Customer Reviews

Sony NV-U70 NAV-U 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Received my Sony NV-U70 after waiting for it to be released. I have played with other GPS units in the past and was excited to get my newly designed Sony. Well after playing with it for about 3 hours i packed it up and returned it. The positives - it aquired and locked very fast, routing function was very fast (although really took me to the gym in an around about way that no other GPS has ever taken me). Was quick to re-route after a wrong turn.

I have purchased the Garmin Nuvi350 instead. Reasons:
1. I like the fact that it "speaks" street names (sony does not) After using the Nuvi for a few weeks it is clear to me that this is a very valuable feature. Without this feature there are times when you are told to take a right hand turn only to find there are two right turns coming up. The Nuvi will actually tell you the street name to turn on so you dont have to look over to the unit.
2. I like that it also has an SD slot - very nice if you plan to use this unit out of country - you can have additional maps located on an SD card - also good for MP3s.
3. I like 8 hour battery life vs. Sony 4 hour - i usually dont even use the 12 volt charger - nice not having the wire hanging down the dash.
4. I like the smaller size - Sony wont fit in pocket - The Nuvi is about the size of a Treo Cell phone.
5. I like the headphone jack to allow MP3 listening
6. Sony had about 1/5 the POI's built in - not sure why.
7. After spending time with the Sony and the Nuvi - I totally perfer the interface on the Nuvi.

I am by no means an expert on GPS navigators (although i dont appreciate being told i dont know what i am talking about by other posts)- I travel throughout the US and Canada for my job so having a GPS is a life saver for me. I have rented Hertz cars with neverlost and that is my baseline (Although not a very good one) Battery operation was a key factor in my decision making along with size since i travel via Airplane and take my GSP with me.

This is the first GPS system that I have used and I can only find 2 positives about it. The price is right and it is fast to recalculate a new route when you take a different turn.

However, the database must be old as a 2 year old entrance on the Ohio turnpike is not recognized. It also failed to pick up US30 between Mansfield and Bucyrus whcih has been constructed for at least 4 years. It will also not recognize certain streets if you don't call them the same as they are labelled in the system. A case in point was using a postal address the NV-U70 couldn't find it, but when I arrived it had it shown as a county road #!

Don't leave home without having a very good idea of the route you are taking. I use Microsoft Streets and Maps which is far more accurate than the NV-U70.

I regret my purchase and am considering a Garmin product, which effectively says the price is not really right.

AC
Amherst, OH

I just purchased this Sony GPS and compared it with others. The sony unit has the best visual display of any. The graphics are sharp and clear. That was the primary reason I bought this unit. I don't drive in Europe and I have a car stereo that already plays MP3's so I don't need those extras.

I looked at several units and found the graphics to be blocky and jagged. They offered a lot of extras I did not need. The Sony unit does not speak the street names, but that is not a big issue. The Sony aquires a satelite signal fast, very fast. Much faster than the Magellan and TomTom units I tested. The unit does not have all the points of interest that others have. That is not a big deal for me. It does have all the major name hotels in the areas where I travel. That works fine for me. The recharging input is on the side. I can place the unit flat on my dashboard facing me. I could not do that with the Magellan as the input was on the bottom of the unit.

Some areas where Sony lacks: 1. You cannot choose to use only major highways or exclude freeways. That would be nice in the next unit.
2. The interface really needed some getting used to. It is not intuitive in the least. The manual does not help at all. Confusing? Yeah.
3. It needs longer battery life. However, the battery recharges faster than I thought possible.
4. It is a little bulky. Slim it down and reduce the weight.

If you look around real hard, you can find this unit for $299. I did at Fry's. Circuit City and Best Buy wanted $400 and up for it. For the price, it does everything I want it to do.

I had a Garmin Ique 3600 Palm OS PDA GPS which unfortunately decided to stop working with the car cradle before our move to CA. I bought this Sony GPS as a replacement. The Garmin had a much better interface. The Sony interface is extremely poor and takes an excessive amount of time to find things. For example, if you want to look for a certain store you have to search by city, not by nearest one (unless you have a GPS feed, which hinders you before you leave your house). Also, the map data is suspect as it lead me to the wrong location a couple of times. The only thing I like about it over my Garmin is it acquires the GPS signal much faster. I wouldn't recommend this device to anyone. Stick to a company which just does GPS and mapping such as Garmin or Magellan. Whomever Sony subcontracted to do the software for this device is obviously new to car navgiation.

Positives:
Nice and small size with a quality feel (although the back bulges outward, it is round and fits into your hands). Map database is fairly up to date, probably around late 2004. Sony's graphics are very sharp and make great use of a small 3.5" screen -- this is the unit's best feature. The unit will automatically zoom in/out based on your speed; for example, at freeway speeds, the unit will zoom out so that more of the surrounding area can be seen, and then when you exit into city streets and slow down, the unit will zoom in so that more street names are visible on screen. Calculations and menu inputs are all very fast. Easily establishes multiple GPS satellites, even inside of my car with 5 metallic tinted windows and a heat rejecting front glass window. Auto brightness dimmer is convenient and normally sets the appropriate level. Sound is clear and loud with a nice "boink" for feedback everytime you touch the screen. It has a decent POI database, but allows you to input any address and save it as a Favorite. Also noteworthy is that the voice guidance prompts alert you at the right times so that you do not miss a turn or exit -- many systems have trouble with this.

Negatives:
Does not have a gyro sensor and relies only on GPS satellites so that the system has a little bit of trouble determining the car's orientation at the beginning of navigation. This also means it will not guide you when it has lost a GPS signal. Also, voice guidance prompts should sound more natural (its tone/pitch). Does not say the street name you need to turn at (but actually, it does not matter that much to me because most text-to-speech systems do not sound natural and clear anyway). Does not offer added MP3, picture viewer, bluetooth, etc. features that other system have. 3D view mode does not display street names, which limits its usefulness (although 2D view mode does show street names clearly). Finding POI's are more difficult that other systems since it makes you enter a City instead of just recognizing where you are first (although if you choose "Find Nearby" then that makes it easier).

For my basis of comparison, I have only used navigation systems that have come as built in options. We have an Acura and a Lexus system that are excellent. The Sony NAV-U compares well with them, it just lacks the large screen size and the gyro sensor and has far fewer Points of Interest since it only has 1GB of memory. But it is a great quality product that is sold for a great price.

I have had tried all major brands of GPS and even though this one gets a little "weird" some times, I must say it is:
- the fastest to get a satellite signal
- as accurate as a commercial GPS can be
- intuitive to use

Sure, it gets a little weird some times guiding me back home... But then, the Garmin unit I had just before this one was even worse. So much so that I returned the Garmin and kept the Sony one. As long as it gets me back home somehow I am happy...

Still, I would recommend this unit, having tried its competitors.

I would not recommend this product. After researching GPS systems a couple of years ago, I bought this product over the TomTom. I am disappointed in my decision, however, I purchased from Best Buy and got the Performance Service Plan. The PSP allowed me to bring in my Sony GPS and have it replaced with a real, working GPS unit.
The sony was not very difficult for me to use, despite what other reviews have said, and frankly, I don't find my new device or any other device any easier. However, the sony lacks functionality and features that other systems have for a much lower price. The fact that the sony does not announce street names is a problem.
The quality is definitely an issue. Acquiring signal fast is a plus, when it works on the first try. Oftentimes, I would have to restart the unit more than once to get the hourglass to disappear and to make it find a signal. As the unit aged, I had to restart more and more. By the time I got rid of the unit, I would have to restart after each tidbit of data I would put in. (New Destination : Restart; Enter City : Restart; Enter Street Name : Restart... etc.)
All of the stores I have looked at have stopped selling this product. The reason I purchased a Sony in the first place was because I was convinced that Sony is the best at almost all things electronic. It was the sony name that swayed me in the first place. I now realize that this was a mistake. Sony does not support this product, did not release maps in time (an updated map was not available at the time when I was relieved of the unit despite the fact that I had the unit for two years or more) and does not offer any sort of information for those seeking product updates.
Lack of space on the machine is an issue as well. The Full US map fits on the unit when it is new. I removed the full map and replaced it with the midwest when first acquiring my unit. Later, when preparing for a cross-country road trip, the full US map did not fit on the unit. I do not know why. I did not have many favorite places saved (less than 20)
Finally, the sony does not have any features that other models (even lower priced models) don't have.
The only reason I liked the unit compared to my new one is that the Cord from the car-accessory-plug plugs into the "base" and not directly into the unit. This makes it easy to remove the unit from your windshield without having to unplug anything from the back. Press the release button on the cradle and you are free to bring the unit with you or hide it for safekeeping.
Save your money and buy a less expensive model with more functionality and count on it working. The sony is fine if you already know where you are going and aren't counting on it actually getting you anywhere. As stated before, the navigation and user-interface are easy to use and accurate... when they work, which is progressively less as the unit gets older.

I live in Europe, so I have to deal with traffic jams all day long. That is exactly the reason I decided for the Sony, it has TMC. And I must say it works excellent, when there is a traffic jam on my route, it warns me and giving me 2 choices; ignore or re calculate my route. And the re calculation is just great. The sound is good, I'm very pleased with this navigation system.
The only thing is that Sony doesn't sell the DVD containing the maps of the USA and Canada separately. Because in Europe this item comes only with the DVD containing the maps of Europe, of course. But since I travel often to the US, my idea was to purchase the USA/Canada DVD separately. Costumer service from Sony, they can't help me, they doesn't know. But anyway, I will find a copy one of these days. Maybe a user in the US can make a copy for me. But anyway the NAV system is perfect.

I'm writing this to warn others of the danger of buying a Sony GPS device since they are still available in the market place.Sony NV-U70 NAV-U Portable GPS Navigator

I purchased a Sony GPS unit on a Radio Shack closeout about 20 months ago. About a month after the purchase, I realized that many of the maps were out of date. The salesperson failed to mention that Sony had orphaned the device - no map updates. As a result, I often find myself on a 4 lane divided highway that does not show on the SONY unit. The situation gets dangerously worse when a merge or access route has changed on a high speed freeway.

Sony never replied to more than four emails over a two month period. Radio Shack replied after a wait of more than 4 weeks. Radio Shack would consider an adjustment if I could name the store, the salesperson, and still had the receipt. Since this was more than 3 months after the purchase, the requirements could not be met which was probably Radio Shack's intention.

I've searched the Sony sites. Was able to get one free software update but no map updates. By contrast, my handheld Magellan and Garmin units which are substantially older have current maps.

Considering the danger of driving with an out of date GPS map, I strongly recommend not buying Sony GPS products. It is irresponsible of the company to market a device such as this which could place lives at risk and not support the product for lifespan of the product. It was irresponsible for Radio Shack to sell the deivce knowing it was orphaned and the maps were out of date at time of sale.

Needless to say, I have not done business with either Sony or Radio Shack for more than a year. I will continue my personal boycott for another few years.

I have owned the Sony NV-U70 for one year. It took a bit to understand the touch screen interface. Todays problem. The new map update, (CD $99.00) for the US, is supposed to be available in October 2007. However, the new entire US map will not fit the unit, not enough memory space. So, if you are jumping on an airplane you have to upload a particular map for that area. When you return home you have to reload your home area. In addition, the CD software does not work with Windows Vista. (www.sony.com/nav-u/support) Map uploads take more than 1 hour.

Sony, I don't travel to Europe. I don't need MP3. I don't need every pizza shop, nail shop, hair dresser, burger joint. I need roads and direction. Maybe the new CD could have criteria/choices about what's on/in a map. The entire US in one map is valuable.