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Look Elsewhere
I purchased this GPS from another online retailer Buy..., which was my first mistake. No returning it there. As for the GPS, I just received it yesterday, yet it was manufactured in Aug07. This means the maps are already almost a year out of date. The GPS itself look used. The packing inside the factory sealed box was ripped, meaning Nextar simply repackaged a returned unit and sold it as new. As for functionality, I tried a simple route from my home to my work. I could not even locate the street my work is on. It is the largest street in the capital city of Minnesota!!! When I was driving down the road, the street name showed up fine. Very bad. Also, the speaker does not go loud enough to be heard over even vehicle noise. The display is reasonably good, but not great. Navigation of the menus is ok, but not great. Included accessories were ok as well. The window mount is cheaply made, but works. You do get a dash mount disk, AC adapter, car power adapter, and USB cable. I spent half what Amazon is asking for this. Knowing what I know now, I would spent an extra hundred and get the Garmin Nuvi. I have used those, and they perform excellently in all areas, including the user interface, navigation, reception, routing, etc. ***UPDATE: I spoke to Nextar customer service, and they said most of their GPS's were made in 2007 that are being sold now. What? We get a year old model and no map updates? That's what they told me. They said there was nothing they can do. They even said that on my unit made in Aug07, that it had 2006 map data on it. How nice. What a worthless company. STAY AWAY FROM NEXTAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!So many features on such an obsure, inexpensive device
I purchased two of these after receiving a link to a great deal. It sounded like a pretty easy item to use, with a big screen - and that's what I wanted for my grandfather and my parents. I personally have a small Mio C230 (that I hacked easily yesterday), and a Microsoft Streets and Trips GPS. So my experience is with low end GPS systems. Please note: I haven't driven anywhere with these yet! I just wanted to review the features right out of the package, since there is so little info available on these models. Benefits of this model: * Large screen. Very pretty. * Street names are announced. After using my Ms S&T once, I'll NEVER buy another GPS that doesn't announce street names. * Takes SD cards for storage. * Built in stylus holder with stylus. Handy, especially for big fingered people!!! * Easy to save favorite addresses/locations, and you can give them each names (mine were all VERY long names). * Night mode can be automatic. I don't know what that means, but my guess is maybe it goes by time of day??? * Comes with ALL the power/connection cords you want and need (all 3). * Much more intuitive than my Mio and my Ms S&T (both of which are known for being difficult to figure out). Not perfect by any means, but I was pleasantly surprised. * Actually does find my address! Although I did have to strip off the letters in it (our addresses have the weird format S27W98985). That alone made me consider giving my mom my MIO and keeping this one for myself. The Mio doesn't have any non-number-only addresses loaded. It can't find half of the client addresses I search for. * When you type in addresses, it's very intuitive and smart. * You can avoid roads on the fly if there is construction (or flooding this year!). * Map screen shows Time and Speed at the bottom of the screen, and not alot of other cluttered buttons/info that take up space. * When I plugged the unit into your PC, it installed automatically and instantly. It shows up as it's own drive. When the SD card is installed, that shows up as a second drive under the first drive. * Can display photos and play MP3s. There is just enough room on the SD card (I think there was about 25-40 MB space left on the 1 GB card) included to toss some photos on there without buying any extra cards. And to put photos on there, you just copy them right to the root of the SD card. A width of about 400px worked best for me. I didn't try MP3s. Drawbacks of this model: * Couldn't find any hacks, or even online information for that matter. It's listed as a Windows CE Core 5.0 system, so I would think some hacks would be out eventually? * Anyways, I didn't find any way to upload lists of POIs so far. Or games. I like games. And there isn't a feature to upload construction updates that I could find. * No POIs pre-loaded at all for nearby towns except banks. Strange! * Very limited Map zoom out. You can't zoom back far enough to see the entire trip - even for fairly short trips. That's the main reason I'll stick with my Mio. When you do zoom out, most of the street names disappear, so you can't tell where you'd be going anyways. There is also a lag in the zooming. Annoying. * I know there has to be a written itinerary/directions in here somewhere, but I cannot find one. All I can find is the map view. * It appears that you cannot run the GPS and any other program concurrently. So you can play music, OR find you way - but not both. * The U.S. maps come all loaded onto the SD card that is included and inserted. The instructions say to NOT put any photos or MP3s directly on the unit. So basically in order to use the photos or MP3 feature, it seems to be assumed that you'll carry around a separate SD card. Although there is that bit of space left over on the included SD card - at it is writable. * Switching to 3D mode takes a few steps to find. * Turning on and off sometimes holding the button. Sometimes. * Instructions are lacking. Simple, but miss out on telling you where to find features it's referring to and things like that. Especially in relation to the image player. * It can warn you if you are speeding, however it says it doesn't know what the speed limits are, so it just guesses based on the road class. That seems kinda lame. But it does bleep when you are speeding - I set the speed limit at 1 MPH and ran across the living room at 3 MPH to check. BLEEP-BLEEP-BLEEP. * Not sure I trust it's routing ability. I put in my first "trip", and it gave me a route that I've never taken to get there. Nor did MS-trips, Google, MSN maps, Mio, or Mapquest ever suggest that route. So I switched it from "Quickest" route to "Shortest", and it found my usual route and said the usual route was 2 minutes faster. Huh? Wouldn't that make IT the "Quickest" route also?Nextar X4-T GPS
This is my second NEXTAR GPS. Upgrading from the X3(3" screen) instead of buying new glasses. This brand has several superior features I have not seen in other brands. Additionally it does not have a load of 'commercial' materials as the Garmens do from AAA. +Voice to text. The GPS announces route changes/turns and includes the street name route you'll be turning onto. No need to look away from the road when the GPS says turn to identify what road/route you're turning onto. +You can create an itinerary for your trip if you want to go a specific route you already know. + You can identify a "current location" and then save it to favorites. + An additional feature is available when looking up destinations by address, or on any location added to favorites. After saving the address/location to favorites you can EDIT the address/location title, and add a title you will be more familiar with than just the address. The voice on this model is clear and the volume is easily controlled by a volume knob on the side of the unit, no need to go into the set up. The 4" screen has good resolution and color and routes appear to be up-to-date. The map data is USA only and is on a 1GB SD card. I have not attempted to go on-line and research maps for Canada which I also want. I have had the unit for about 1 month (May 8-08) and I am sure I will learn more about it but travel often by car and it has been great. It easily recalculates route directions if you fail to turn where directed (AS I HAVE) and also recalculates if you know a better road. When taking your own route it will often direct you to make a U-turn when possible, but it will eventually come around. Needless to say I love this brand & model.Keyword : nav
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