Customer Reviews

Sanyo Easy Street NVM-4070 Bluetooth 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Sanyo NVM-4070 "Easy Street" Portable Navigation System, Piano Black

We have had this item now for almost a month. It is feature rich, and the features really work. The special features of note are:
- blue tooth
- fm transmitter
- plays mp3, wav, wma files (but not wma with DRM security)
- real time traffic updates with automatic or manual re-routing

It is very fast, re-routes quickly without announcing, "off route." You can generate route alternates by clicking three buttons from the map view for an alternate route. Address selection is easy. Creating Via's is easy.

You can switch between functions relatively easily - there is a menu button. From there you can open other functions each with a soft menu button on the screen. Yes, you can control the music while you navigate, and it will lower the volume to give you directions. It will not give audio directions if you are in a phone call but the onscreen navigation will continue. Some features are mutually exclusive, but you can navigate and call, or navigate and listen to music easily. It does not include access to the book services, and my library offers free book downloads with DRM - the unit does not support DRM security.

Car FM transmitters are touchy, but the FM transmitter works fairly well. If you are not familiar, the idea is that the GPS transmits to you car radio so that you can hear the music, navigation, and phone through your car radio. In my Prius, it works best when mounted directly over the radio. It easily allows you to select the frequency to use, but it some frequencies work much better than others.

The Blue tooth imported my phone book - it does not do voice dialing, but has lists of recent numbers called. Once uploaded, the phone book (contacts) is easy to navigate. The blue tooth recognizes the phone, and automatically links - unless your phone is already actively linked with another device - you must then intercede to disconnect one and reconnect the other. The blue tooth set up was a bit touchy to start, but once set up it worked well. It can store configurations for several phones, and will identify on the screen which connection is active. (it can connect to only one phone at a time but if you have more than one phone, it will store the setup for each).

We just started using the Navteq realtime direction service. You can see the routes covered at http://www.navteq.com/rdstraffic/index.html

I have not yet determined the threshold for when it will reroute you - but it does put up a message that the route is being changed because of traffic conditions, and you can view the traffic alerts. It comes with a 90 day free trial and I have not yet determined the actual cost.

It is head and shoulders above the Garmin iQue 3600 we have used till now, but there are a few things the much older Garmin did better.

The Garmin POI's are more expansive, but the Sanyo shows rest areas. I miss the ability to view POI's along my route - a selection option in the Garmin. But the Sanyo with Blue tooth, does something really nice - while viewing the POI - you can touch a button to call the POI. (I suspect that the issues reported here are common to all newer GPS units).

The Garmin had a very nice interactive - real time - turn by turn display - the Sanyo shows the waypoints, but it is less clear.

I found that it is easier to use if I use a pencil eraser to navigate the screen.

It is easy to move the map display by touching the edge of the screen to change the center of the map. It is a bit touchy about zooming out and in.

The mounting kit attaches to the windshield easily and comes down easily. (Garmin used a bean bag to anchor on the dash - I had liked that a lot.)

ORIGINALLY I RATED AS A 4 ON 6/08, BUT HAVE DOWNGRADED TO 3 (WHICH IS GENEROUS) ON 10/09
REASON: the unit crapped out on us when it was only 18 months old. Got an error when navigating that "bluetooth radio could not be found." Customer Service's response (after 2 tries and 45 min wait) was that the unit needed to be replaced, but since it was no longer under warranty that we needed to buy it. I know most Amazon users like Garmin but I might do Magellan due to being able to get a 2 year warranty as a AAA member.

BELOW IS ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM 6/08
I often rely on Amazon reviews before purchasing products, so here is our turn to contribute.

We have owned & used this product for 6 months.
We had read some good reviews of the product earlier & were motivated to purchase it for many of its features, including the traffic service. I liked that we did not have to purchase an extra antenna as it was already included. (the funny thing is that we haven't turned on the service yet....so can't comment on it)

My husband is an actor with lots of auditions all over the place, so thought it would be helpful to have a navigation system (& it has been!). Also his greatest nightmare is getting stuck in traffic & being late for a performance (hence the desire for a traffic service).

We had become accustomed to Hertz's Neverlost prior to buying this system & possibly would have stuck with that had I known the manufacturer (which is Magellan)

I'll list some of the pros and cons that we have experienced and then I will comment on some of the other reviews. (Please note that this system comes with many, many features, that we have never used.....the Bluetooth, MP3 player, downloading of books, etc.)

PROs:
+ Great price
+ Traffic antenna included & a 3 month trial period of the service
+ No antenna is needed except for when using the traffic service
+ Announces street names (which gives a good laugh at times!)
+ Can broadcast on a FM radio or use an earset
+ Usually gets us where we need to be (but then again sometimes "she" gets confused....which is aggravating when my husband is driving in Boston as it takes awhile to get back on track)
+ Shows gas stations & other services along a route on a map
+ you have a choice as a 2-dimensional screen or a 3-d screen
+ it shows your speed, so depending on your car style, you can rest the unit on your dash, blocking your speedometer

CONs:
- It takes a long time to warm up, sometimes as much as 15 minutes (& sometimes it is immediate)
- There is no "key" or "screen" locking (due to the sometimes long warm up period, I want to leave the system on & keep it my bag when going into a store....I then hear `beep, beep, beep' as the screen gets touched accidentally) - not sure if this feature exists on other systems.
- The Point of Interest search is definitely not as good as the Magellan's Neverlost, which shows restaurants by exit number. The Sanyo lists all restaurants by distance as the crow flies, with only street names as detail. What this means is the restaurant could be in a direction that you are not traveling. In addition, you might think it is worthwhile to go the 2 miles out of the way to go to a restaurant, only to find that as you navigate to it, the restaurant is really 8 miles out of the way. Knowing the town at least would be helpful.
- The next might be more user error - Say I do a POI search, pick a restaurant & put it in as a stopover point, only to discover it is way out of the way. I haven't been able to figure out how to cancel that stopover point without cancelling the whole trip.
- Talking of errors, sometimes the system crashes with a system error. This would be in the middle of the trip, when I might be searching for a POI or something...but it is inconvenient. It seems like it happens right when my husband needs to be making some turn & I need to start nearly from the beginning (find the recent address & re-navigate to it).
- Once the distance is under 1 mile until the next turn, the distance is displayed in YARDS. I'd much prefer if the distance stayed in mileage...like 0.7 mi, 0.3 mi, etc. (who wants to do math converting yards to miles??? And I work as an engineer!)
- The traffic antenna is somewhat cheap...My husband pulled the suction cup off by accident within the first few days (not really repairable). He then dropped it on the kitchen floor another day & the retraction of the cord broke.

Comments:
1. As far as the low volume, you can broadcast on the radio or use an earset (it definitely was hard to hear when driving a convertible on vacation)
2. The final destination is marked on the map as whether it is on the Left or Right side of the street.
3. Good suggestion on the pencil eraser. We had wished it came with a stylus like Palm provides.
4. It is true that the system asks for date & time to be entered manually when you first turn on the system. I usually skip through this & what I found is that once I get a GPS signal, the time is updated to the correct time. The time is important as the system shows the time you are expected to reach your destination (whereas I believe the Neverlost system displays the expected travel time).
5. We don't use the mounting kit for 3 reasons: (1) it doesn't fit my husband's curved dash very well; (2) it reduces the risk of windows being smashed by thieves looking for the suction cup; & (3) we don't need it. We just rest the unit on the seat next to us.

This gps has been unfairly criticized based on user error or unreasonable expectations.

Yes the date/time must be reset when the main battery if off but no big deal as the gps resets the date and time itself. I found the voice command volume to be quite adequate even with two people talking in the car. I actually had to turn the volume down. Street names and exits are projected on the display assuming one has looked at the directions then its announced when to exit - if the unit is set for female voice TTS then it says the actual street name or number. I contacted customer service by email they responded within 24hrs and were very helpful and stated updated maps will be out at the end of this year. I did get a map update CD with my 4070. Also Sanyo emailed me again to verify that I was satisfied with their response.

I think its a cool gps unit for the money I paid ($189) especially with all the accessories included. Reading the reviews of Garmin and TomTom it seems the Sanyo performs as well if not better condsidering the price difference. I have not tried the FM or bluetooth yet. I will update my review when I do use those features.

Update --A major interstate I35W in MN is mislabeled as MN 65. But reviews of Garmins, TomToms and others all have map problems as well. Bad maps seems to be the bane of consumer-grade gps systems. Is this one worse than others? Once I figured out the mislabeling of the interstate and was no longer confused-- the directions were accurate. Features such as fastest and shortest routes work well. I still havent tried the other features I guess I'm not really interested in my gps playing MP3s, photos and videos or even phone calls!! I just need it to get me from point A to point B accurately and efficiently.

I've been using this gps for a month now and personnally I do believe this is the best gps for the price consider its operation and features.
I got this from Frys electronics for $200
I also owned a garmin C340,which is quite old.I will try to be more specifics on the major features.
1)the gps on the sanyo is super quick,it reroute instantly without recalculating,the signal is allways there even indoor,I never experienced a signal lost with the sanyo,while it occured quite often with the garmin.
2)bluetooth works flawslessly with my sanyo phone,u can import phone book,edit etc...,u can call POI directly with the sanyo,read its description.
3)mp3 player works perfectly,u can listen to it thru the built in speaker or your car stereo using the fm txmitter,try different channel for best sound,and look like the gps have to be mount directly above the stereo unit for best sounding
4)video player works really good,but u need to convert your video files to mp4 format because this is the only format this player will read.I'm not sure if any of the Garmin offer this features
5)u can add a sd card for extra stuffs,the gps have roughly 1GB internal memory for u to use,I heard that the sanyo is compatible with HCSD,if that the case u can add up to 16gb hcsd card
6)3 months free of TMC(traffic info)
7)photo viewer,no problem at all
8)the gps come with winshield mount,car charger,ac charger,usb cable,tmc antenna,cd and dvd.The winshield mount is very well build and designed,really easy to use,believe it or not I can uninstalled the gps with 1 hand while driving.
If anybody know of any gps that can do all this for less than $200,please let me know,I'd appreciate that.
Try this gps and save yourself alot of money.

If you want to run the risk of no customer supports with your expensive GPS navigation system, you can simply go to buy a Sanyo NVM-4070. Any questions you have, you can call 1-800-421-5013, after waiting for over 30 minutes, you can get the answer like this "Sanyo doesn't provide any updated software for fixing these issues, you can just use it as is or return it to the store." It is very surprised why Sanyo did release such kind of product to the market even if they do not want to provide any technical supports ?

The critical issue is that: there are only 3 so-called Voice Skins (English only): Female with Text To Speech (TTS), Female without TTS, Male without TTS. The fatal problem is that when you select the Female with TTS, the Volume is too low even if you set to the Maximum value. It is very hard to hear the prompts when you are driving on the way.

There also have following minor issues:
1. Compass display is too small and too low. Especially when driving to East or South direction, it is very hard to determine which direction is the North. It should be Bigger and Upper, and a little Right shifted.

2. When reached the destination, it is just said "the destination is reached." It should be better to say "the destination is reached on your right." Or "the destination is reached on your left." Like most of other GPS navigators do.

3. Date and Time should be added such kind of option: adjustable by GPS automatically. Especially the Time Zone.

4. the number of POI is a little small. It should be better to have more, and can be added by user.

5. It should be able to use an USB power adaptor. When I connect an USB power adaptor to NVM-4070, it always said "connected to a PC", then you can do nothing other than user it as an USB storage.

Again, please keep in mind that Sanyo does not provide any technical supports for this product.

I received the unit as a gift of choice and was immediately dialing from my sons phone with it in the car home after bluetoothing into his phone. Some of the street names were funny to hear with so many strange road names out there but it was accurate in that regard. I've gone to Sanyo's site and found little info BUT its a SANYO FISHER unit so go to Sanyo Fisher and you'll get info. Update disks can be found for the NVM 4370 but I'd think the 3070 is also available if you just ask in the customer forum. Get with the times. There are companies who specialize in updating this stuff. I already have a 3 hour movie playing the unit, some audio files I cant play in my car as well since I dont have a CD player and found out the master power switch is NOT the way to turn off the unit. It has a soft off with the menu button which is also labled with the universal POWER symbol. Read up on stuff before you condemn it. The update disk is 79 bucks, but I bet that can be shopped a little. Sanyo is no GPS giant but GPS is not a hard science. The circuitry is all the same. Features vary. I found the unit does phone and GPS audio at the same time if it has to.

You may have to spend some time getting to know this, but when you do, it is a very useful product. I bought it for $100 at Walmart and am not complaining. I rate it 4 stars particularly for the price I paid.
As others have noted, it is feature rich: MP3 and bluetooth are particularly useful. I have not used the Video player.
Its main task, of course, is GPS. I have traveled nearly 6000 miles this Summer (mostly in the Northeast and Canada) and this GPS has been pretty handy. It does not always provide the best route, but it provides a good route and definitely reaches your destination. Sometimes, when it reroutes (when you miss an exit, etc.) it can go a bit haywire, but it did not happen too many times to be a bother.
It is sturdy. The screen is big and easy on the eye.
I use the dashboard mounting kit and the stand holds it perfectly.
The maximum time it has taken to locate GPS signal (once I am out of the house) is 3-4 minutes and most of the times, it is less than a minute.
Bluetooth works very well and I did not have any trouble in connecting it. GPS' audio instructions are off when you are on call (through bluetooth), but GPS visual is on and will guide you.
MP3 works great and I have not had any trouble even with its speakers. I tried to connect through GPS' FM transmitter, but it was iffy. I recently bought an auxiliary cable and connected it to my car stereo and can control volume easily.

Cons:
One big disadvantage is that road maps are from (I guess) 2007 and there is no way to update it (Sanyo does not provide updated maps, and I have not found any other way to do it). Driving in the Boston area with all the one-ways and no-left turns, sometimes this can be troublesome, but I have not had much trouble in long-distance travels. One solution is to continue using TMC (traffic updates) by paying, but I did not find it necessary.
Sometimes 'navigation' did crash and restarting - particularly if you are driving alone - can be a pain.
Battery life is short particularly when connected to Bluetooth and MP3 player is on. I keep it plugged through car charger.
POIs could have been better, but probably it is because of older maps. Since I plan my trips in considerable detail beforehand, I don't use PoIs much. The PoI addresses are not always reliable.
When GPS is 'reset,' bluetooth is auomatically turned off (default option) and you have to manually turn it on. When the system crashed during trips, it was a trouble.

What I would have liked is a better manual. This was my first GPS, and I spent hours trying to figure minor things like TTS (default was without TTS). Even better, for some reason, the GPS was configured to show "scooter" routes, something that I did not realize, and only after a few days did I figure that I had to change it "fast" cars for better routes. Or, that menu and power buttons are the same and pressing it without holding will get you menu options and pressing and holding it longer will shut power off.

Bottom line: worth it if you get it for a decent price.

I agree with all that BeaBoo said and have used it with MP3's and my new Samsung Blast cell phone. It has performed nobly and has it little quirks (like all GPS's), but once you catch on it is a class unit!

MP3s sound remarkably good through the FM Transmitter and you can listen to them while navigating. Phone auto connects and disconnects when unit is turned on and off. Date and time is adjusted upon satellite link and it's really hard to find anything to complain about, especially since I got it for $188 in a Gold Box special and it does as much or more than the $300-$500 GPS's presently on the market.

The 1st time I turned the unit on I was in my daylight basement and it picked up 5 satellites within 60 seconds. To be honest I haven't even cracked open the manual yet, I just played with it and learned all the functions, but your mileage may vary since I am a confirmed geek.

I've used Garmins, Tom Toms, and a few embedded GPS's and they all have their gives and gets, this Sanyo just seems to give you more when you also figure in the price! It's a no brainer if you ask me...

iNetMANN

Great product but I can't find a replacement wall charger. Google search doesn't cut it & Sanyo site doesn't even acknowledge having a GPS much less the indicated model.

I bought this GPS without the knowledge that it could not be upgraded - ever. The first year or so it was great. As time has passed, roads have changed and I would only use it to get out of a place by clicking "Home' and hoping for the best. Tried to use it this summmer (2011) on a trip and it sent us thorough some backwards unpaved roads, instead of taking us on the two highways necessary. It also added about 25 minutes to a 30 minute trip. What this device is good for is a bluetooth speaker for your cellphone and Video MP4 player. It is also okay as an MP3 player, but it takes a long time to find a song and it does not go back to the last place on the menu you were at. It takes you back to the top. Do not waste your money. Not worth $20, much less the $300-$400 some are asking for it.