this product as it is relatively inexpensive. The fact that this is a new product line for the Dummies people made me hesitant as well. However, I have been very happy with the unit in the two weeks I have had it.

Pros:

1. It gets a satellite fix very quickly, unlike my previous GPS devices,
which could take up to 10 minutes.
2. Very lightweight.
3. It shows road features such as medians and one way streets.
4. It speaks the street name for your upcoming turn (aka text to speech); the lack of this feature is probably the most significant drawback with inexpensive GPS units.
5. Technical support was prompt and courteous in response to my questions.

Cons:
1. No wall plug; it only comes with an auto charger.
2. Occasional map database errors.

I'm confused over all the bad reviews - my GPS works great...even when I'm driving in Boston, where GPS's are known to lose their signals repeatedly, I haven't had a problem. Good product as far as I know and I've been using it for about a year now!

I also purchased this unit on HSN. Since it was a gift for my son, I wanted to make sure that it was truly user friendly. Well, it is. You don't have to go to a manual for directions in order to figure out how to use it. Great Product!

PURCHASED ON HSN. FAST ACCURATE AND RELIABLE. DOES EVERYTHING I WANT AND MORE. PHOTO'S SHOW UP GREAT. BATTERY LIFE COULD BE LONGER AND COULD USE A MAP UPDATE BUT FOR THE PRICE THIS IS AN EXCELLENT UNIT. CAN'T WAIT TO GET THE BIGGER SCREEN MODEL AND PASS THIS ONE ON TO MY WIFE, EVEN SHE CAN'T GO WRONG IT'S SO SIMPLE TO USE.

Horrible item. The interface is not at all intuitive. The on-screen keyboard freezes regularly, like every time we use it, making typing in a destination a 15 minute process. Heck, I could have driven there by the time we get the GPS programmed! If you pull up the menu and type in Find/by address/and type in the address, lets say..for the store where you are going tomorrow.. the GPS routinely 'drops' those queries. It doesn't hold them in Recent Addresses, or give you the option of saving it as a Favorite, NOTHING. It's gone. Tomorrow, when you head out...you're gonna have to type that address all over again....and chances are that keyboard is gonna freeze up/crash/or otherwise just default back to the Home screen and make you start all over again!

The users manual is awful, just awful.
I gave it two stars because the gps has a good voice, when the thing works. It has an expandable memory card (i tried to add music to the SD card included and when I added one CD it was too full!), and the screen has a day and night mode.
But don't waste your money. Buy a Garmin.

Tried to get a signal....was on the road for over 2 hours before it finally found one. The two other times we tried it we never got anything. I returned this product.

After checking out the reveiws here, I went to HSN, and was surprised by what was written. Most were negative, and there were far more reviews at that site than here.

In 2008 I bought this GPS and at that time it was a pretty good GPS. But now not so good. I had been having problems with the
accuracy of this GPS. So I decided to go to GPS for dummies web site to download new maps and updates for the device. Only to
find out that Norton wouldn't let me download anything from their site. Norton said that their website had a trojan horse. I
contacted the company that makes this device, Maylong and told them about the trojan horse but they didn't respond to me until the
fourth e-mail then I heard from them they had told me that they have fixed the problem. But they didn't. The company Maylong in
my opinion does not have good customer service, you can call them on the telephone and never get them, it just rings and rings and
rings and rings, and then it hangs up on you. and they're not much better with their e-mail, I tried three different Email
addresses. It wasn't until I looked up their web address in the whois database that I found the e-mail address of the admin
contact of the site and told him about the trojan horse and then Maylong contacted me and said the problem had been solved. But
Norton as of June 12, 2010 still says they have a trojan horse. Below is a copy of that report.

Norton Rating
WARNING Site
[...]

Summary
*Computer Threats: 1
*Identity Threats: 0
*Annoyance factors: 0

Total threats on this site: 1
The Norton rating is a result of Symantec's automated analysis system.
General Info
Web Site Location United States of America

Norton Safe Web has analyzed [...] for safety and security problems. Below is a sample of the threats that

were found.
Threat Report
Total threats found: 1

Threats found: 1
Here is a complete list:

Threat Name: Trojan.Maliframe!html
Location: [...]

Received this gps for christmas. Read the directions and plugged it into the car to begin. We could not get it to even turn on. We kept having to hit the reset button to get it on and then it did not pick up satellites. Gave it back to the family member who gave it to me. They charged it over night and then it worked. We tried it around town and was given the wrong directions. It would have had us turn back onto the freeway to get to the destination that was right down the street, and this was not new roads or new locations. Thank fully I knew where we were going. I did not feel it was user friendly at all. Have used a Garmin navigation system before and that was much more user friendly. After being told a 2nd time the wrong directins we returned it and ordered a Garmin. For what this one costs, I would expect it to work alot better.