jlkp2102's Full Review: Navman iCN 510 Car GPS Receiver
For several months, I researched portable GPS units since I want to use it in different cars. Portable GPS navigator can be used in any car and I like the fact that they are compact and lightweight. After researching, I started eyeing on iCN510 because of its look and cheap price compared with other similar systems. A month ago, I finally bought the unit. The fact that it received a “good” rating from PC magazine helped my decision an easier one. When I saw the unit for the first time and compared it with other units, it was one of the lightest, slimmest, and smallest. Also, it was the cheapest and the most attractive. The size and look really impressed me that I brought it home to try it out.
I received a free 256 MB SD card with this unit and with that, I was able to put the entire basic United States map and several detailed state maps which include points of interest. The basic map includes freeways and highways, but no points of interest or city streets as far as I’m finding out. So a 256 MB card is very limited, but if you don’t plan to drive out of state, a 128 MB card would suffice. If you do want to put entire maps which came in 3 CDs, then you’d need 1 gig SD card at the very least.
The included software and unit go well together without a problem. It was automatically synced after the installation was completed. One down side is that transferring 200 MB worth of maps can take as much as 30 minutes, if not more. There was a glitch with the unit after syncing with the PC. The unit didn’t respond at all but after resetting the unit, it started working just fine. Perhaps it’s because this is previously owned.
iCN510 isn’t a fool proof by the way. I learned that when I used this navigator when I went to work. Near my work, there’s a busy street with two freeway entrance on the same street. The street is two-way and there’s a barrier between. Unbeknownst to the navigator, it instructed me to turn left, right into the barrier. The right lane has right entrance to the freeway and the left lane has its own left entrance. I was on right lane but iCN510 probably figured that left entrance is the closest to the freeway. So you can’t follow every instruction this navigator tells you. But I think this is a rare case. I’m not sure how other GPS navigators would’ve instructed but I’m curious.
Other features that are worth mentioning are finding restaurants and other points of interest. A fork icon near where you’re located means there’s a restaurant. When you point the fork icon and click on about, you’ll get the name of the restaurant, the location and the phone number. You can choose to display restaurants, gas stations, shopping, attractions, or other points on and off.
There’s no need to key in every letter of the streets or roads with this unit. Once you key in several first letters with the included stylus, it’ll give you a list of streets that start with letters that you chose. For example, if you put San for the city, and want to choose San Francisco, after putting San in, the unit gives you a list of city names such as San Diego, San Fernando or any city that starts with San within the given state. This feature really saves time. With this same way, you can search restaurants or other points if you know the name of the place.
iCN510 is comparable to other units when it comes to connecting to the satellite and calculating the route. It’s all done under five minutes. A friend of mine has a Magellan Road Mate 700, it also takes about five minutes. The farther the destination, the more time iCN510 needs to calculate. The instruction is given by either male or female voice which you can select, and the voice is loud enough for anybody to hear if you’re not cranking the stereo so loud. From what I’ve learned so far, it tells you twice when to turn. Around 1000 feet for the first voice instruction and the second time when you get closer to the street, say 150 feet. In any GPS system, the accuracy is very critical, and this unit is accurate within 5 meter or about 16 feet, which isn’t bad. The best one out there to my knowledge is the Magellan Road Mate 700 which has 3 meter or about 9 feet accuracy. The accuracy comes in to work when traveling in streets that are so close to each other.
The screen, to me, is big enough and bright enough to use. But one shouldn’t really be looking at the screen or playing with the unit while driving. So I would say the screen size shouldn’t be a big priority. iCN510 has 3.5 inch and other people might find the screen to be small compared with in-dash systems which range 7 inch or more screen space. Operating this unit isn’t difficult, but it takes sometimes to get used to every features if you’re a first time GPS navigator user like I am. If you’ve owned a navigator before, operating this unit shouldn’t give you problems.
iCN510 comes with 4 CD software, a cigarette lighter adaptor, a cover case, a regular adaptor, 2 quick instruction booklets, a USB connector to your PC, and a windshield glass mounter and holder. I believe the software is only compatible with PC. But I could be wrong about that. It’s nice that Navman included necessary accessories with this unit. The windshield glass mounter itself is very neat and useful. It has a suction cap and once you attach it to the glass and lock it, it stays there strong. The navigator unit can be easily pooped into the navigator holder which is attached the windshield glass mounter by a rotating joint. Because of that, you can rotate and adjust the proper position you want. It’s important to flip the navigator receiver up from the back before you pop the navigator into the holder. Otherwise the unit will pop out and drop while driving, which happened to me once when I didn’t know. The cover case is useful with a hard cover to protect the unit screen. For compatibility issues, Navman also offers latest service packs. For just in case, I installed the service packs after I synced with the unit, but I didn’t find any problem using the CD softwares. For updates, you can go to Navman.com website where there’s a list of updates for different models.
I can’t say that this is one of the best units since I haven’t operated other units personally before. But it works the way it’s supposed to and that’s what I really need. Whether you’re a bike messenger or someone who can’t afford an expensive unit but wants a capable small system, I recommend iCN510. Not strongly but nevertheless I'm recommending it. You do get what you paid for and iCN510 is pretty good considering I paid only $350.
Update #1: Recently, I went to an event that was taking place in somewhat of a rural area. I was using my GPS and when I got to the location, it was off by 1.1 mile. That’s a huge miss, I’d have to say. I don’t know exactly why GPS was acting this way but it probably has to do with the fact that some houses are so adjacent to each other and some are in big farms. So city use is probably the best for this unit.
Sleek, Pocket Sized, In Car Gps Solution Combining The Latest Gps Technology With Contemporary Design To Deliver A Competent Navigation Solution At An...More at Target
Pocket-sized vehicle GPS navigator with 3.5-inch touchscreen QVGA display 32 MB of flash memory; comes with SD memory card with data for West Coast an...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.