Customer Reviews

LG LN740 4-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

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

 

 

I bought this unit when it first came out, because it has the TMC (FM traffic update) built in and a 4-inch screen for much less than the Garmin. Before this I bought the TOMTOM One.

Overall, this unit has been good. It does what the box says it does... But here are my improvements...

1. The map is still 2006 even though it was released in 2007. (the TOMTOM had a newer map)
2. Points of Interest (POI) - lets you find spots by category, either near destination or current location. An option for along the route would be good. Also...sometimes it is hard to figure what category something is in. there is no general search by company name. (It does however have a nice feature that I can click on say Starbucks, and it shows all the Starbucks as I drive by them - kind of nice)
3. When in the menus, you have to keep backing out to get back to the map (sometimes several clicks while driving). It would be nice to have one button to go back to the map.
4. When it calculates routes... I am not sure the logic takes into account turns. It often has me making more lefts and rights than is needed.
5. Traffic updates... it automatically recalculates routes to advoid traffic, but I get the feeling it does not advoid traffic congestion until it is with 3-5 miles. On long routes where I could take two freeways... one is closed. It has me take the closed on then, I notice it changes the route when I approach the closed part of the freeway, instead of in the beginning.

So... I am not sure how this compares to other units. I only had the TOMTOM for a day, but it needed a wireless internet connection from a PDA or something to get traffic updates. If you have a wireless connection or don't want the traffic feature, I like the TOMTOM better. Otherwise, this is a good unit for the price.

After reading mixed reviews I decided to give this unit a try. Coming from a Lowrance Iway 500c, I was looking for the newer sirfstar III receiver as well as faster routing and quicker satellite acquisition. The LG excelled at all three.

- Great satellite acquisition times, about 5 min for the first cold start and then almost instantaneous for subsequent reconnections. The unit has a sleep feature which seems to keeps the unit on similar to that of a laptop without having to reload maps, the OS, etc.

- Quick routing takes under 5 seconds for the initial destination. If you miss a turn, the unit reroute quick enough to make the next turn. Likewise, the logic of the system is pretty good, which will take to on a different route if optimal rather than trying to get you to U-turn back.

- Very accurate location plotting compared to my old GPS. I was impressed by the system mapping me on which lane direction i was traveling (North vs South, etc) and the maps included even the small police-only paths located in the medians.

- The display and speaker both seemed lacking at first in terms of brightness and sound quality, but upon actually use on a 2 day trip in the NY/NJ/PA area and over 300 miles of driving I found that everything worked well. The screen once located about 2-3 feet away on the windshield looks more than acceptable and the speaker works great once you get used to what it sounds like and to somewhat listen for it if you are blasting your music. The layout is simple yet effective, showing your distance to next turn, and the unit doesnt annoying repeat commands from too far away (go straight for 10 miles, 5 miles, then 2 miles etc).

For the price and the features you cant go wrong. No GPS is perfect -- the garmins Nuvi's dont have multistop routing and the TomTom One still uses Teleatlas maps. Both are more expensive and dont include text-to-speech which makes it a difficult comparison. Going to their next series with advanced features adds on another $200-300 or nearly double the cost. Give the LG a chance and I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

I purchased the LN740 for my wife about a year ago, and we've been generally pleased with the features and performance, particularly given the low cost - that is, until I tried to update the installed maps.
When I took a trip to Pennsylvania last week, I found that the unit was directing me to exits, and would then "lose" the roadway, makeing it look as though we were driving off the road, as the highway system had been recently modified.
Figuring it was time to update the map info for the unit, I contacted LG for info on how to update, expecting that they'd provide me with a web link to download updated maps. Instead, they e-mailed me a phone number to call, whereupon I was told that the only way to update the maps was to purchase a CD for $99!
If you feel that kind of price for an update is warranted for a $200 navigation system, then I won't try to disuade you from purchasing an LN740. The next time that I'm looking for a portable nav system, though, the cost and ease of updating maps will be one of the first things that I look at, and it's doubtful that LG will be one of the brands I look at.

I bought this unit after experiencing the frustrations of using a rental Garmin carnav that did not have text-to-speech capability. Just try to navigate DC's traffic circles with the instructions of "turn right in 200 feet"....yes, but which right turn?
The LN 740 gives plenty of warning before an upcoming turn. The screen is large enough to see most upcoming turns and read the street/route name as well as hear the spoken name. On the other hand, the name pronunciations are really strange: e.g. "stay right on traffic L-O-O-P 81", with Loop spelled instead of spoken. Can't handle hispanic names at all - Cervantes street is spoken Cer-VANTS instead of Cer-VAN-teez, Camino is CAM-in-o. The machine's voice is tinny and mildly unpleasant but readily understandable except for the strange pronunciations. Uses the Navtec mapping algorithm (same as Yahoo) which is currently regarded as the strongest system for use in USA although not in Europe. Just gave it a good testing in Austin, Texas, which is unknown territory for me. While it was important to look at the map as well as listening to upcoming changes, all in all it performed very well.
It did have two significant character flaws - directed me twice to turn onto a one-way street against legal traffic flow and it does not differentiate major streets from minor ones. The latter flaw led to following a serpentine path through residential neighborhoods and meeting many stop signs rather than simply following major thoroughfares. I learned how to offset this by using the avoid feature for any leg on the route shorter than .5 mile, forcing the program use a more direct route. The points of interest feature was quite detailed, allowing for rapid route selection to selected restaurants, museums, the airport, etc. so long as they were in the database. If one entered the address, the routing was not nearly so accurate, often being 4-5 blocks under or over. The street would be right but the fact that most commercial buildings do not use visible address numbers would then add to the challenge of finding an exact address while driving in heavy traffic. I tried using the unit portably as a pedestrian but found it confusing and did much better using a simple tourist map.
Do download Microsoft's most recent version of RapidSync because the version on the installation CD will not work. Several evening calls to the support line reached a recording asking for my number for a later call back that never came. I still want to know how I can get updated map and POI versions.
If TomTom goes with the Navtec mapping in the US, it will be the best car navigator. Until it does or its current mapping system improves, the upper level Garmins (text to speech capable) are the best, but MUCH more expensive than LG's LN 740. I would pose this unit as the value leader. While a $200 differential exists, I would continue to choose this one.

First off, this unit takes FOREVER to connect. It can be anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes before it picks up a signal.

The maps are horribly outdated and I can't find any information on the whole internet about how to update them.

The interface is clunky. For example, if you type in "Wil" exactly, to find for example "Willow Lane", the interface jumps to the first road that begins with "Wik", not "Wil", so you have to page through all roads that begin with Wik before you even get to Wil, then you have to page through Wilbur, Wilkins, etc. before you get to Willow. If you actually type the whole name "Willow Lane", it still goes to the road directly before Willow Lane. I don't know if you can understand how frustrating this is, but after two years of using it I find that it completely ruins the user experience of the device.

It's route-finding is pretty crappy as well, forcing you to drive through miles of cross streets when simply going one more exit on the highway would have placed you at the exact location you were going to.

Its buggy and if going cross country sometimes the map will just disappear.

If it has to correct the route because of a missed turn it would rather add hours to your trip instead of just suggesting that you turn around.

I've seen tons of good reviews on this product and it blows my mind, I think people are just trying to justify their purchase or haven't owned it long enough to realize how terrible it is.

Do not buy.

Bought this GPS, which came with an outdated 2006 map. When trying to update, we were informed by LG that we needed to purchase a new map for $100. Again, this came preinstalled with an OLD map and now they want us to purchase. All other companies allow you to download the new maps for free. DO NOT, DO NOT buy an LG GPS!!! Do not buy an LG products.

The LG LN740 is a great product. This is the first navigation device that I have owned, but I truly love it. The large screen makes it easy to read and the menu system is easy to navigate. The directions are clear and precise.
There have been a couple of times where the GPS was unable to locate my position and on a few occasions the GPS has frozen up completely which requires a full shutdown. This has only happened about 3 times in the year that I have owned it. My main frustration with the GPS is that there is no menu option for the number of times that it notifies you about an upcoming turn. The GPS tells you four times that a turn is coming. Once at 1 mile, once at 1/2 a mile, once at 1/5 of a mile, and finally at the actual location. I have resulted to turning the volume all the way down. If I could change this in the menus somewhere, I think I would have rated this GPS a full 5 stars.

I own this GPS for a few weeks. Bought it because of very good reviews and value. This is what I don't like based on my short expirience. The most important: Voice sounds very distorted. It's like listening to radio without fine tuning. It's so annoying, I'm surprised other reviewers didn't notice it. There is only one voice you can use with TTS-American English female voice. There are so many voices in Tom Tom I have in my work truck! It's not very accurate. Tells me my home is 0.2 miles ahead when I'm on my driveway. Takes me to major highway far away from the route instead of using nice county and local roads. May be it would be faster if not numerous traffic lights and congestion on that route. It spells NJ Turnpike as "North J Turnpike". Tells me turn left and right when the road keeps straight and so on. It had me turn to what happend to be dead end while I should have just stayed straight on the road. I travel north on NJT and there is a place where it splits into car and truck lanes so LG wants me to take truck lane (???). At my exit there is a very dangerous place where I have to quickly cross 2 busy lanes to get on Rt.18 instead Rt.1. You better know such thing in advance to make it. But my LG doesn't tell me anything. Every time you turn it on you have to push Agreement button first. When you're off road on parking lot and turn it on it doesn't tell which way to turn on the road. You have to start moving on the road before it figures out. I looked for train stations in POI-they not there, just a few major stations (we have dozens of different stations here in NJ). Although there are all kinds of museums in it which I do like. Bottom line: I could live with other cons but the voice is too bad.
My advise-listen to it before buying and remember that it will sound worse in confined space of you car.

I got this gps two years ago, although it will work pretty well for a while , it will start tofreeze and you will have to reset it and lose all stored info in order for it to work again. But the main reason not to buy it is YOU WILL NEVER FIND ANY UPDATES, Even if you talk to a service rep from LG. FAIR WARNING .
Buy a garmin ...At least you can depend on them. ART

I tried to update the 2006 software. Customer service had no idea how to do that and bounced my call around from person to person. I finally gave up. More recently, my GPS stopped working. It cannot locate any satellites and my map is frozen someplace in New York (I've never been there). When I called customer service, they told me that it would cost $69 just to diagnose the problem! I was also told that parts and additional labor would cost more. They could not provide any estimate on total cost. Why on earth would I spend this sort of money if they can't fix it? Further, why spend money on a GPS system that has outdated maps? I called LG in Huntsville, AL to issue a complaint and sent them emails. They have not returned my inquiries. Terrible customer service! Don't waste your money. After this experience, I will never buy a product from LG. Don't buy from a company that doesn't stand behind it's products.