471 of 482 people found the following review helpful:
A clear winner for me
I ordered my Navigon 7100 at the end of August and received it on September 7th. In the last few weeks, I have been all over .... New York City, Washington, Northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, San Francisco/Oakland, California, etc. For most of those journeys I have had my Nuvi 660 next to the Navigon 7100. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Overall, my...
131 of 154 people found the following review helpful:
I'm not happy with this unit
Good:
1. Free traffic report with option to take alternate route
2. Bright and sharp lcd display
3. Lane-assist feature
4. Voice-recognition
5. Nice map display, you can see route few miles ahead
Bad:
1. 50-60% of the time it gives very long routes compared to other gps units. One time it instructed us to take an exit...
This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I ordered my Navigon 7100 at the end of August and received it on September 7th. In the last few weeks, I have been all over .... New York City, Washington, Northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, San Francisco/Oakland, California, etc. For most of those journeys I have had my Nuvi 660 next to the Navigon 7100. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Overall, my personal conclusion is that the Navigon 7100 is for me the way to go. I will be packing up my Nuvi 660 in a few days and sending it off to one of my kids.
Below I will list some Pros and Cons of the 7100. The 7100 has not by any means been flawless. But its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. And most of my complaints are easy software fixes. I feel that Navigon has gotten the message from those of us in the USA and is attempting to address our issues. They won't be here long if they don't. They may believe that they have the superior product but they may go the way of Beta in the Beta / VHS competition, if you remember that from years and years ago.
I have spoken to higher ups at Navigon and they could have brushed me off. Instead, once I got that far, I found someone willing to listen, acknowledge their shortcomings and say they will fix things. So far they have done so with the 4 GB fiasco. The rest remains to be seen. I am hopeful. I believe that they will now do what it takes. The people I have dealt with struck me as sincere and willing to do what it takes.
By the way, while I adjusted the route profile based on recommendations on forums and even from Navigon to the Optimum setting, I have found the Fast profile setting works best for me.
I also have turned off the Menu animation setting which seems to work better for me.
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Pros of 7100
Excellent screen and info. I like info and I get all I need with the 7100. I especially like the upcoming turn arrow showing up if it is a close turn to the next turn you are taking.
The 7100 adjusts for your time zone automatically. You need to do this manually on the Nuvi 660. In California my 7100 showed the correct time while my Nuvi was on Eastern time. I was only there a day and didn't bother to change it.
The 7100 makes it easy to engage the night/day mode, as well as 2D/3D mode. Though an auto setting for day/night would be a nice add-on, it is too easy to do manually to make a difference for ME. And I like the color scheme of the night view. Very cool.
Ability to block portions of route and have trip recalculated. Makes life easier if I want to avoid certain roads.
Seems to lock onto 1 or 2 more satellites than 660 when I was able to check, not always though, but a lot of the time which may help explain my next observation.
Its position in relation to the road in my observations was a bit more accurate than the 660. I would be just about passed the exit ramp when the 660 would show me just entering it.
I found the refresh rate to be a bit more frequent than the 660. While it may be an optical illusion, it seemed to be moving more often than the 660. Again, this is my personal observation and might help explain the above observation.
Reality View is excellent. It has helped me on countless highways. Once though it showed one more lane than the highway had. But it helped me navigate the right way anyway. This is probably the number one feature for me.
Lane Assist is not visible when Reality View is on, but if you hit the screen to disable Reality View (quick feature and easy to do) I often see the Lane Assist present there. Helped me getting to Oakland, Ca. airport as I exited and needed to turn left by showing me both lanes were left turn lanes way ahead of the pavement markings showing me that. Helped me to decide what lane to use for the upcoming turn.
Speed warning (caution) has helped me keep my speed where I want it to be. Though I got used to it and needed to remind myself that it isn't always there, especially on the local streets.
Time of arrival is more accurate for ME than 660. The 7100 would on short trips show 5 to 10 minutes longer to get there but ended up being closer to the actual time of arrival than the 660. On a 5 hour trip the 7100 showed arrival to be 35 minutes longer than 660 at the start. Ended up being closer to actual arrival time than 660. Nuvi kept adding time, even though trip was going smoothly. Much prefer a more conservative approach. Again this is what I experienced in my journeys.
Fairly fast recalculation of route when turn not taken (I did that intentionally at times to test it out). Though once it seemed to take forever.
Traffic info reception is excellent. External antenna not needed in major cities, but helps in outlying areas.
Windshield mount is easy to put on and take off. Stable and secure. Wobbles on occasion but not noticeably an issue for ME. Brings the 7100 closer to you than any other system I have used that I mounted on the windshield. And I found it has lots of adjustment options to get the view I wanted. Had my doubts at first, but love how it just floats near you. My Nuvi mount would fall off until I started using water on the rubber mount before attaching. Even then once or twice it came off.
Easy to spot a McDonald's on your route and by turning in its direction get to it fairly easily rather than search the POI database.
----------------------------
Cons of 7100
No feature to avoid HOV roads/lanes. I have an entrance ramp near me to a major highway that is open only during morning rush hours and is only for HOV use. The 7100 always wants to take me to that highway that way. I can never use it since it is only me in the car. And the times it tells me to go that way it is closed anyway.
I enabled the feature to avoid U-Turns, but the 7100 tells me to make them anyway, even if I could easily go around the block. I could understand it doing so if I am at a dead end but that hasn't been the case. There has been a clear view of the sky and good reception at the time.
My saved destinations do not show up on the map. It would be nice to see them as I go near them. The Nuvi shows all my destinations on the map as I go by them.
Text to speech needs improvement. While I have found that most streets are named, the pronunciation is awkward. If not spelled in a conventional way it is mispronounced. Centre becomes Cen-tray. Marble is Mar-blay. Stonefield becomes Stoney-field.
Toll roads are labeled as TOL for some reason. Even though there is plenty of space for it to be TOLL. As a result the text to speech says, turn onto xx "tall"... for TOL.
Battery life is not as good as I expected. It has a nice warning though to tell you that the battery is almost gone. Maybe Navigon should check with Apple and its iPhone for a better approach.
Finding a Point of Interest if you don't know the city it is in is difficult. The Nuvi will tell you all the POIs close to you, though you have a long wait as it loads them to get to the next screen. If I want a gas station nearby it doesn't tell me if it is ahead of me or behind me. The Nuvi would give me arrows to help me see where it was. Not knowing could mean circling back to get to it rather than hit something along the way. Its POIs on the route don't give you a lot of options. I would much prefer getting a list to choose from than the ones the unit selects to position on the route I am taking.
Long start up time. Though it is a breeze when I stop for gas and get going again. It took seconds for the 7100 to crank up the times I bought gas or had a quick lunch. My Nuvi was still loading as I headed on my way. Blocks away it joined the 7100. Most of the time though (other than the quick stop routine), the Nuvi was the winner here.
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Again, these are all MY PERSONAL observations. I know others have had different experiences on many of these observations.
All in all I find the Navigon 7100 to be an excellent GPS for MY needs. And even though I paid a higher price for it when I bought it than it sells for today, I think I got my money's worth.
Is it perfect? Not at all. It has many things that could be better. Is it the best GPS I have come across and owned? Yes, I can honestly say that it is FOR ME. I have owned the Tom Tom GO, the StreetPilot III, the Nuvi 350, 360 and 660. For now, this is the one for me. I change GPS units often. Buying the newer maps was not worth it for me since if I added to that price what I could sell my GPS on ebay for it would come close or fairly close to buying a newer model. And I need the latest maps, which are outdated when they are released.
All in all, I am sold on the Navigon 7100. For ME it is a clear winner!
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10-18-07
In the last few days I have been to Memphis and Boston. I must say I am happy to report that the start up time when I get into my rental car seems to be quicker. Also, while I didn't expect to get traffic info in Memphis and almost didn't hook up the external antenna to pull in traffic, when I did I got an alert quickly about a 2 mile congestion spot on a highway on my route. I hit avoid and got diverted to side streets which got me to the hotel fairly quickly. I passed over the highway I was to go on and sure enough it was stop and go traffic. Really saved me time and aggravation.
In Boston I noticed a few things.... one is that in the underground tunnels the 7100 kept moving along the route even though the speed i was traveling showed up as 0 (zero). As some may know Boston had a major construction project (The Big Dig) that put major roadways underground. I doubt I was getting any satellite coverage as I was under water for a time as well. I liked this feature. Reminded me of my old Tom Tom that kept moving as well. My Garmin would just shut down and tell me I had lost satellite coverage. And I had no idea what my next turn or exit would be. Not so with the 7100 (at least that experience the other night). One drawback though, when I got out into open space the 7100 told me to turn right.....there was no exit ramp, nothing but barriers on the highway. After a few seconds it must have gotten its fix and all was well.
I must say it really, really proved its worth when I exited the Mass. Turnpike for my hotel. The ramps and roads were so convoluted I would have never found my way at night. In fact, I just listened to the voice guide me and for the most part kept my eyes on the road. It was great!
I did have to turn off all the POIs since there were so many in the Boston area. I wish there were a simple way to do that rather than having to uncheck all 30 or so of them one at a time. Once I did, the screen was uncluttered and easy to view.
Regarding traffic, I got an alert for a Route 9 ramp being closed. I didn't expect that one since Route 9 is not a highway though it is a major roadway, but with lights all along it.
By the way, the Hertz gate agent noticed it on the windshield and said, "That is a nice unit. What is it?" I didn't expect that and was surprised to hear him say it.
All in all I continue to be extremely pleased with my experiences.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
Good:
1. Free traffic report with option to take alternate route
2. Bright and sharp lcd display
3. Lane-assist feature
4. Voice-recognition
5. Nice map display, you can see route few miles ahead
Bad:
1. 50-60% of the time it gives very long routes compared to other gps units. One time it instructed us to take an exit from the freeway and after few miles it pointed us back to the same freeway.
2. Sometimes the voice assist doesn't match with what is shown in the map. The map shows straight line and yet it instructed us to take a right turn and an immediate left turn.
3. Failed to find some well known POIs if do a search from your current location, but it did find it when you do a search by city.
4. The user interface is not very intuitive and a bit sluggish. The scroll bar for turn-by-turn is very close to the route list and you can easily hit one of them when you scroll up/down.
5. No auto Night mode.
6. The circular swivel is too loose.
When I tried to contact Navigon's customer support they wanted me to contact Navteq for the route problem. I mean c'mon why do I have to deal with multiple companies for a single product. Overall, I'm not happy with the unit. I will be returning this product. I might reconsider purchasing it again once they fixed all these issues.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I've enjoyed this new car navigation system for a week and decided to return it. As you may expected this unit has very good graphical interface. In 2D and 3D mode, the displayed map is always beautiful. In the view of performance, this unit has a kind of reasonable performance. Recalculation of route is fast enough. At least the speed is same as that of its competitors. GPS reception is also good, I think it has the newest SiRF III chipset and it guarantees superb reception performance. Free traffic monitoring is one of the best features of this unit. I think lots of people (including myself) buy this because of the free TMC. It works pretty well. 3D view of freeway interchange point is also helpful.
But, in spite of these superiorities, I decided to give up using Navigon 7100 because,
1) Well known (?) memory issue. Mine has 2GB legacy SD card, instead of 4GB faster SD card. I've never tested the performance difference between the two SD's. But I think they will show difference. Even though I can assume the difference is very small, 2GB memory has too small free space for upgrading or user data. Simply, I don't want to buy 2GB with 4GB price.
2) Although the GPS reception is good, it takes too much time for it to initialize the system. It takes 3~5 minute to get the GPS signal after turning on the device. Even you are in the opened area. (If it gets signal once, it can keep the signal pretty well. That's why I think the reception is good.) This is too painful. I have to spend such a long time to start the navigation. You know, I can drive fair amounts of distance in 3 min. If I drive to wrong direction in this dead time, I have to spend more time to get back. This is very annoying.
3) The awkward routing algorithm. Sometimes, it makes me lot of turns even though there is a straight road connection. If there are several parallel roads, it always designates a specific road to drive, in spite of the efficiency. Because there is no traffic information for the local road, occasionally, it guided me to the most jammed road. if I drive away from the jammed road and take another parallel road, it always keep saying "go back to the jammed road" (even though there's no difference in efficiency between two paths and two paths are parallel) sometimes, it picked up a very weird route regardless of the routing option. It will make your travel time doubled.
4) The awkward rerouting by traffic monitoring. Free TMC is definitely the best feature of this device. But this feature sometimes makes the trip time doubled. Let's say you are at point A. You have to drive to point C, 10 miles away from A, through a freeway. But from point B, 9 miles away from A, there's heavy traffic and totally jammed. Then the fastest way to drive to C is taking the freeway and drive to B, then taking locals to C. -But if Navigon gets this traffic information, it will guide you just local road and avoid entire freeway sections. If the freeway is long enough, maybe it redirects you to freeway. But it guided me to locals from Santa Monica to LA downtown and avoided 10 miles whole i-10 section. That was 9:00PM and there was a slow traffic at very near the downtown. This is nonsense. To avoid this situation, when it notifies you the traffic, you have to check the map very carefully and decide to avoid or ignore. You have to do it, while you are driving, even in 60+ miles. That may kill you.
I think Navigon has tried their best, but still not enough. Definitely, it has some superiority over its competitors. But, also it has very critical bugs that can make you very nervous. I think you'd better wait though it's very attractive. You can buy this after they fix lots of bugs other users and I suffered. Don't be a beta tester of Navigon paying more than $500.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I agree with Twelly on most points. I've been using the Navigon 7100 along with my Nuvi 360 for a week. The Navigon fails miserably when it comes to recalculating a route. It will try to double back and put you on the original route, even adding many extra miles. Whereas the Nuvi never made a mistake when recalculating. The swivel joint became loose after attaching the unit 5 times. The Navigon is a beautiful unit but if I want to upgrade my screen I would purchase the Nuvi 660. The Nuvi also will load my telephone book when I use my cell phone whereas the Navigon will not. The Navigon 7100 cd manual has 88 pages and is well written. There are alot of features, so many that to fit on the screen everything is very small and hard to read for my eyes. Also the battery in mine only lasts approximately 1.5 hours. I followed the directions and charged it overnight before it's first use. In order to use it i've had to keep it plugged into the dc jack.
I would suggest waiting for Navigon to get their act together before purchasing. I am returning mine to Amazon today.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I have been using GPS since 2002. They have all had their quirks, but one thing that was usually good, if not optimum, was the "routing"
Navigon 7100, is beautiful, the software and the GUI is very nice, but what really takes a beating is the routing engine.
On most of the routes, Navigon gives less than optimum routes - which are either much longer than the most optimum routes specially when compared to mapquest or yahoo maps - not only are they longer, but also, for no reason, Navigon insists on routing through by-lanes and single lane routes instead of faster options.
I am hoping that the software update, expected to be released by the manufacturers in Jan 2008, will make at par with the Garmin Nuvi. If that happens, this will be the best GPS in the market - without it, even with its great features like Reality View, Free Lifetime Traffic, Speed Limit postings, lane assist feature etc, it remains inferior- because it lacks in the single most important feature of a GPS - optimum routing.
The unit itself is absolutely amazing - i will hold on to mine for a while, hopefully the Jan 2008 update will take care of the routing. Until then, even though i am really "trying" to like this unit it doesnt win my trust.
UPDATE: After using this GPS unit for over a month and after a couple of long trips - including New Jersey to Ottawa, Canada, my admiration for this unit has grown. I think i would like to bump up my rating to 4.5 stars. What i have mentioned about quirky and less than optimum routing above still stands, but i have noticed that it does not happen in every town - perhaps its a result of faulty maps / map compression for certain high density towns and cities.
Nagivon is expected to release a software update soon - if that corrects the routing problem in the cities where it currently exists, this will perhaps be "the" best GPS Unit available in the market.
For all those who jump to give it low star rating right out of the box - pl use the unit for a while - most of the frustations you face are more due to the "user error" than the unit itself, and hey, there is always a learning curve to any new interface - why do you expect it to be as you want it to be, right out of the box - go give it a spin - it will grow on you.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I owned this device for almost a week before returning it. On paper, this was SUPPOSED to be the premier GPS device. Well, not so much. I think, among folks that followed new GPS introductions, the Navigon 7100 was eagerly awaited here in the States. Most folks were banking on the success Navigon has had in Europe with Mobile Navigator. The software is rated very high in Europe. What I found with the Navigon is poor Customer Support, scaled down software versus what was promised (Text to speech only pronounces major streets, not local streets, and missing POI's), hardware misleadings (2gb vs ADVERTISED 4gb cards in device), and other issues like serious software bugs in the routing algorithm. Garmin provided a great product early on with a few minor bugs that they worked out QUICKLY, and therefore, solidified their early adopter customer base. Tom Tom did the same when they launched the Go here in the States. It seems Navigon didn't look at the US market with the same vigor as Garmin and Tom Tom did.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I've had this device for about a month now and I use it every day just for traffic monitoring. Currently the re-routing is awkward as many other reviewers have said, also I have noticed that it tells me to U-turn sometimes even when I have the feature turned off. However, I've emailed a couple times with support at navigon's website and they have responded that a firmware update will be released in January as well as a new map update coming mid-January downloadable from their website. Map updates will be once per year.
------------Update---------------
1/24/08
- Updates moved back to Mid March...very disappointed with this outcome. Hopefully it won't be delayed yet again.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
I was about to purchase a Navigon 7100 when I saw issues arise from experienced users who were testing their new products. (Google Navigon 7100 routing and you'll see what I mean.) I tried contacting Navigon more than once to get assurances that these issues would not be a problem, but their reply was missing or useless. Major issues are:
1) Routing in the U.S. (not a problem in Europe) sometimes makes no sense, doubling travel distance or time. Setting "optimal" routing may get around this somewhat, but the product doesn't work as it should; 2) Obvious points of Interest are either missing or difficult to identify on the GPS; 3) Streets are not always spoken on coming turns; 4) Navigon advertises the product comes with a 4 GB secure digital card but often comes with only 2 GB. It is not clear whether this causes some of the other problems; 5) Customer support is not addressing these issues. They simply say if they find I problem in the future, you can be assured they will fix it. This is not a consolation to people spending $500+ for this product.
I'm going to wait and see if these issues are resolved before making my purchase. There are alternatives (Magellan, Nuvi), although these are less attractive, on paper.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
Bought this GPS because the display is large and bright, and I prefer the 3D view which is easier to follow when driving. Compared to the other models on the market, the price/features were very competitive. Absolutlely love the unit. I usually charge the unit at home, enter my destinations ahead of time from my desk, and then mount it and go. Noticed a few odd routing choices vs some of preferences in my own neighborhood, but when I'm in unfamilair areas, it always seems to do just fine. Haven't had any of the issues others have expressed - no U turns, no traffic data problems, POIs are good, satellite signal is not a problem in the car, mount is fine (I like the little flexibility), battery power is good, I like the portability of the unit. Unlike others, I like that it does not bug you when you make a wrong turn or modify the route yourself - it simply recalibrates on the fly. Haven't noticed any slowness, or bugs. Sure, maybe its not perfect - I can't imagine any mapping system is. But weighed against its features and ease of use, I'm still very happy I bought this unit and have recommended it to everyone I know.
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This review is from: Navigon 7100 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator (Electronics)
Wrote a review a few days ago but never got posted. Will try again. I used this GPS for a few days before I ended up returning it and I have to say that this is not up to par with some of the other GPS that I have been borrowing from my friends to use. The free traffic feature was what initially pushed me to buying this one. But I think this Navigon is one of the lower ones from my experience so far. In fact I feel that my old Magellan 700 had a much superior routing system.
This navigon had me going an extra 2.5 miles out of my way to get home. When I was only 2 miles away straight up this one street and a right turn to my house. I tried different route settings but it still took me out of the way. I live in the Los Angeles area. I would be weary of the routing if I was in an unfamiliar city. On the map I saw an icon for McDonald's that did not sound right, so I had it navigate me there. It routed me to a place were they was no Mcdonald's (although there was a Starbucks) nor was there ever was one there. I purposely went off route to see how the recalculations would respond and it told me to make a turn on this one street that was not there and at one point had me making a left turn when only a right turn was available. Could not figure it out. In addition, I also found that not all the names of the streets were announced.
In regards to the POI feature, I kept getting to the Zagat POI's only tried every which way to not get to the Zagat but could not. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. I followed directions from the manual but it just wouldn't give me the general POI's only Zagat. But then my friend who had bought one as well had the same problem. We are not new to the GPS World. I have owned three previous ones. The user interface could be friendlier in my opinion.
I have read in other forums that some users have been re-writing the files making changes to improve the routing, and although I can easily do this, as well, I feel I should not have to. The Majority of people who buy a GPS
should have it work properly and efficiently right out of the box and not have to be a certified tech to do so.
I also received the 2GB instead of the 4GB SD card as it was originally advertised. This being the case it would make future upgrades and adding on new maps and POIs "a bit difficult" unless you went out and bought a bigger sd card.
Anyway, I was hoping the Navigon 7100 would work out. Having the free traffic feature would have been a nice touch. But I think I'll try another Brand of GPS.
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