76 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good GPS Device for the price - but maps are outdated!, December 22, 2004
This review is from: Navman iCN 510 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I purchased this NAVMAN icn510 at a different online retailer for $350 (starts with outpost. something :-). I generally make my purchases at Amazon.com - but this time Amazon.com could not beat the price I got for this gadget. I also usually rely on Amazon.com to read reviews of a product. Since I have been helped by other peoples reviews before, I thought it is my time to pay back. Hence I am writing this one. This is my first ever review. So please bear with me if I do not do a good job of it.
Please also buy a minimum of 512MB SD or MMC card. I already had a 512MB SD card. I was able to install about 7 states before it filled up (Texas alone is approx 100MB!). So make sure you buy an SD card with this purchase. I would recommend 1GB. But that is your call. After I unpacked the receiver, I then let it charge for about 2 hours - before the green light came on indicating that it was fully charged. Then I installed the Navman Desktop software on my PC and then when it asked me to connect the iCN510, it was able to communicate with it with no problems. Remember to turn on the power (by sliding the Battery Switch) on the back of the device with the stylus before you plug it to your PC. Then I updated the Desktop and the iCN510 software with the latest patches from Navman's web site. Loading of the maps were slow - it takes approx. 5-10 minutes per map - so my advice is, you select all the maps that you want installed, then press copy to SD card and go do something else. Usually I have seen on my cameras and camcorders if you have the screen turned out, it drains the batteries pretty quickly. It was not the case here. After about 3 hours of usage - with the Display turned on - I noticed that batteries were about 65% full. I was impressed with that. During the installation, the Display screen was on all the time - with an USB connection animation. You do not see any map loading status updates on the device - only on your Desktops. After the installation, while inside the house itself, it was able to receive the GPS satellite signals and showed my location. That was good too. Voice is loud and clear. Although this is supposed to be a touchscreen device, a number of items on the screen does not respond to the stylus. You have to use its circular wheel to navigate and press the center of the circular wheel to get it to work as Enter/Return button. It also comes with all accessories you need to mount in the car along with car charger. It comes with a quick reference guide. But a detailed user manual is only available as a PDF. You may print one out at your discretion.
Here is the reason why I am giving this device 3 stars instead of 5. I purchased this product in December 2004. The maps on this device is dated March 2003. Called Customer service - which by the way will take you directly to voice mail where you would leave a voice mail. I did and I did not expect to hear from them. But 30 minutes later somebody did call back. When I talked to him, he said NAVMAN does not have the latest maps for this device. And even when it comes out, you will have to pay to get the latest maps on it. What the .....??? That was very disappointing. He said it will be atleast 8-12 months before they release their next updates. He understood my point but said he was helpless and could not change company's policies. I implored him to let his supervisors or anybody higher up that that is wrong. He said he will. So, I am looking at another $99 to get the updates. That was not good news. So beware of this before you buy this product. You also cannot register the product. I asked the customer rep. to see if I can register so that I may receive a discount coupon when I get ready to update the software. He said they discontinued the registration process. And that there are no plans to get customers data into their database.
But the fact is I paid $350 - which is pretty cheap. That is why I am seriously considering not sending this back. Otherwise it would have been returned by now.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good, stable worth the price unit, January 3, 2005
This review is from: Navman iCN 510 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
One of the first reasons I purchased this unit was because of its cost. $380/- @ Fry's electronics with a 128MB SD card thrown in. (Outpost.com has it for $350/- without the SD card.)
I live in Beaverton, OR and purchased it just b4 my road trip: PDX > Reno > Las Vegas > Grand Canyon > Hoover Dam > Reno > Portland.
In one word: The unit peformed magnificiently. All in all. Through all these states (Oregon, North Calif', Nevada, Arizona) it did its job seamlessly. No glitches. No stoppages. It does its job well: Never lets you get lost anywhere.
Cons:
Since the unit is small, be careful. Don't drop it. Also use a screen protector to avoid screen scratches.
The navigation circular button can be tricky. I have thick fingers and hence the propensity to push the wrong button. Same thing on the screen as well, since the letters are closely assembled together. The screen issue u can solve by using the stylus or a pen.
Also, I would have preferred a QWERTY style like keyboard rather than the other way. Again a personal preference.
The major gripe: When I was in Reno and we wanted to goto a Chinese resturant, I could not goto the one that was close to where I was. Meaning, I knew the name of the restuarant, but I did not know the address. And I did not know which county I was in. Hence it was hit and trial, and then out of frustration, called the restuarant up, got the address and then entered it. (The restuarant person did not which county the restuarant was located in.) I wish it would show up the restuarants altogether, say for the Reno area, and then me having a choice.
Another irritant: When I push the + or - buttons in map view, it does the job. But it reverts back after some seconds to the regular view. This I found it annoying. My only true complaint.
From the installation (software and hardware), I did not have any issues. Maybe if the maps loaded faster from the PC to the SD card, then that would be nice, but not a big deal.
Pros:
Pros, pros ... where do I start. On my outbound trip and in Reno, I forget to take the exit from my hotel. Missed the turn. the unit, did its 'back-on-track' magic & voila! ... a few more turns and am on I80 heading to Las Vegas. Same thing in Las Vegas: Had to pick up a friend in MGM & the unit did its job perfectly.
It had maps for Tusayan (about 4 miles south of Grand Canyon), my home area (Beaverton), my relatives place in Las Vegas (new development off of S Jones Road). Streets are detailed at Boulder City, NV (Near Hoover Dam).
Since my preferences / settings were to use the highways as most preferred, it tends to show my maps along those paths. The annoying 'Make a U Turn' is a good thing (when u r genuinely lost) and a bad thing, when u know where u r going. (I think the algorithm, is that if u travel half the distance on ur deviated route, then it recalculates it from there. Again this is my guess and I have not tested it completely nor changed the preferences.)
Screen is bright, the voice is clear with XM singing along. If u want it to repeat (and like to hear the voice) push the scroll button on the side.
The 3D view is very nice to give you a 'heads up' of what is coming. True, it is there on the regular map, but the 3D view is bootiful.!!! Just to look at it.
Oh yes I forgot the form factor: Small. At the end of the day, removed it from its windshield mounting and put it away in the compartment.
During the night drive, my friend used it to read upcoming turns, and judge his speed. Another very very useful feature.
Bottom line:
This unit, for the price that I paid, has served me very very well in the last 10 days. I never had to open my trip map from AAA. On the way down, I did question the validity of the turns, with what I had printed off MS S&T, not knowing if it was guiding me right. But after 10 days of use, I know the unit is there to stay in my wife's truck. 4ever till death or thief do us apart.
I did test the Magellan 700 for 2 days. Great unit. All maps loaded into the unit. But very bulky. Inconv' to remove, etc ... And the $$$$$$. The 510 does the same, except for the inconv' of loading the maps. Hence it is going back to Costco.
For the price and feature set, I could not find anything better.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
First time GPS owner/user, June 11, 2005
This review is from: Navman iCN 510 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I have been wanting to joing the world of GPS users for quite some time now but could never justify the spending of $750-1000 or more on a unit. When I found the iCN 510 and it's attractive price I did quite a bit of research before deciding to buy.
The unit itself seems pretty decent and it comes with everything I wanted for multi-car and motorcycle use. The car charger and internal battery allows me to use it plugged into the car or pull it out and hook up to my motorcycle for a 3-4 hour trip off the battery. The only thing missing from the box was a decent owners manual. The quick reference card was ok, but didn't help me in some of my trouble shooting issues.
I also downloaded the patcher 80 fix after reading some of the reviews here.
I don't know if it was just me or not, but one word of caution. I ran into A LOT of trouble getting the iCN to recognize the SD card I bought. I loaded all the maps onto the SD via a multi-card reader/writer but as soon as I loaded the card into the iCN, it would say "no maps loaded" and fail to work properly.
This is when NAVMAN support stepped up. I sent two emails and both were responded to in a couple of hours. The first one suggested a couple of resets to try as well as to check to make sure the SD was not locked. When I wrote back the next day saying I had tried all that and more, and that the SD was working in my card reader, I got a response back, again within two hours, saying they will replace the entire Navman unit for me if I would like to try that.
Before taking that step, I decided to go buy a different brand SD card and see if that would work and it did. Now I don't know if it matters, but the first card that did not work was a Lexar 512mb brand. When I bought a 256MB SanDisk and loaded the maps the iCN loaded them and now seems to work just fine. I also have a 1Gb SanDisk on order so that I can attempt to load as much of the US as possible.
It has been two days and no map error problems, no lose of GPS signal, and the device is working as promised. I have a 1,000 mile trip coming up at the end of June that I'm really looking forward to as the final test of this unit.
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