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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Biggest piece of junk GPS on the market, October 26, 2009
This review is from: NS-NAV01 4.3 Inch Portable GPS System (Electronics)
This GPS is the biggest piece of junk I have seen try to pass itself off as a GPS. My Cadillac has built in navigation but when I travel I needed an inexpensive GPS to take with me in case I go to a place I don't know.
In this case, my wife and I took this GPS and a 2.5 year old TomTom One (as a backup) with us to try out on a vacation to California. I actually bought this device at BestBuy, so I had to be quick about trying it out before I ran out of time to return it if it was no good.
The first sign that this device was junk was on the way out on I-10 Westbound heading from Arizona to California. This is the biggest freeway in the southwest and largely runs through the desert arriving in Los Angeles. While driving on I-10, five different things happened over a period of time without making a single adjustment to our course (such as getting off at an exit, etc):
1) The GPS would say we were in the oncoming lane of traffic but still heading in the correct direction. This would essentially shut down the GPS function and the destination mileage became 0ft and destination arrival time became 0min.
2) The GPS would say that we were on an access road or some desert dirt road, so it would say we had to make a U-Turn and get back on the interstate.
3) The GPS would change (without us making a course change) from showing us in the correct lane to driving in the middle of the desert with no roads around.
4) The GPS would re-calculate the route without us making a course change, and the re-calculation would take 5 minutes.
5) The GPS would essentially lock up and when you tried to do anything (hit menu, hit pan view, etc) it would pop up an error message saying we were driving in an HOV lane (of course there was no HOV lanes) and you had to reboot the device to get it working again.
Once we got to California (we went to San Diego first, then LA) it worked moderately well, but was slow in response. The location search feature was nice, but three times we did searches for restaurants in the area and the restaurant was closed down or it was the wrong information because either the phone number was disconnected or when we showed up there was nothing there or a sports bar had replaced an Iranian restaurant for example. On several other occasions we searched for things that we knew existed but even though our spelling was perfect it couldn't find the location
Once we left San Diego we went to Universal Studios in Hollywood. We tried to input the directions two different ways: we searched for the location in the location search box on the device and found the address, and we manually inputted the address. In either case, the address was correct (we had also gotten the address from the internet at the hotel before we left the night before), and the GPS would say "calculating route"...when it was finished it simply put us back to the map screen as if we had chosen to drive around with no directions and just on map view.
The entire trip we essentially drove around with two GPS attached to the windshield - this piece of junk and a 2.5 year old TomTom One...the 2.5 year old TomTom outperformed the Insignia in every single facet. It was the only time we could count on things to be correct.
Do not buy this at any cost! Best Buy and other online sites often offer this product for 89 dollars or less, but don't be suckered! Spend the extra 70-80 dollars on a device that works. If you want inaccurate directions and tons of frustration and to save a ton of money, just print out directions from the crappy website [...]. At least the only thing it will cost you is ink and paper instead of 100 dollars with tax/shipping.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great GPS at a Great Price, January 2, 2010
This review is from: NS-NAV01 4.3 Inch Portable GPS System (Electronics)
I bought this unit last week. It's a simple, basic GPS with big screen, easy to read menus, and responsive keypad. Entering addresses is fast and easy, unlike my old GPS in which the battery died. The only problem is that it can take up to 60 seconds for it to aquire signal. The first time I used it, it took 5 minutes to get the signal. Also, you can't 'bookmark' current location. You have to enter the street address, hence only three stars.
Just make sure you have the latest maps and firmware. I was told that you can go to Best Buy and have the Geek Squad do it which I will do next week.
Despite it's shortcomings, at this price, it's hard to complain.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
it's alright for it's price, but..., January 25, 2010
This review is from: NS-NAV01 4.3 Inch Portable GPS System (Electronics)
Sometimes, it is a total waste of time. It works and and relatively good with getting me where I need to go, but there has been times where it has done something as stupid as making me on one of those side streets (the only way I can describe it is by saying it's one of those streets that look like a "D") when I could still see the street I could have stayed on. It was ridiculous. It didn't make ANY sense why it couldn't have just kept me going straight! Anyway... another thing I have to complain about is, when typing in an address, it will interrupt you typing to make suggestions of the street you are trying to type. This is nice if the street you're looking for is in the list... If it is not an option, you can only hit the back arrow and it deletes what you started to type out and you have to start all over again with spelling it out. The problem is, it will keep interrupting and suggesting and there's no way to shut this feature off. So basically, you never get to search the street name you're looking for if it's not in the options. The last thing I do not like is the way the voice on the GPS pronounces things. Sometimes, it's not even CLOSE. For example, my GPS (for whatever reason) pronounces some words that start with "B" with an "M". So if it's "Brown St" or something, it sounds like "Mound St". And this is a common problem with almost any street. Another word she mispronounces is "turn on". It sounds like "to none". Needless to say, it was VERY difficult to understand the first time I used it. Now that I've gotten used to some of the mistakes, it's not as bad. The mispronouncing street names though... I can't trust it, so I have to look down at my GPS to understand it. Which cancels the whole reason for the voice feature.
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