Customer Reviews

Nextar C3 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I'm not sure you could do much better than this for the price. I bought it on sale, more than a little anxious about the quality of the resolution, the touch-screen interface, the accuracy of the GPS, etc. I have been VERY impressed with this unit.

One of the things I like best is its built-in rechargeable battery. This precludes the necessity of having cords hanging all over your dashboard, and is a very nice touch. The battery lasts well over 3 hours on a single charge (I drove for 3.5 hours once on a charge and 25% still remained), and both AC and DC/cigarette lighter adapters are included for charging at home or on the go.

The 3.5" screen is large enough -- and resolution clear enough -- to allow easy reading as well as a good bit of detailed information to be displayed at any one time. The touch screen is easily calibrated and remains quite accurate. Even when typing in letters for a street name, I seldom "fat finger" a virtual button. The display is bright and crisp, and easily readable, even in bright (indirect) sunshine. I use this in a SUV with a sunroof, and also in a car with t-tops and even with the tops out on a sunny day, it's easy to read the display -- and that's not even at its fullest brightness! There is an "auto" setting that will dim the display automatically at night... nice touch. Colors on the display are good and saturated and contrasted appropriately (you can change the overall background or color scheme between four different colors). Viewing can be toggled between a regular view and a "3D" angled-type view in one of three different angles. You can also select whether you want the orientation of the map to be "north" (where north is always up) or "heading" (where the map turns as you drive so you're always moving towards the top of the screen). At any point in map mode, you can "pan" by touching and dragging the map. Very cool.

The flexible holding arm attaches to a cradle and terminates in a rock-solid clampable suction cup. Not once -- even going over rough railroad tracks or off-roading in the Jeep -- has this suction ever broken off my windshield in days and days of continuous attachment. An adhesive-backed disc is also included for dash mounting (you would then suction the arm to the disc). One nice touch is that the GPS unit itself is very easily removed from the cradle... good for security when you're out of your car.

The excellent Navteq software is Windows CE-based.

The GPS signal acquisition takes a couple of minutes from a cold start, less from a warm start (if the unit has been turned off, then turned back on in a short while). I'd call the acquisition time slightly better than average of the GPS units I've used. Once acquired, however, this unit is VERY accurate, typically even locking in signals from 5 or more satellites while indoors. Both the maps and the displayed speed are right on the money, and the turn-by-turn navigation instructions (delivered audibly and visually) are accurate as well. The voice used is smooth and reasonably clear (female voice). You can set the unit to provide all kinds of routes... quickest route, shortest route, routes using or avoiding major roads when possible, routes including ferries or toll roads, routes using or excluding HOV lanes... goodness. When navigating, if you miss a turn, the route is recalculated within a few seconds. You can also look at a route list and avoid a specific road on the list, after which the route will be recalculated.

Points of interest are numerous (1.6 million) and highly usable. There are shortcuts to the more common POIs such as restaurants, ATMs, gas stations, etc. By touching any of these buttons, the display will show you the nearest POIs sorted by distance from your current location. You can also store favorite locations and a "home" location for easy retrieval. Navigation to any of these points, once selected, is as easy as touching one button.

There are some pretty neat ancillary features as well. Of course you can display everything in standard or metric measurements. The GPS info screen shows you the signal strength of each satellite from which a signal is being received as well as your exact latitude and longitude (with a minimum of 3 satellites' signals locked in), altitude (minimum of 4), and speed. I wish you could display the altitude on the main mapping screen, but that's not an option. I'd rather see the altitude there than the time. Perhaps that could be addressed in a firmware update? :) You can set a "speed alert" as well, to warn you if you exceed a preselected speed. You can even choose "auto speed," which uses the type of road you're on to determine the most likely speed limit. Not sure how useful this is, but it's a neat option.

Included in the box are the GPS unit itself (mine came ready-to-go with about a 30% charge), an AC power adapter, a DC car adapter, the windshield suction-mount bracket, a mounting cradle, the dashboard mounting disc, a touch-screen stylus (slides into the upper rear of the GPS unit; I doubt I'll use it much, but there it is), a USB cable, a nice storage pouch, and two owner's guides -- one for the software and one for the hardware. To my surprise (since I didn't read the original description carefully enough), there is also a very nice remote control (with battery) included that duplicates virtually every function of the menu and touch screen on the main unit. It has seven buttons and a four-way circular rocker switch with the typical "OK" button in the middle. I virtually never use the remote, but I suppose it's nice to have, all the same.

A stereo headphone jack is on the right side and allows connection to anything with a 1/8" input jack. I plan on testing this out with my car stereo as it has an auxiliary input jack on the face. I can store hundreds of MP3s on an SD card and away I go! Any navigation audio prompts are played through the car stereo in this set-up, as well.

The user interface is very, very good. The printed user guide isn't necessary at all for basic operation and navigation; however, for some of the more advanced features, the guide is helpful. The MP3 player's interface is wonderful... very intuitive. Loading songs into the playlist is a bit cumbersome, but not overly so, and I didn't buy this to be used as an MP3 player anyway.

The GPS antenna on the rear of the unit swings back and forth, so you can adjust it to improve reception. It also has a jack for an optional external GPS antenna. They thought of everything! Future firmware and mapping updates can be done via either the USB connection (and a computer) or maybe even downloaded onto an SD card.

I can't recommend this unit highly enough. Even at full price ($200) it would be worth it. When it's on sale, though, it becomes an astounding bargain. No buyer's remorse on this product whatsoever!

Three cheers for Nextar C3! I bought this unit not expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised. The unit doesn't give information on the GPS chipset or speed of the CPU. However, I will say that it acquires satellites quickly and it is very quick on plotting a trip and coming up with POIs.

The display is bright and colorful and easy to read. Some of the info on the bottom of the page is a bit small for my aging eyes, but that is only a minor inconvenience. It is very easy to put in an address, city or intersection and the Nextar C3 then takes you there. If you deviate from the route, the Nextar will recalculate a new route for you (if possible). I put in a bunch of "difficult" addresses in the Nextar including my in-laws isolated cabin and my friend's isolated farm. No Problem for the Nextar, it came up the correct route in no time.

The Nextar C3 will give you clear voice prompts "Turn right in .5 miles" Prepare to turn right," etc. It also gives you a number of visual cues on the screen including telling you the name of the street to turn on, a graphic bar that shows you how soon you need to turn and a visual arrow that tells you the direction to turn.

The Nextar has 1.6 million points of interest (POIs), but what does that mean? It means that you can ask the Nextar to locate for you important places like gas stations or hotels either from you current location or "another city" which could be your destination. A phone number is included in the data base so you can call ahead and make your reservation. GPS devices can have from 750 thousand to over 6 million POIs, so what is the difference? It is in the categories. A 6 million POI GPS won't include more gas stations (for instance) but it may include things like beauty shops and veterinarians. The Nextar includes all of the important POI categories like: gas, ATMs, hotels and rest areas (plus many more). In the shopping category it lists shopping malls but not many Walmarts or Targets (great stores when traveling). I was happy with the POIs on the Nextar and I think that it would serve most individual's needs.

A general word about ALL GPS POI databases:
1. Stores open and close and move so the databases are never 100% accurate.
2. For some reason, even established stores and facilities are occasionally missed (even in the 6 million POI databases).
3. Most stores tend to cluster (gas stations, hotels) so there are usually alternatives available.
4. Despite their limitations, POIs work the vast majority of time and really make traveling a pleasure.

The Nextar also has a built in MP3 player but it will only work if navigation is turned off. It plays via the small speaker on the Nextar but you could connect the headphone jack to iPod style mini transmitter and play it via your car's radio. It does not play restricted formats (like downloads). I have not used this feature, but some may find it useful.

I am very pleased with the overall performance of the Nextar and found that the level of performance is on par with the more expensive brand name GPS devices.

Now that GPS In-car navigation systems are finally affordable, I decided it was time for me to buy one of these. My brother had bought the Mio C220 Portable Car Navigation System and we used it on a road trip together. It worked quite well but sometimes it had a few minor glitches... like thinking we were on a particular road while we were in fact in a parking lot. And sometimes it thought we were off the map when we were on a small highway. So those few annoyances made me want to find a comparable or superior product that was within the same price range. (The Mio C220 is one of the least expensive, full featured, and best rated in it's price range).

My research led me to the Nextar C3. It had rave reviews and seemed to have everything I needed: 1.6 million POI, 1GB built in map memory, SD expandable slot with mp3 capabilities, voice prompt...etc. So when I finally got to play around with it, I found that it was even better than what I had expected... and even a bit cheaper than the MIO C220. Here is the list of my pros and cons.

Pros:

- Easy to use interface ( I didn't need to open manual to figure it out)

- Sturdy Build ( I dropped it a few times already with no damage at all)

- Voice prompt is clear and easy to understand, volume is loud enough
and adjustable.

- Mp3 player is a nice added feature

- Very accurate indication of speed and location. (more accurate than
MIO C220)

- Adjustable fold down antenna designed well and still works when folded
down.

- Very portable (about the size of a small point & shoot camera) and
included zippered case helps protect it.

- Lots of nice included accessories like remote, car charger, car cradle.

- Recalculates route very quickly when you make a wrong turn.

- Map has 2D and 3D modes.

- Touch screen works very well and stylus hides stows nicely in the back
of unit. You can use the tip of your finger-nail too.



Cons:
- A bit slow at acquiring satellite signals at initial startup... about 5
minutes.

- Does not seem to verbally tell you that you've arrived at the
destination, but it's indicated on the map by a big X.

- Screen is a bit small, but still readable.

Conclusion: For the price, this GPS unit exceeds my expectations. Especially impressive are all the features it includes and it's sturdy build quality. For this price, I was expecting something a bit more 'flimsy' in design, but this thing feels very solid... yet compact. It's also very easy to use and attractive. I'm very happy with this unit so far and it seems like all the rave reviews about it were right on the money.

Other products you may consider in this price range:
Mio C220 Portable Car Navigation System

I purchased this unit through Amazon using 2-days shipping, since I will have a road trip on August 17. It arrived Aug 15. After fully recharged the battery, I turned it on and nothing happened. The GPS just displayed loading message and stopped there. I contacted their custome service at 8:00pm and was glad that someone answered me. They told me it was a defect product and I need to return it. I am very disappointed about their poor quality control, as many others seemed to have a good unit.

Fortunately, Amazon has a very good custome service and they replaced the item with 1-day shipping. Once I get it and I will update this review.
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Update: I got a new one on Aug 17 just before my trip. This one works perfect. I am impressed with its performance, fast and accurate. I drove around SF without any problem. I would highly recommend it.

Suggestion: Since I got a bad copy at first, I won't trust their QC. If you want to buy this product, get one at least 1 week before your trip so that you can have enough time to test it.

I have been thinking of getting a GPS for a while now, but couldn't see myself spending over $200 for what would amount to a high tech toy. I am good at navigation and can read a map well, so I didn't think I needed a GPS (although my inner geek wanted one...)

I saw the C3 advertised and it was the answer that I was looking for. Positive reviews and a good price. I bought it and it arrived promptly.

The display is very readable. The directions seem to be very good. It responds extremely quickly when I go off route, and recalculates a new path.

The voice prompt is very pleasant and gives adequate warning before a turn. The volume is adequate to be heard, even in a noisy car with a four-year-old child.

The initial start-up seemed to have us placed somewhere in Tennessee, but after a few minutes, it located us properly.

I have noticed it was a few yards off one time when I was driving, and it kept thinking I was on the access road instead of the main highway. It was annoying in that it kept telling me that I needed to go on the highway.

Some of the POI are also out of date, as it took me to a bank and a McDonalds that did not exist. But the majority of them seem to be fine. Nextar promises an update eventually, but they have not had one so far.

I have not yet tried the MP3 player functionality of the device, but I have no doubt that it will work very well.

There were a few glitches. But overall I HIGHLY recommend this machine. In fact, ours was stolen out of our friend's car, and we bought another one the next day. It was really missed while waiting for it to be shipped. A good GPS at a good price.

I purchased this unit for around $150. My experience with GPS devices include:

- Running Routis 2004 (now iGuidance/Intellinav) on my Dell Axim X5 with GPS CF card.
- Magellan 700 on roadtrips with my friends.
- Owned and returned Garmin i3 and c330 units.
- Currently also own a Mio C310x (SirfIII, Teleatlas maps, running Mio's version of iGo software.)

PROS:
- NavTEQ maps. Yeah I know this is a raging debate item, but I gotta tell you out here in SoCal, in my experience, NavTEQ maps just seem to be more accurate.
- Intellinav software. This is by far the biggest plus. I had gotten spoiled using Routis in the past and the low-end stuff from the other companies just aren't as good. While this version of the software does not have Text-To-Speech (TTS), it does include additional sampled voice audio to speak freeway numbers, compass heading directions, and what side of the street your destination is on. These might seem like minor things, until you try another unit that doesn't have them. In the LA area there's often multiple merging freeways. It's definitely *a lot* safer to hear the unit say "keep left onto eight-oh-five North" and keep your attention on the road rather than having to look at the screen to figure out which freeway fork to take while people are merging and braking in front of you. Also, the side-of-street announcement is nice in business areas where every building is not marked with the street address.

CONS:
1) Not SirfStarIII. While this unit doesn't have SirfStar chipset it does seem to acquire a lock pretty readily. My Mio (with SirfStar) does definitely acquire much faster (great hardware, but I'm not wild about their software or the TeleAtlas maps.)
2) Dead battery = lose your settings and favorites. Okay, to be fair, I haven't plugged in a SD card into this thing and maybe that will solve the issue, but as it is out of the box, if you don't keep the battery charged, you lose any setting preferences and favorite destinations you might have set up while using the device before. Probably not an issue for those people who have this constantly plugged in in their car, but I usually have this in the glove compartment and only take it out when I need to actually go somewhere I don't know how to get to. So usually the battery will be depleted as I'll only maybe use it once a month.
3) Dead battery = "Loading..." boot. If you let the battery die on the unit, then the next time you power-on it will go thru it's initial "Loading..." screen which can take a few minutes (seems like an eternity when you're in the car and ready to get going, but have to wait for the thing to boot.) Switching on when there's still battery power doesn't have this issue (but as mentioned above, I use it infrequently, so this happens pretty much everytime for my usage pattern.)
4) Volume not as loud as others I've used. The Mio and Garmins that I've used can be turned up louder than this unit.


Even with the above listed cons, this is still the best unit for the price that I've encountered so far.

The GPS works great, I decided to take it into a small little town in the middle of nowhere. It had lead us to a bridge that was closed the only other roads around where dirt back roads and the GPS led us on those roads and still got us to our destination. I was very Impressed. The Fault it has is Trying to get someone to respond to my questions. When the I received the box the Car adapter was broken, I went to the nextar website and e-mailed customer service to see if i could just return the Car adapter and get a new one or if i had to return the whole unit. I received the box on Friday, E-mailed on Monday morning was told would have a response in 24 hours and now it is Wednesday Afternoon with still no response. I am very upset with the Customer Service.

I am very satisified with the value for the money of this GPS.

It is very accurate and takes just minutes to find satellites. The voice prompts are clear and easy to understand. Warns you in plenty of time of approaching turns (IE: "In 1000 feet turn right") as well as a tone and another direction when you get to the turn ("turn right")

The display is very bright and easy to read. It shows the name of the road you are travelling on near the bottom and the name of the road you will make the next turn on at the top. So even though it does not tell you the name of the road, like some higher end units, (IE: instead of saying "Turn right onto Oak Drive", the Nextar unit says "turn right"), it is still easy to glance over and see the name of the road. It also shows the estimated arrival time and the distance to your destination.

One minor glitch is that it sometimes tells you to bear right or left, when really you are just following the same road, but maybe passing another intersection. But a look at the display will show you to remain on that road.

The stopover feature is a plus, as you can enter more than one destination at a time, travel to each one and then continue on.

Touchscreen and stylus are great easy to pan and zoom. You don't have to use the stylus, your finger works well too. I haven't tried the remote, but I guess it is a nice feature if you need that sort of thing. My son said he would use it from the back seat to mess me up and make me drive to Gamestop instead of the Dentist!!

A complaint I have about the display is that the farthest out it zooms is 10 miles. Therefore, you cannot get a really good overview of your trip or where you are in relation to other nearby cities. Kind of frustrating, since it is such a nice unit, that limitation could be frustrating. I guess we'll have to keep the paper maps for that.

While I haven't fully tested many of the POI's, what I did look at and use, seem accurate. Maybe not every restaurant and shopping place listed, but enough if you were in a strange city to be helpful. I especially like the ATM and Hospital POI's. They could be very useful.

Lastly, you cannot save any "waypoints" by the logitude and latitude coordinates and you cannot set any destinations that are not on a road. For example, I tried to set a destination in the middle of a park, but it then attached it to the nearest road. This makes the Nextar good for auto navigation only, and not hiking, boating or geocaching. Too bad, cause it is a very compact unit, and if it had just that feature, it'd be great! I looked at Magellan crossover units that will do both, but they are much more money and they are bulkier than this Nextar. So for the price, this unit is a very good value, and I can afford to get a cheap handheld unit for those uses.

All in all a surprisingly good unit for the money.

I purchased this navigation system based on all the great reviews. It arrived in perfect condition. Unfortunately, after playing with it for about an hour, it experienced a "Fatal Application Error." And that was it. It would do nothing else, it just displayed the fatal application error message. I contacted Nextar via their 1-888 number, and was advised of a firmware problem and that the only thing to do was return it for exchange or refund. I opted for the refund.

On the bright side, at least it failed before I left on a roadtrip, and Amazon makes returns very easy and convenient.

previous reviewers have said most of what I would say about this, so I'll limit this to only what hasn't been said. I upgraded from a Garmin i5, and I am very glad that I did. I wouldn't advise that you spend too much on a GPS system, since they keep getting better every year, and cheaper ( I just bought my Garmin i5 last year). Compared to the Garmin ...
-Nextar has many less POIs (i.e. if you want to find the nearest Best Buy in your area, it is not in the database)-so if you absolutely want millions of POIs, get a Garmin.
-The Nextar (i think, though there is some controversy about this), uses the new SIRF GPS III chipset, so was infinitely quicker at acquiring satellite signals than the Garmin- this was a major that I bought it.

I also bought a TomTom One when I bought the Nextar, to compare the two. You can see my review on Amazon on the TomTom. While the TomTom was also a great GPS, the Nextar won out for me. Why?
- amazing suction cup mount- this thing just does not fall off even if you pull on it. Meanwhile, TomTom's included suction cup mount left a lot to be desired ( it fell off easily)
- there are some "preliminary" text to speech features on the Nextar. It will tell you the name of the road to turn onto if it is a major highway or a major road with a number. note, it will not tell you names of most "minor" roads.
- the touchscreen keyboard is very easy to use.
- the unit did take a little bit longer to pick up a satellite signal ( average is one to two minutes from a cold start, 15-30 seconds from a warm start) than the TomTom (about 30 second to one minute from a cold start).
- the unit is also a little bit bigger than TomTom one, which will fit into your pocket, while the Nextar is too big to be put into your pocket (for guy's pockets).
- Directions are pretty straightforward.
- has much less variety of voices on this vs the TomTom (which had 30+ voice choices)

in the end, this unit won out because of the preliminary text-to-speech feature, the better on-screen keyboard, the immensely better suction cup mount, and it was $50 cheaper at the time.