kfj001's Full Review: Navigon 2100 Max Car GPS Receiver
Navigon may have left North America, but getting your hands on one of these babies cheap is a great idea.
Navi... gone... Navigon is a German company. They left the North American market. Although they promised to "honor their obligations to customers" who purchased term length map updates, it's been 4 months since I had one, and I don't think they're going to continue updating their maps like they should. Fortunately, the traffic services are often lifetime, included with the unit.
But let's not dwell on abandonment. Yet.
What makes it nice GPS units are varied and sundry these days, but the Navigon is distinguished in a few key categories from other units, even newer ones.
First of all, its got text-to-speech, which speaks street and roadway names as well as your directions. The voice is pretty clear, and fairly accurate in its pronunciation. Even though a lot of units these days have full text-to-speech features. Its still nice to have. The GPS signal resolution is fairly quick.
The unit sets its date, time and time zone automatically based on your current position. So you only need to turn it on. In addition, it also uses the GPS to determine the amount of daylight in your area, and automatically switches to nighttime display mode when the sun goes down. Not revolutionary, just nice.
A map (and subsequently a software update) made the user interface much nicer than it originally was when the thing came out of its box. So the user interface is snappy and responsive, as long as you've obtained the 2009 software update.
When driving on a highway, or other high capacity divided roadway, you often have highway exit ramps, highway divisions and other lane-critical information when driving. The Navigon displays a 3D view when approaching highway exits, merges and other things where, "oh crap! I need to be in the left two lanes!" so that you know what lane you'll need to be in when you exit. But its not just exits. When you need to continue on the roadway, and stay in a "certain lane", the Navigon displays the lane you should remain in on the screen in a full 3D view.
This feature is now on high end Garmin units. But now you know who had it first...
Traffic information is provided via. FM radio waves in large metros in the US. Many units come with a lifetime traffic service offering, (some do not, however.) The traffic is pretty useful. You can see high volume & slowdowns, accidents, and construction right on the map, or listed out in the traffic info screen.
What makes it nasty With Navigon departing the North American market, support for their car GPS units really feels "half there" and half not. This isn't nice if you paid full price for these devices. But if you got one in the bargain bin, quit complaining.
Traffic service is not everywhere. The traffic technology is in many cities and areas in the country. Its also not clear which metros are covered and which aren't. The Navigon will scan the FM spectrum (if you have the car adaptor which secretly includes an antenna, which you should) looking for broadcasters sending traffic info. The lack of support from Navigon means some annoying "issues" with the device, including accuracy issues with POI data, consistency in navigation (when reality view appears, when night-view engages, etc.) will never be fixed. Accuracy Most of the navigation data the device has is pretty accurate. Directions make sense, it recalculates quickly, should you ignore (or miss) a turn. The POI data is a bit dated. POI updates are not part of map updates, they were an extra feature (listings from Zagat!) and I didn't opt into it. The GPS gets a fix pretty fast, and features 3D positioning data, so you can get your altitude as well as your heading and velocity.
Not that you care what altitude your at.
Power The device is designed to run while connected to the power outlet, both to supply an antenna for traffic broadcasts, and to provide it with power. The battery life on the device is okay, you can get about 2 to 3 hours of use out of it without recharging. Summary The Navigon was a super nice unit, but if you're paying more than $60 for one of these, don't. Out of the box, this thing is very advanced and has nice features, but in the long term, if you're paying decent money for one of these units, you'd be better off buying a TomTom, or a Garmin, because they'll stick around and support their stuff.
And besides, 3D highway view isn't unique to a Navigon anymore.
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