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Reviewed by UK Guest, 22nd Jan 2007. |
| Review Summary: Very good piece of kit, but not foolproof |
Overall Score: 4/5
 
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Review: As a HGV driver I was looking forward to owning a sat-nav system - let's face it, juggling the tasks of steering, changing gear, indicating, texting (only joking) and holding an A-Z with just one pair of hands can be a little dangerous when you're in control of 25 tonnes of machinery.
Upon first inspection the unit felt good in hand with a nice leather wallet, a good sized colour screen with easy to use touch screen buttons.
Once a destination has been selected and depending on the weather, a satellite is usually found in about 30 seconds, but sometimes it can take 3 or 4 minutes. The mapping is really easy to follow with clear voice commands and almost instant re-calculation should you go off route.
BUT, it does have plenty of annoying points - In the first 15 hours of use I've found:
*Whilst navigating there's no battery power indication so if you don't want to keep it on permanent charge or have a faulty cigar lighter it'll suprise you and just switch off mid navigation - there's also no home charger so when I can't charge it in the HGV i.e of a weekend I can't use it.
*There's no volume control on the side of the unit, you have to mess about a little to adjust it.
*The voice commands can be wrong especially on roundabouts, you should rely on what's shown on the screen here.
*Just yesterday it tried to send me the wrong way down a one-way street.
*It's crashed twice already and had to be reset.
*For some reason it won't always let you enter a full post-code - you have to go down a long list to find it or it won't be there at all - however it found any delivery address I entered eventually.
*It does have an option to enter what vehicle you are in/on, but this appears to be completely ignored by the rest of the system as I have already had to squeeze and scrape thru the tightest village road and a single track road it sent me down.
*A number of roads near me built at the end of 2005 aren't on the system.
*The flip-up satellite receiver at the back has started to feel a little bit loose
Having said all that it has made my working day a lot easier, but you have exercise caution in unfamiliar areas and not to take too literally all the instructions it gives you - use with common sense, it isn't foolproof. |
Ratings
| Value For Money: |
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4 |
| Review Score: |
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4 |
| Recommended? | |
Yes |
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