Oh god, Please don't be THAT kind of a Black box....
Written: Feb 19 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great accuracy, sharp little picture, auto route, wonderful little features.
Cons: Money, processor, RAM!!!
The Bottom Line: Buy it treat it well, and it will do the same for you. Even if you don't treat it well....maybe.
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| stoafer's Full Review: Garmin GPS V GPS Receiver |
Ok, so I bought this unit back in October and have had plenty of times to get lost, explore, get frustrated, and just drive around the country with friends.
So What is it and why do I need it?
Well you only really need this unit if you get lost. Don't get me wrong there is a great game of pong on this thing but lets face it you don't need to spend 500 dollars on a GPS for pong.
I was tired of getting lost, and tired of being nervous to drive anywhere I didn't know how to get to. And being stupid and lazy I didn't want to learn how to read actual paper maps.
What Come with this Fantastic device?
You get everything you need, and then some...
1. GPS V
2. Serial Port Cable
3. Car power Cord
4. City Select Software
5. Manuals
Then somes...
Wrist strap, and car mount.
Ok So what does it do.
Glad to you asked.
Well obviously you know what it does so it's more like how does it perform? Well the answer (my opinion) is very well.
The other day I had to take my mother - happens to be just about ten times worse with directions then I am, to a city about forty five miles north of my house. I plugged in the address of where she needed to go and clicked find within a matter of a minute I found a route for us to take and we were there in about an hour.
Auto Routing
Auto Routing is the reason I bought this GPS over any lower priced hand held. Auto Routing is when you punch in a address or intersection and it will find a rout to get there. If you go off course It will automatically Re-Rout you back on course.
Seem's PERFECT.... no.
It's close though.
The Software that comes with your unit is great and powerful ONLY if you live in a major city. Not little metropolitan areas. Hope is not lost though there is a program you can buy called MetroGuide USA on the Internet that supports Auto-Routing and covers all Metro areas.
So what else you ask?
Well the memory isn't enough if your planning to go on trips from state to state. I luckily have a laptop that I take with me and as soon as I start to get to the end of my map on my unit I plug it in my laptop and download the info in there. 19 megs is not enough, and there isn't a way you can upgrade so don't even ask.
The unit hooks up to a serial port connection on your computer, which happens to be one of the slowest connections on your CPU. I filled all 19 megs of RAM on my unit and it took nearly an hour to shove it all in there.
To all of you thinking if you switched over to USB connection (which you can do) it won't go any faster. Its the processor of the unit itself which makes it go slow.
My only other gripe about it is the obvious, price issue. Even though I think I got it at the cheapest place on the net (onlinemarine.com) for I think $424.00 that's a lot of money to spend. But for me it was worth it.
ALL IN ALL
I never regret buying this GPS it's saved me a lot and has let me been able to get lost and found once again. The learning curve is maybe an hour and it's your friend from then on. Software is easy to use, I use it all the time, and the accuracy is stunning. If your thinking of buying a portable GPS in the $500.00 range this is the one for you.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
stoafer
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Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 0 members
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