Navman iCN 510 32MB GPS Navigator

User Review: 4 out of 5 stars

- Good GPS for only $300+tax+shipping
As the other reviews mentioned, outpost offers a better deal on this item. I just got it yesterday and have much fun with it already. It took some time, almost an hour, to load up 512MB of maps. With it, I found all the addresses and locations that I'm interested in SF bay area. Before I have a chance to try it out on road, I was impressed by the simlulated routing on its own. It simply picked up the best routes from my home to work, then to lunch, and back to home. The voice directions came out loud and clear at the right time. I've verified all the routes myself in this morning. For now, I would give it 4 stars for the product and 5 stars for the price.

User Review: 3 out of 5 stars

- Great hardware, lousy software
I originally purchased the Navman 3450 add-on for my PDA, and it crashed continuously, so I ended up returning it. However, I desperately wanted a GPS because I got used to using on in a Jeep Grand Cherokee and take road trips often. So, I bought this unit through Outpost for $349. (thanks previous reviewer!) Amazon is almost always cheaper, but not on this...

So, the hardware is well designed. The screen is great in low ambient light, good in moderate light, but unreadable in direct sunlight. In most situations, I can see the display well and the software lets you change the color scheme, which helps somewhat with the direct sunlight problem.

The controls are sensitive, which can be annoying at times, but the unit is solidly built and the touch screen is aligned well right out of the box. The stylus can be difficult to remove at times, but the button controls can get you most of what you need.

Now for the software...
This navigation software is so outdated that I cannot believe that they are actually shipping it. The unit sometimes shows me driving in the grass a couple hundred feet NEXT to the road that I am on, or only shows part of an exit ramp and a gap to the road, where it gets lost and starts trying to recalculate route (which eats the battery life.)

The software is much more solid than the PDA add-on that I had tried, but has crashed once in the 2 weeks that I have had it. The biggest problem with this is that you have to hard reboot it and cannot get GPS satelite lock until you stop on the side of the road. So, you can either do without GPS for the rest of your trip upon software crash or you can pull over to the side of the interstate and wait a couple minutes and then try to merge back into speeding traffic.

It can be a real pain in the butt to find an address. For example, we wanted to find an Ikea store in Baltimore. So, you go to choose the city. Okay, Baltimore has 12 (or 13, can't remember exactly) districts. You have to type in the name of what you want up to the 12 (or 13) times each time you enter what you want. So, search for the store in district 1- not found. Okay, now you have to re-enter (why!?!!?) the name of the place and try the second district. Not there, then repeat with each district until you either get frustrated and quit or actually find what you want. This is the situation with the smaller cities too- you have to play the guessing game with districts.

The GPS accuracy is good (but the poor software negates the positivity of this aspect.) I give the hardware 5 stars and the software 1 star, so overall this unit gets 3 stars. To give you a reference point, the GPS systems in cars are more expensive and have advanced hardware that ties into inertial sensors and the speedometer as well as magnetic compasses (versus GPS compases), which greatly increase accuracy and allow 'dead reckoning' when a satellite signal is briefly unavailable. So, you have to expect a little less from a portable unit based upon physics and hardware limitations. I do believe that this unit would benefit from an internal magnetic compass, though.

I haven't decided whether to return this unit or not. It flawlessly guided me from CT to New York City for New Years, but got confused and tried to tell me to turn around and backtrack 50 miles (adding 100 miles to my trip) when we went from NC to Maryland. Navman will not update their antiquated software for free, and there is no guarantee that the newer version will fix any of these problems. Be sure to buy a 512 mb or greater card, as the east coast (from florida to maine with only states that touch the coast + PA) is about 400 mb.

This unit is a great value, but if performance is more important than value to you, go with the TomTom or one of the Garmin car units such as the 300 or 500. I will base my decision on whether or not to return this on whether I can justify coughing up a couple hundred (at least) more dollars than I have already spent.

User Review: 1 out of 5 stars

- DO NOT BUY. Bad Navigation Database by TeleAltas.
I bought the Navman icn510 last year. It has a great interface, but it miserably fails in the mapping software department.

Garmin uses NavTeq which is considered the benchmark for automotive mapping software. All luxury car makers like BMW and Mercedes use only NavTeq software on their OEM navigation system. I've personally verified this on my BMW M3.

On the otherhand Navman uses TeleAtlas, which is not very upto date and it is hard to find addresses. Navman is a classic case of a great hardware which has a bad navigation database. Without a good database a GPS system is obviously pretty useless. To give you an example, when I was in Houston, TX the Navman was missing entire zipcodes (Yes I had the complete state of TX loaded onto my memory card). Also, the satellite locking times on the NavMan were horrendous. Sometimes it was 30 seconds and many other times it would take 5 minutes and sometimes had to reboot it to get a satellite lock. STAY AWAY FROM NAVMAN PRODUCTS.

The Navman icn520 is just the same os icn510. icn520 is black in color, while the icn510 is silver in color. Nothing much has changed, I just went online and compared the specs of both the units. The Navman is a much worser unit compared to any Garmin unit, because of the simple fact that Garmin uses NavTeq. Garmin is way superior to NavMan.

I just ordered the Garmin c320 for my second car and will be selling my NavMan icn510 on eBay next week.

In summary, any navigation system that uses NavTeq database is much superior to any other comparable unit, because when it comes to a GPS navigation system it is all in the navigation database!!!

User Review: 4 out of 5 stars

- Very good, stable worth the price unit
One of the first reasons I purchased this unit was because of its cost. $380/- @ Fry's electronics with a 128MB SD card thrown in. (Outpost.com has it for $350/- without the SD card.)

I live in Beaverton, OR and purchased it just b4 my road trip: PDX > Reno > Las Vegas > Grand Canyon > Hoover Dam > Reno > Portland.

In one word: The unit peformed magnificiently. All in all. Through all these states (Oregon, North Calif', Nevada, Arizona) it did its job seamlessly. No glitches. No stoppages. It does its job well: Never lets you get lost anywhere.

Cons:
Since the unit is small, be careful. Don't drop it. Also use a screen protector to avoid screen scratches.

The navigation circular button can be tricky. I have thick fingers and hence the propensity to push the wrong button. Same thing on the screen as well, since the letters are closely assembled together. The screen issue u can solve by using the stylus or a pen.

Also, I would have preferred a QWERTY style like keyboard rather than the other way. Again a personal preference.

The major gripe: When I was in Reno and we wanted to goto a Chinese resturant, I could not goto the one that was close to where I was. Meaning, I knew the name of the restuarant, but I did not know the address. And I did not know which county I was in. Hence it was hit and trial, and then out of frustration, called the restuarant up, got the address and then entered it. (The restuarant person did not which county the restuarant was located in.) I wish it would show up the restuarants altogether, say for the Reno area, and then me having a choice.

Another irritant: When I push the + or - buttons in map view, it does the job. But it reverts back after some seconds to the regular view. This I found it annoying. My only true complaint.

From the installation (software and hardware), I did not have any issues. Maybe if the maps loaded faster from the PC to the SD card, then that would be nice, but not a big deal.

Pros:
Pros, pros ... where do I start. On my outbound trip and in Reno, I forget to take the exit from my hotel. Missed the turn. the unit, did its 'back-on-track' magic & voila! ... a few more turns and am on I80 heading to Las Vegas. Same thing in Las Vegas: Had to pick up a friend in MGM & the unit did its job perfectly.

It had maps for Tusayan (about 4 miles south of Grand Canyon), my home area (Beaverton), my relatives place in Las Vegas (new development off of S Jones Road). Streets are detailed at Boulder City, NV (Near Hoover Dam).

Since my preferences / settings were to use the highways as most preferred, it tends to show my maps along those paths. The annoying 'Make a U Turn' is a good thing (when u r genuinely lost) and a bad thing, when u know where u r going. (I think the algorithm, is that if u travel half the distance on ur deviated route, then it recalculates it from there. Again this is my guess and I have not tested it completely nor changed the preferences.)

Screen is bright, the voice is clear with XM singing along. If u want it to repeat (and like to hear the voice) push the scroll button on the side.

The 3D view is very nice to give you a 'heads up' of what is coming. True, it is there on the regular map, but the 3D view is bootiful.!!! Just to look at it.

Oh yes I forgot the form factor: Small. At the end of the day, removed it from its windshield mounting and put it away in the compartment.

During the night drive, my friend used it to read upcoming turns, and judge his speed. Another very very useful feature.

Bottom line:
This unit, for the price that I paid, has served me very very well in the last 10 days. I never had to open my trip map from AAA. On the way down, I did question the validity of the turns, with what I had printed off MS S&T, not knowing if it was guiding me right. But after 10 days of use, I know the unit is there to stay in my wife's truck. 4ever till death or thief do us apart.

I did test the Magellan 700 for 2 days. Great unit. All maps loaded into the unit. But very bulky. Inconv' to remove, etc ... And the $$$$$$. The 510 does the same, except for the inconv' of loading the maps. Hence it is going back to Costco.

For the price and feature set, I could not find anything better.

User Review: 3 out of 5 stars

- Good GPS Device for the price - but maps are outdated!
I purchased this NAVMAN icn510 at a different online retailer for $350 (starts with outpost. something :-). I generally make my purchases at Amazon.com - but this time Amazon.com could not beat the price I got for this gadget. I also usually rely on Amazon.com to read reviews of a product. Since I have been helped by other peoples reviews before, I thought it is my time to pay back. Hence I am writing this one. This is my first ever review. So please bear with me if I do not do a good job of it.

Please also buy a minimum of 512MB SD or MMC card. I already had a 512MB SD card. I was able to install about 7 states before it filled up (Texas alone is approx 100MB!). So make sure you buy an SD card with this purchase. I would recommend 1GB. But that is your call. After I unpacked the receiver, I then let it charge for about 2 hours - before the green light came on indicating that it was fully charged. Then I installed the Navman Desktop software on my PC and then when it asked me to connect the iCN510, it was able to communicate with it with no problems. Remember to turn on the power (by sliding the Battery Switch) on the back of the device with the stylus before you plug it to your PC. Then I updated the Desktop and the iCN510 software with the latest patches from Navman's web site. Loading of the maps were slow - it takes approx. 5-10 minutes per map - so my advice is, you select all the maps that you want installed, then press copy to SD card and go do something else. Usually I have seen on my cameras and camcorders if you have the screen turned out, it drains the batteries pretty quickly. It was not the case here. After about 3 hours of usage - with the Display turned on - I noticed that batteries were about 65% full. I was impressed with that. During the installation, the Display screen was on all the time - with an USB connection animation. You do not see any map loading status updates on the device - only on your Desktops. After the installation, while inside the house itself, it was able to receive the GPS satellite signals and showed my location. That was good too. Voice is loud and clear. Although this is supposed to be a touchscreen device, a number of items on the screen does not respond to the stylus. You have to use its circular wheel to navigate and press the center of the circular wheel to get it to work as Enter/Return button. It also comes with all accessories you need to mount in the car along with car charger. It comes with a quick reference guide. But a detailed user manual is only available as a PDF. You may print one out at your discretion.

Here is the reason why I am giving this device 3 stars instead of 5. I purchased this product in December 2004. The maps on this device is dated March 2003. Called Customer service - which by the way will take you directly to voice mail where you would leave a voice mail. I did and I did not expect to hear from them. But 30 minutes later somebody did call back. When I talked to him, he said NAVMAN does not have the latest maps for this device. And even when it comes out, you will have to pay to get the latest maps on it. What the .....??? That was very disappointing. He said it will be atleast 8-12 months before they release their next updates. He understood my point but said he was helpless and could not change company's policies. I implored him to let his supervisors or anybody higher up that that is wrong. He said he will. So, I am looking at another $99 to get the updates. That was not good news. So beware of this before you buy this product. You also cannot register the product. I asked the customer rep. to see if I can register so that I may receive a discount coupon when I get ready to update the software. He said they discontinued the registration process. And that there are no plans to get customers data into their database.

But the fact is I paid $350 - which is pretty cheap. That is why I am seriously considering not sending this back. Otherwise it would have been returned by now.

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Navman iCN 510 32MB GPS Navigator

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