NAVIGON 7100
NAVIGON isn’t yet a household name when it comes to auto GPS devices here in North America, but it is gaining quite a bit of buzz recently with promises of free lifetime traffic in some of their devices. We’ve recently become friendly with a NAVIGON 7100 across about 500 miles of roadways, and here is what we found while letting the 7100 find our way.
In the Box
Out of the box, the NAVIGON 7100 greets you with a plethora of included accessories. The usual suspects are all there– quick setup poster, USB cable, software installation CD, and the GPS device itself. A nice bonus is the inclusion of an AC power cable, something many manufacturers leave out. Missing from my box was the suction cup mount as those were not quite yet available in my pre-production device.
NAVIGON, The Company
NAVIGON is a relative newcomer to the USA market, although they’ve been around in Europe for longer. They promise map updates once per year.
Physical Design
Getting to the heart of the matter, the first thing you will notice about the 7100 is the size. It is noticeably larger than other devices with similar screen sizes. The screen is bordered by a think black plastic trim. Along the top is a slot for the included 2 GB SD card slot. The card is so far recessed into the device that it is impossible to eject without either long fingernails (which I don’t have) or some other sort of poking device. Perhaps that could be taken for a good thing as the card won’t easily fall out accidentally, but if you frequently remove the SD card and don’t have long strong fingernails you could be in for a struggle.
On the right side is the power button, on the back an external antenna port, the mounting bracket, speaker, and stylus. I’m always a little afraid when I see a stylus– If the buttons are so small that I need a stylus or if the screen is so insensitive that I need a stylus then I’ll be disappointed. GPS devices should be capable of being operated with a finger. And a preview of a few issues to come… I needed the stylus. 
On the bottom is a reset switch, something I thankfully never needed to use. There is also a port for the TMC traffic receiver, as well as the mini USB port to feed power to the GPS. As I’ve said many times in other product reviews, having frequently used ports on the bottom really limits how low you can place the GPS on the dash. There is also a light at the bottom of the display which turns green when connected to power and the battery is fully charged and is orange when power is connected and the battery is charging.
The 4.3 inch widescreen display wasn’t the brightest screen we’ve seen, and it did suffer from fairly high color shifts when viewed from high and wide angles, but overall it wasn’t a bad display. It was bright enough for viewing during bright sunlit days and the nigh mode reduced everything down to soothing levels after sunset.
However one of the biggest disappointments with the NAVIGON 7100 is the touch screen. It wasn’t that it was too sensitive, or not sensitive enough, but rather such a large percentage of our clicks were not accepted. Normally I’d say that the screen wasn’t sensitive enough, however there were countless times when we clicked a button, the button would graphically change to show the click…. yet nothing happened. It would routinely take two, and often three clicks of the button (all which were seen as a click with the button graphic depressing) before the action was actually performed. This became very frustrating and (yikes!) caused me to pull the stylus out of the back of the device for tapping. The stylus didn’t seem to help a huge amount.
Update from NAVIGON officials: “… the touch sensitivity issues you encountered were improved from the time the pre-production units were sent out and the final production units were shipped.” We will try to check that out soon.
As mentioned, the NAVIGON 7100 comes with a TMC traffic receiver, something we’ll talk about a little more later. There is an integrated receiver built into the device, however should you need better reception there is also an external TMC antennal that can be plugged into the device. During my tests I always needed the external antenna and never got a signal without it.
Battery life is described as 4.5 hours. While I was using it with the screen brightness turned all of the way up and heaving usage I was able to get about 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Navigating to an Address
One of the two most common ways people will use their GPS is to take them to a known street address. You do this by selecting ‘New Destination -> ‘Enter an Address’ from the main menu. From there you can select if you wish to enter the address by ‘Street -> House number -> City’ or by ‘City -> Street-> House number’. While we appreciate having both ways to lookup an address, it would be nice if we could set a preference and then switch if necessary. Selecting City first will bring up a screen where a list of potential matches are shown on the left and a keyboard (non QWERTY) is on the right. The search defaults to looking up cities in your current state. You can switch the state by clicking on a very tiny icon with your current state’s abbreviation. The icon is very tiny, measuring just 3/8 of an inch wide and 1/8 of an inch tall. Small buttons are a problem throughout the interface, compounded by the problem mentioned earlier with many clicks not being recognized.
Often, rather than spending too many attempted keystrokes naming towns, I would enter a zip-code instead. Here I found some peculiar results. I entered in the zip-code of my hometown, and then a street I used to live on. It found the zip-code and street just fine, however the name of the town displayed was a town I’ve never heard of. It found the correct location which I guess is the important part, but displaying a town name I’ve never heard of did leave me scratching my head.
In all it took 19 clicks to enter and set my destination address, not counting all of the times I’d need to click several times before a click was recognized. This is actually quite good– a Nuvi takes about 22 keystrokes to find the same address and the TomTom devices take about 24. However since the interface is a little slower and having to re-tap a few buttons makes the total time of address entry longer and the frustration level higher.
Navigating to a POI
You can search for POIs ‘Nearby’, ‘in a City’, or ‘Nationwide’; the latter being what they call “POI of National Significance”. The POI listings include special categories for Zagat hotels, nightlife, golf, and restaurants. There are also regular categories for non-Zagat listings. Those categories are Gas Station, Parking, Restaurant, Hotel or Motel, Bank, ATM, Railway Station, Car Dealer, Motorcycle Dealer, Car Rental, Shopping Center, Tourist/Nature, Culture, Sports, School & Education, Government Office, Health Care, Exhibition, Post Office, Places of Worship, Marina, Business Facility, Public Phone, Public Toilet, and Border Crossing. Ordinarily I wouldn’t list them all out in a review, but there is an interesting point to make. The order I listed them in is the order they appear in. I presume they are listed in the order of how commonly they might be used, however for a scrolling list sorting them alphabetically might have made more sense. While in a state capital I tried to use the Public Toilet and Public Phone categories, but they both resulted in ‘No POIs nearby found!’ messages.
The Zagat ratings might be really nice to have for travelers, but the database appears to be very small. Again while in a state capitol I selected Zagat Restaurant -> Restaurant All and it told me there were No POIs nearby found. I also was told there were no nearby Zagat Hotel -> Hotel All listings nearby while in the state capitol. I had the same experience with Zagat Nightlife and Zagat Attraction categories. I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong, after all there must be some sort of Zagat rated business near a state capital. I did manage to find two Zagat rated Golf courses though. When looking at the information for that POI there was a one sentence review in addition to the commonly found POI information such as the phone number and physical address.
POIs can also be configured to be shown on the primary navigation display (more on this coming up) much like the TomTom devices and what Garmin users have been screaming about for many years.
Navigation
While actually navigating is where the NAVIGON 7100 finally shines. Thankfully since after all this is the most important part of a navigation device. The on-screen graphics are quite sharp and create a beautiful display. The path of roads to take is clearly shown on the display by a bright, thick orange road. Most side streets are labeled with clear text. The text to speech voice instructions are loud enough through the built in speaker. The voice has an interesting, almost Jersey accent and are not quite as clear as other voices I’ve heard, but are audible enough for it not to be an issue.
I also really liked how the main navigation screen was very configurable. You can select if you want shown street names, altitude, speed, compass, remaining distance, duration of the trip, arrival time, border crossing info, speed limits, and coordinates. I ended up turning off most all of those items except street names, remaining distance, and arrival time so as to not further clutter the display.
You might want to turn off many of those items too since the map does get easily cluttered. Across the top is a next turn display as well as Bluetooth, battery, traffic reception, and satellite reception icons. At the bottom are buttons for cancel, options, phone connection, speaker, and search. With that many buttons across the top and bottom of the screen it doesn’t leave a ton of room for other stats, and the buttons tend to be quite small.
Reality View
Something I was really looking forward to was the “Reality View”. This view appears as you approach exits of major highways. NAVIGON describes it like this:
Reality View(TM) provides photo-realistic 3D images of complex interchanges — with actual road sign text — so you get the extra guidance you need when you need it most.
Unfortunately, what you see is really what you get. While it does show how many lanes go in which direction… which is helpful, nearly all of the images look the same, with the only difference I saw was if the exit was on the left or on the right, the number of lanes, and the text of the signs overhead changing. That would have been okay…. I didn’t expect customized photos for each intersection, however what was the biggest disappointment was that the image is static. The moving map stops when Reality View is displayed and you no longer see your progress towards the exit. So it is difficult to tell exactly when you need to turn since you can’t see an icon representing your location against the intersection. I ended up turning off the feature as the signpost text is still displayed without the reality view, the map zooms in on the intersection, and you can better monitor your progress against the intersection.
In some areas it might be much more helpful to know “which lane” over any other type of information, but I found myself looking at the display, noticing I needed to exit right, but wondering if it was the right that I was just about to pass or the one just a little further down the road.
Advanced Features
The NAVIGON 7100 includes a large host of advanced routing functions found in total on few other navigation devices. There is a detour function, and unlike quite a few other navigation systems (like the Nuvi series) it does allow you to specify how far out you want to detour from your current route.
You can also get a turn by turn listing of all maneuvers in your route, and exclude any one of those locations from being in the route. Both of these are fantastic features to have, and hard to come by.
You can calculate routes with rules as they apply to cars, bicycles, or pedestrians. For route types you can select the fastest, optimum, shortest, or scenic routes. You can tell it if you want to consider current traffic information, as well as if you want to allow, avoid, or forbid any of highways, toll roads, or ferries. You can also specify if you want U-turns to be allowed in your route.
Those options should be sufficient for just about any type of route preference.
Multi destination routing is supported through what they call ‘Route Planning’. So how many points can you put into a single route? The sky (or processing power of the device) is the limit. There is no hard cap on how many points you can add, however as you add more points to a route the computation time will slow down. I put in about 40 points before I gave up and asked what the limit was, and while route calculation with 40 points did take quite a bit of time, that was to be expected. Most other manufacturers who offer multi destination routing put a cap at around 50 points, and any more than that is likely to cause enough performance issues that you would want to break it up into multiple routes.
You can also save those routes for later recall.
Voice Recognition
Recently there have been a couple of devices to hit the market with voice recognition. What most people want with voice recognition is a way to operate the device without touching it. So far most every device hasn’t reached that goal, and simply offers a way to setup “favorites” with voice recognition cues. This too is the case with the NAVIGON 7100.
After saving a location as a favorite, you can setup a voice recording to go along with it. For example you can save your home address, then record yourself saying “Take me Home!”. Then from the main menu you can tap ‘Voice Command’ -> speak “take me home” -> wait 10 seconds to acknowledge it picked the correct location, and then tap ‘Start Navigation’.
So what you could have done with five taps, now can take one tap, speaking a phrase, waiting 10 seconds, and one more tap. I’m not really sure it saves any time or is any safety advantage since you still need a couple taps of the screen. We’ll see how well full address entry works when the TomTom 920 is released, but until then voice recognition on the NAVIGON 7100 works on par with other manufacturers, but at this point I’m not totally convinced the implementation has any time savings or safety benefits.
Logbook
I’ve been waiting for this feature on GPS devices for a long time. Except for runs to the grocery store, I use a GPS just about every time I get in the car. Some of the time for business, and some of the time for fun. I do my best to keep the IRS happy with detailed logs of business trips recording where I went, how many miles it was, and what date it was. I’ve always looked at GPS devices and tried speaking to their circuit boards saying “You know where I’ve been, when I was there, and how far I went, how difficult for you could it possibly be to just remember that for me and create a business mileage log for me!”
The NAVIGON 7100 finally met my wish. It even stores the data in an Excel spreadsheet on the device, just waiting to be imported into my finance program! You can record different types of trips such as To Work, Away from Work, Business, Personal, and a few others. Even better, the logbook records even when you don’t have a destination specified.
If I wasn’t in the GPS business which requires me to constantly use different devices, the NAVIGON 7100 would be a dream for helping to record mileage.
Traffic
Perhaps the biggest story about the NAVIGON 7100 is the traffic service. NAVIGON got a ton of things right when it comes to traffic. First, there is a traffic receiver built into the device. If you happen to get a really strong traffic signal where you drive you may find it isn’t necessary to use the provided external antenna. However in most cases you will probably want to use it. In my testing I couldn’t get a signal in many areas where the coverage maps showed I could get a signal until I used the external antenna.
Another great thing about the traffic service is that unlike a few other devices you can get a list of traffic events, even those that don’t pertain to your route, listed out in a very logical fashion. You can see the type of traffic information, the roadway, and direction. Clicking on the line gives a more detailed description about that traffic event, as well as a button where you can go to that location on the map.
But the greatest point of all about the traffic service on the NAVIGON 7100 is the price. It’s free. No, not just a three month trial subscription. No, not even a 12 or 15 month included traffic reception. The service is totally free…. lifetime. While the “cost” is likely built into the device, the fact that you don’t need to pay $60 per year for the service is absolutely fantastic. This is what has caused this device to get so much buzz in the industry so we asked Ralf Hug, Vice President of Marketing for NAVIGON how they are able to offer this when other companies are charging for the service.
“It’s all about knowing what customers value and figuring out a way to satisfy their needs. NAVIGON’s consumer research indicates that traffic is a very important feature and service. The research shows consumers are not happy with the way traffic is offered today; there is an unfulfilled need out there. Existing subscription processes are complicated and expensive and therefore adoption of the service is very low. NAVIGON developed a unique business model that overcomes these limitations and offers what consumers want out of the box: traffic service over the life of the product without the hassle of subscriptions.”
Purchasing Advice
I mentioned to someone in an email recently that this would be one of the more difficult reviews I’ve written. A short side story… While I’m not a mobile phone expert, I’m a former Treo owner. I purchased the Treo thinking I’d use it to get access to email and the web while traveling. It would send and receive email just find. The web browser was able to display web pages in a satisfactory way. But while it would accomplish the task, all of those tasks were cumbersome, slow, and ugly. Thus I never used my Treo to its capabilities and ended up getting rid of the associated data plan. Recently I got an iPhone. Email and browsing the web is easy and accessible. While both devices accomplished the same tasks, the Treo was so difficult to use I ended up not using it. The iPhone is simply a joy to use.
Back to the NAVIGON 7100, it has a fantastic set of features that are nearly impossible for other devices on the market today to match. There is a great looking navigation display, albeit with a few too many small icons. Multi destination routing is supported, along with the ability to save routes. Routing is quick enough, and the text to speech voice is good enough to be understood. The traffic service is great, and the price of the traffic service (free) is unmatched so far in North America.
But overall in the interface the buttons tend to be too small, touch screen inputs are seen, but often ignored, and much of the text on the screen is very small– even for someone with near perfect vision. There were other small interface quirks as well, like when you save a POI as a favorite there is no default name… you need to type it all out.
If you can get past the often frustrating interface and small buttons, you will find that the NAVIGON 7100 has a feature set that is nearly impossible for other manufacturers to match. But a good deal of patience with the interface is required.
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Tim,
Great factual review. I’ve read several reviews of the Navigon 7100 and I must say that yours is actually one of the more favorable ones. I know we’ve had a few Navigon advocates posting on the forums so it would be nice to get their reaction to the screen input issues you had. Is it just a “beginner’s” problem that you get better at over time or perhaps some fault with the particular unit Tim tested.
Since nobody is replying I would like to direct you to the C/Net reviews.
First there is a rather favorable Editor’s Review (it sound like he spent more qualify time with the manual than using the unit)
http://reviews.cnet.com/car-gps-navigation/navigon-7100/4505-3430_7-32557477.html
Then there are 13 user reviews which are mostly very unfavorable with an average of 5.4 out of 10 points
http://reviews.cnet.com/car-gps-navigation/navigon-7100/4852-3430_7-32557477.html?tag=uolst
I hope the links work but the initial reviews are that this unit is one to avoid until they get the bugs worked out.
I read in one of the C/Net reviews that the Navigon 7100 automatically changes time zone. In one of the forums I recall that someone was asking if any GPS units offered this feature.
I remember the question being asked. I only used the NAVIGON in one timezone and since so few devices have that feature I didn’t think to test it.
What concerns me is the problem with suggesting u-turns if u miss an exit. Apparently, 7100 makes u go back to the same route by suggesting a u turn instead of re-calculating from the current location. Is that true? Also, are there any plans to offer multimedia and phone book sync features via firmware/software upgrades? I know this is more of a question for the Navigon people, but you seem to have an insight…
MP – I think it depends on the recalculation preferences and the U-turn preferences you have set in the device. I know I changed many of the settings from the default. (I don’t have the device with me anymore to confirm which settings I changed.) But I didn’t experience that issue in my recalculation tests.
I don’t know if there are future plans for phonebook/sync enhancements.
Hello Tim and GPS Review readers -
Let me take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Blake Bowen and I am a Program Manager at Navigon in Chicago. My focus in recent months has been preparing the Navigon 5100 and 7100 personal navigation products for their North America debut. As such, I would like to thank you very much for taking the time to review the Navigon 7100 for GPSReview.net.
As you state, the Navigon 7100 comes with a fantastic set of features that are nearly impossible for other devices on the market today to match. This goes to show how dedicated we are to the market and our commitment to releasing innovative products that go the extra mile to enhance the user experience.
With that being said, we understand that our job is far from over when it comes to making the best navigation product as possible. Rest assured we are evaluating all of the input that we receive from our customer service hotline and from the various user forums such as gpsreview.net. This input will be used to not only improve future products but help us with updates to the 5100 and 7100 so stay tuned.
With regards to the comments posted after the review, I’d like to shed some light on these too:
The issues related to the screen input have been improved with the production models. I know you added an addendum to the review to reflect this but I wanted to mention it again.
Multiple time zones are supported automatically if your route crosses through multiple zones. For example, a route from Chicago to Detroit will indicate an estimated arrival time of Eastern time (for Detroit) even when the route is calculated in Chicago (Central time).
The addition of MP3, video, and photo viewers has become a common feature for navigation systems. This was a feature we discussed internally during the product development phase. However, based on our market research as well as input we received from a focus group, we found that the overwhelming number of consumers had no desire to see these features in their navigation systems. The general consensus was that people who wanted to take advantage of multimedia services already owned an iPod or similar device that provided the complete user experience for multimedia. Our focus is on navigation so we chose to concentrate our efforts in that arena for these products. As the market continues to grow we will continue to monitor customer opinions to offer the features that end users demand.
For u-turns, users will typically not see these on a regular basis, as you discovered in your brief test. There will be some instances however where the best (or sometimes only) route is to make a u-turn. We try to limit these but there are cases where they will occur. We are currently evaluating some of the use cases that have been brought to our attention to see if there are any other adjustments that would make sense.
If there are any other questions that I can answer for you or your readers, I would welcome any comments. My email address is blake.bowen@navigon.com.
We at Navigon are very proud of our products and want to make the end user as happy as possible. The input and support that we receive from customers is a key element in helping us achieve this goal.
Thank you again for your time,
Blake Bowen
Program Manager
Navigon, Inc.
Hi,
I bought the 7100 last year and don’t seem to hear anything from Navigon for the FREE map updates? Also, we are in Beaverton MI and when routing from this location it never seems to find the correct roads, constantly tries to send us down that don’t exist or aren’t through roads.
Please help!
Thanks for your time!
Sherrie
One point that I forgot to mention regarding the Zagat POIs. Zagat data in the 7100 is available for locations that are covered by the Zagat published survey. These are typically in larger cities in North America but can vary in size and are not available in all 50 states.
To see specific locations in your area, please visit http://www.zagat.com and select your location in the “Your Location” drop-down near the top of the page. This will allow you to see what locations are covered for a particular area.
Future updates to the Zagat data will be incorporated into future updates of the database.
Blake Bowen
Program Manager
Navigon, Inc.
I find the reviews are intriguing and have me in teh edge of decision. I have a question for Mr. Blake Bowen, the Program Manager: Will of have the comments about earlier shortcomings been incorporated into later versions?
Does the sysem have some sort of firmware upgrade path?
How can I be sure the one that I buy is not an earlie version hat has not been possibly upgraded.
Thanks for your time, and thanks to the rest of the forum for sharing useful information.
Thanks for the comments Mark.
It is the nature of the consumer electronics category: today’s “advanced” technologies must continue to evolve (and do so, at shocking pace). Virtually every technology product out there goes through some sort of upgrade to improve or enhance its operation. Our own GPS competitors routinely release upgrades to address issues that their users encounter.
NAVIGON is no exception. We’ve been around long enough (since 1991) to know that it’s the nature of the biz that we must continually improve.
This is our upgrade path: first, to aggregate and evaluate report trends. Second: to engineer a fix. Third: to test the heck out of any proposed fix and make sure that what we say will fix a problem actually fixes the problem.
Right now, we can say that we are preparing to offer a software upgrade in the coming weeks. Among other smaller issues this fix will address, it will provide a retool of text-to-speech. Truth is, text to speech, as it exists today, does exactly what we engineered it to do. Right now, our systems don’t provide street names in areas where the blocks are too close together (like urban areas). This is because we wanted to provide ample time for the announcement of direction, distance, and the name of the street.
We are currently looking into improving this TTS approach based on user perceptions. We think we have the answer–and we’re on a path to make a first upgrade that will be available in the coming weeks.
We’ll be sure to let you–and all of our users out there–know plans as soon as they solidify. We’ll also let you know exactly what this upgrade will, and will not, address (at least in the first go-round).
As for how you can be “sure” you have a product that includes this software update, not sure there is a way to guarantee this. But even should you buy a device with the older software, our goal is to make it as easy and painless as possible for you to download the fix. So you should be ok either way.
If you have any other questions, I would encourage you to write here or email me directly.
Blake Bowen
Program Manager
Navigon, Inc.
Blake,
Does Navigon have any current plans to offer a program similar to TomTom’s Mapshare program? This program allows TomTom users to report new POIs, delete out dated POI’s, report street and road closures that can be shared almost immediately with fellow users through their upload/download functionality. There was some indication that Garmin was working on a similar program. How about Navigon? If so, any idea when it might be available?
Hi Jeep (I am a Jeep fan myself)-
Content in general is a big focus for NAVIGON and we’ve already shown this with the Zagat POIs and subscription-free traffic that we currently offer. So while I cannot comment on anything specific regarding future plans for map-specific content or give any actual dates, we are looking at various ways of providing new and exciting content to users. Keep an eye on our website for more specifics as we have them.
Thanks again and keep the shiny side up
Blake Bowen
Program Manager
Navigon, Inc.
I just got a 2100. Since I see one of the navigon programmers on here I would like to suggest 2 2100 features that SHOULD have already been in there..
1. Auto shutoff. when the unit senses that the power from the CIG ligter cord is no there it will wait a specified amount of time before powering down. Other GPS units do this.
2. Auto day/night. I could find no mention of this but most GPS units including another model I have will automatically switch from day to night. I didnt see if the 2100 did.
I am looking for my first GPS unit. My wife and I will be the primary users and while I am ‘technology capable’, my wife has not interest in ‘dealing with that stuff’. I am looking for ‘ease of use’ as a primary point. I am looking for RELIABILITY and good United States Technical Support / Customer Service. I’ve read about many things regarding this unit as well as others. My wife and I live in North-Central Florida and travel frequently within the U.S. I am also looking at this unit due to it’s screen size but when I read that it’s hard to read (even with excellent vision) are we talking about the maps or are we talking about text on the maps? If it has good text-to-speech capabilities, how much interaction with the screen while driving is necessary with these units? Am I being overly-simplistic to say “Once I set it up to make a trip and turn the volume up, that’s the last I should have to physically interact with the unit until I complete the trip”?
Geoff, when I was mentioning the small things that are sometimes hard to read I’m referring to the menu items and some of the stats/text on the screen. The map view itself takes up the full display and is easy to read. But you are absolutely right, once you setup your destination you won’t likely need to interact with it at all until you want to turn it off after reaching your destination. Even if you miss a turn it re-routes you (as most all GPS devices do) so you don’t need to touch it.
Hi Tim and Blake,thanks for the good work.i’m new to the GPS world sosome of my questions might seem ignorant so forgive me for that.
I bought a Navigon 2100 yesterday and i have 2 weeks to return or make an exchange.I’m thinking of upgrading to the 5100 or the 7100 but i need some information before i make my decision.
My first question is,will i need a bluetooth headset to use the calling feature if i get the 7100?
Do i get signs on the screen to warn me about traffic or the traffic is done through voice?
i also read some reviews and user opinions on the 5100,most complained of outdated map for US on both the 7100 and the 5100 (ive not found a review on the 2100 yet) and also, fake POI on screen.I plan on going from New York through New Jersey and to Virginia, do you think these big cities mght have the same problem as other users wrote in their reviews?I want to know how far or long is the update for the map and what price range?since my 2100 did not come with a usb cable,how will i be able to update my gps when there’s an update?
I would be glad if my questions are answered since i only have 2 weeks for decide to return this unit for my money or exchange it for a 5100 or 7100.
to use the calling features you need a phone that support tooth… I have a 2100 also. I hear there are issues with the 5100 and 7100 but then I hear that they might have corrected them on the 2100. Since there are really no 2100 reviews I dont know…
My phone support the bluetooth feature,but there’s no add on for the 2100 or bluetooth on it.but i not sure,if i need to buy a headset or ear piece to use for the calls.for example,with the navigon 7100 only show im an incoming call only or it’ll notify me of an incoming call and i can accept and just talk without connecting a blue tooth headset?
One thing i forgot to ask, driving to school this morning?i realized my gps does not mention all names.sometims it just says “get ready to turn on Popham ave in 200ft….now turn left.”
Other times,it just says “Begin to turn left in 200 ft…turn left now”.
does it mean its not full text to speach?because i chose this over another gps with more features and a lesser price just because of the text to speech.
i have yet to see the “real view” picture too eventhough i’ve been on the highway with multiple intersection this morning.i turn the feature “ON” on my device too.
actually, the text to speech is doing what it is supposed to do according to the navigon web site:
In some intersections, my NAVIGON GPS navigator seems to miss announcing the name of the street onto which I am expected to turn. Why is that?
Here is some info from the navigon web site regarding bluetooth:
[Editor Note: I'm just going to link to the articles]
What’s the easiest way to pair my NAVIGON 7100 with my cell phone the first time I use this functionality?
Information on Bluetooth Connections
How do I maintain the Bluetooth® connectivity in subsequent uses?
Thank you Dave for all your time and the info,how long have u used the 2100?how will you rate it and recommend it?
WOW, what a great forum, well I am on the fence about the 7100, my worry is the following and if someone can help that would be great
1) I was at Best buy and Frys in Dallas yesterday, tried the unit but found the touch screen not sensitive like the TOM TOM, harder to get the menus the change, this worries me and it was a new unit out of the box so I assume it was a newer model navigon shipped
2) The traffic, on TOM TOM, all it does it tell you when there is traffic jam on major highways, no details of what it is or such, does Navigon do that give you details and does it speak teh traffic jams?
3) Upgrades, and new maps with 2mb card almost totally used, where is the space for upgrades if you upgrade, will you be offering us 4mb cards FREE or discounted to update firmware or maps and when
4) Are you devleoping a 7200 that will be better and should this mean we wait till that comes out in 2008 with better fixes and such please be honest:)
I am torn between tomtom xl and Navigon 7100, I need expert advice as to what to buy, I see navigon price is now 399 with rebate that tells me a newer unit is coming soon, law of marketing and product devleopment which I have done for 24 years, and I off base here
thanks to all and if someone from Navigon can respond and help me make an honest and good decision I would appreicate it greatly
Thanks ALL
Dave, with regards to number 2 the TomTom devices can tell you the details about the traffic and read the traffic alerts to you if you prompt it. It also shows you the estimated time delay (if any) and how far ahead that incident is on the map.
Tim, can you say the same about the 7100?
I recently purchased the 7100/7110 military edition of the Navigon in Germany. It has the US and European Maps. I was wondering if the software has a phonebook/yellow pages. I cannot seem to find this and it is a valuable feature I have had on other GPS units. For example if looking for IKEA in a city, I should be able to put in my desired destination (IKEA) in a phone book, under a city, or as a desitination and it will give an address or list if multiple. I can then go directly there with the GPS. On the Navigon, I see destination, but it only allows street names. Is there a way to put in destinations or is this feature not available?
Yaw – Yes, the 7100 has a different way of presenting the information but pretty much the same details are provided.
Lee – Yes, those are known as Points of Interest, or POIs.
Thanks Tim,then i guess it’ll be worth it to upgrade to 5100 then.I was looking for a Target yesterday in my area,it never showed up,but when i typed the Target address,it takes me there but it doesnt show any Target stop.my gsp is good at showing mc’donalds n urger king well tho
Can anyone tell me how well this unit works in Canada? I know it has the maps for Canada but does it show speeds in kilometers rather than miles and does it have POIs for Toronto? Thanks
Blake,
I have a Navigon 7100. Here are my questions:
A. Where are the accessories? For instance customers in Europe can buy your specialized mount . We can’t get a mount, a replacement stylus etc. I asked about this last month and was told in a week accessories would be up. It turns out the ones you decided to make available for the US are the opposite of what people need.
B. What is up with the battery life? It is very very short. I get one hour. Can your software people do something to optimize this? It makes using the device for pedestrian tours useless and gives Nuvi a big advantage.
C. The text to speech has problems. I am glad you are addressing it. It was disconcerting to see a “faq” put out (someone posted the link) which dismisses user noted bugs, when we know there are problems, and you yourself indicate you know this. Owners don’t want spin, they want fixes.
D. Why does navigon Fresh not work only for US users? It works for European 7100 and 7110. The answer from support is: you don’t need it as there are no updates. But it always worked for European users before their software update. In fact even the system informaiton screen on Navigon Fresh doesn’t work. Again, an orphaning of US users.
E. European 7100 customers already got an update at the beginning of November. They are on 6.5.1. Will US customers play second fiddle?
F. The Zagats is nice but a LOT of common POIs are left off. Major retail box chains for example.
G. The POI search is not good. It is terrible. Do yourself a favor and try and locate a post office if you are in a city you will see what I mean.
You have an excellent product 95% realized, but the perceptions about US support, born out by lack of accessories and being second fiddle on software updates, are a problem that might make current owners tell others to hold off.
To LEON.
yes,you have the option to use miles or km.
To Michael:
finding food,sch a subways s easy for the ps,but whe it comes t staples,bestbuy,cc or target,this does not help find them.
sometimes you se hosptal clse to you,but it dont showwhen you check your OI on route
Thank you Tim for such a great indetail review. I was very indecisive on different products (not any more after reading your review). One thing I would like to mention is the companies which sense the need of their customers are always way ahead of competitors. This company is providing some very good features which I was looking for but didnt find in one product. i.e
1) Lane Assistant
2) Reality view (it should be live not static)
3) Thank God, NO mp3 and all sort of other junk
4) Lifetime traffic update (at no additional cost)
Some suggestions:
* I would like to have a reality view in which it splits the screen and shows a zoomed view of the intersection on half of the screen.
* Bluetooth with address book
* Better voice recognition.
* More frequent updates (software + data)
Techguy,
Live reality view would take 100 times the processor load that mp3 would take. Mp3 has no detrimental effect on any GPS I have used. Mp3 takes less overhead and creates less problems than even address books can. Lots of Tech users have Treos and big address books.Probably most people would rather MP3 than an address book. Also if you have MP3 on the GPS unit you get a automatic mute function. For example on Garmin it is perfect listening to music via the Garmin mp3 player because you can input it to your car stereo and it mutes during Text to Speech. Impossible with Navigon.
I personally find the reality view a hindrance on the highway. I live in an area with a lot of merges and it interferes with that. Almost everyone seems to turn off the realty view and use the lane assist. This is on par with Garmin’s lane assist.
If we are going to talk about suggested add ons what this really really missing is custom POI.
You have to pay for traffic with Garmin but custom POI and POI database importing is easy and FREE with Garmin. With Navigon US customers have to buy POI software and yearly subscription like POI warner (it is included with Navigon 7100 Europe but left off on US models).
I also cannot fathom how navigating to coordinates was left off. This is a very basic function that every model but Navigon has. In the US it is especially useful, and it also is an indication of things Navigon has to have to be a US market oriented device.
Thanks Michael, very good feedback. I would like Navigon rep to address issues you have raised and give us a road map for updates.
i went to Navigon website and emailed them,i think you guys can do the same,i’ve not got my reply yet tho
Hi, just received a brand new 7100. Since we have a company representative here, I though I might blow off some steam. My unit came missing a window mount and a stylus. When I called the customer support they told me this is very common and they would set up a claim which I feel will last for quite some time. How in the world do you sell a $600 system with missing accessories? Overall the system appears to be a success, although there are of course few things that could make it perfect. It even was able to find GPS indoors which is a surprise to me. However, I could not locate any traffic tips even though I live in a major city. And yes, could not locate the closest post office using POI, which is half a mile away from my house.
I have been considering my first GPS purchase. After reading this review, I will wait. The price of this electronic “toy” does not leave it in the toy range, but rather a “tool”. The lack of reliable, configurable user experience is a huge deterant. I Live near Seattle and went to Sturgis this year. my brother just bought a Garmin and it was frustrating for the rest of us to wait on his “programming” and all of the stupid U-turns. I think I will wait 3 more years until the developers get their products figured out.
Has anyone tried to contact Blake Bowen directly through his email address? I tried today and it was returned as undeliverable.
I am in the military and am currently stationed in Japan. Does anyone know of a GPS unit that either has Japanese maps included or that I could purchase and then later download maps of Japan for use with said unit???
Ok – so whats the scoop – I got an out of office reply from Blake that says he will be back in the office on the 26th. I have been looking at prices and I have narrowed my search down to the TomTom XL-S @ $[snip, see comment policy] the Magellan 4250 @ $[snip] and the Navigon 7100 @$[snip]. I really want the 7100 because of its look but I am not sure all this reading the reviews has helped – more it has placed doubts – does anyone have an opinion based on actually using the items I mentioned ? Thanks.
Sorry about the pricing – mainly I wanted to say that they were so close in price so it was not really the deciding factor and I was looking for other factors that might help like, Newer maps from Navigon will be $xxx but $000 from Tom Tom erc stuff like that. Cheers.
After reading this review and all of the comments I went out yesterday and purchased a Navigon 7100.
Upon completion of the set ups I went on a 100 mile excursion. I found everything about this unit quite easy to work with. The features, “Lane Assist†and “Reality Viewâ€, are great. I am the Los Angeles area, and even living here all my life, our Freeways are a mess.
I found no issue at all with the touch screen, even with my fat fingers.
I do have a few things that I would like to see changed or added. I like to drive with my windows open and with tunes playing. This presents a problem as the voice output is just not loud enough. Fortunately car stereo system has a NAV input (most do now). This is good, but if I plug into the headphone jack, I cannot use the TMC antenna and the TMC will not work without it. Is there some form of adapter that will allow the use of both headphones and the TMC antenna?
Next is the so called car mount. This thing is fine stuck to the windshield however this is NOT legal in California and I have no flat surface to stick the disk. I do like the twist lock mount but I need to use an alternative mounting. Is there a mate to the connector on the back of the unit available?
I really wanted to like this unit. But the sluggishness of the system, small fonts, and dullness of the screen were turnoffs. Screen needs to be brighter. 5100 may be a better unit for walkers who would like to carry the unit with them. Right now I am going to wait for the 7200/5200 series.
I have the 2100 and love it. I think its Plenty bright.. I dont know how it would be for walking as I dont use the GPS for that but for driving its fine. I also do not think its slow at all. I actually like it..
I have the 2100 and its plenty bright for driving. I dont use it for walking so I can answer that. I also dont think its that slow.. the only thing I want them to add is more POI.. speciflcally RETAIL STORES. navigon told me they dont have any retail stores in their POI. thats an issue.
Also the ability to click on a POI I see on the map and select ROUTE TO THERE would be great…
TO DAVE,
Hi I noticed you just purchased a Navigon and can’t use your window mount. Would you be interested in making an offer? Thanks,
My email: Vadimchik@usa.com
If anyone is considering purchasing the Navigon 7100 despite some of its drawbacks, which are supposedly being addressed right now, I just discovered [snip, see comment policy]. I purchased my unit less than a week ago and it is now significantly less than what I paid. [They] issued me a credit for the difference. [snip]
Sorry for including store names in my earlier post. Suffice to say that I paid a fair amount less than the “Best Prices” listed above at the end of the review.
Perhaps I am not as critical as some others. I have not had much to complain about in the week that I have owned the 7100. Based on what I’ve read to date about the 7100, my main concern is the amount of room left on the SD card for updates. Should I choose to purchase a 4mg card, should it be an SDHC card? Sandisk makes an Ultra II, an Extreme III and an Extreme IV that seem to vary in “Class” as either Class 4 or Class 6. Is one better than the other for the Navigon 7100? Are they all compatible with the Navigon 7100?
Thanks for any input or advice.
Typically any updates replace the existing data on the device and don’t take up any more (significant) space than what was already on the card, so I wouldn’t worry much about that. I can’t think of an example of devices from any manufacturer where map updates or application updates necessitated purchasing a larger SD card, even those with limited free space to being with.
Thanks to Thanksgiving sales,i had the new limited edition navigon 2100 with life-time traffic for a buck.i returned the old one.Navigon,please work on retail POI.
Over the past few days I have been using the 2100T and I must say its nice.. HOWEVER on 2 of the trips I have made it took me way off the route down a few side streets to get me to the main road which I could have just stayed straight and been at the same main road but at an even closer location. I dont understand why the unit wont pick the most direct route and wants me to get off a main road and go into little side streets.. I am thinking I will return it and get the NUVI 260 GPS with TTS.. I dont really need the traffic feature..
is the NUVI 260 any better at routing??
I am a current user of Oncourse navigator (OCN) – a software product made by navigon that I use on my pda. I suspect that the basic software is similar. I got used to it and hence may buy the Navigon. In this context, I am concerned about the “continuing to improve the product and upcoming software release” comments from the product manager. My experience with Navigon on this score has been rather poor. They took a long time to do patches for OCN — many things the user feedback pointed to as problems were never fixed, and then they abandoned the market. Interesting that they return with a device that is branded as Navigon. Of course the problem could have been with the OCN people and not NAvigon. However, seeing the same story here (we are continuing to improve) suggests a marketing approach that is designed to release a not fully baked product and then see how it does. Would appreciate a response from the product manager – at least some reassurance.
Well I think I am giving up on the 2100 because of the way it routes.. I really wanted to like this unit but with the horrible routing I cant use it. I tested it with the magellan I also have and the routing on the magellan was correct. I am now getting a magellan 2200T which does the text to speech and you can add the traffic (although its like $60 a year)
Check this announcement from Navigon from July — interesting since they say that there is no future in the USA for the products that they switched to, and that they would no longer offer support via map upgrades to the existing user base — only resolve problems with OCN 5.x
Well, I know I mentioned about the quirky routing but today, again, I did some more testing and had my Magellan 2000 and the navigon 2100 side by side .. 95% of the time the navigon was dead on with the correct route. Only about 5% of the time did it go to some crazy small side street that is not needed.. HOWEVER, my magellan did some crazy routing today and it took me ways I normally didnt go or it wouldnt be the best or faster route in my opinion… I think I am sticking with it.. for $99 its a steal! I figured I will get another GPS and find quirks in the routing as well. HOWEVER, what would be nice is a GPS where you could save an updated ROUTE for the next time you travel there…
Now if navigon would put out updates and also update the POI it would be an awesome unit.. also I read we can use a faster memory card to improve the performance.. anyone know which one to use and can we just cop the files in windows to the new card??
The 5100 and 7100 sound promising and realizing the importance — or as some of us think the necessity — of real-time traffic feedback as integral to any auto-based GPS, I wonder if:
How the re-routing works in practice?
Upgrade metro maps will be available, even at a fee?
Will foreign city/country maps (since it’s European endeavour) as downloads any time soon?
I want to buy my first GPS system and I want to make sure that the one I buy is the best GPS out there for the money. I really like the features on the 7100 but the mixed reviews worry me. Since the GPS I buy will be the only one I have until it dies, I want to make sure I’m getting the right one. In your honest opinion, is this the best bang for my buck? Can I expect to be able to use this 5 or 8 years down the road? I’m planning on using this to drive from Chicago to Disney World with 3 kids that are 1, 4 and 6 so I can’t afford any unexpected road closures.
GPS-Newbie: It probably isn’t realistic to expect that any GPS will last you 8 years. So goes the story with high-technology. As for unexpected road closures, most of the GPS companies all get their maps from one of two mapping companies, so in many cases two GPS devices from different brands can have the exact same mapping data. You won’t be any more likely to run into that with the NAVIGON than you would with other GPS brands.
Tim, thanks for your comment. I guess I wouldn’t expect it to last 8yrs either. I guess what I meant was if this would be something that wouldn’t become obsolete anytime soon. Does Navigon provide map updates that can be downloaded?
NAVIGON does offer map updates. They just announced a program called NAVIGON Fresh that is an application that will download and install map updates and other application updates.
Hi Tim,where can i read more about the “NAVIGON Fresh ” and how do i get it?
What’s a great GPS system for around $250?
Yaw, NAVIGON has announced it, but I think it will still be a few weeks before it is released for download.
Thank you Tim,please link us when anything new about it is announced.thank you
Great review, especially the purchase advice. I received this unit as a gift and love it. I agree with the reviewer that the onscreen buttons are too small, and that the unit does not always respond to pressing on screen buttons.
To improve visibility during the day, I would recommend switching the unit to night mode. This displays white text on a black background which can be read easily in bright daylight.
Button issues aside, the basic navigation features of the Navigon 7100 are still fairly easy to use while in the car. The traffic feature is awesome and works like a charm in metro Toronto.
The windshield attachmant bracket is a great design and works well. Kudos to Navigon for providing every possible accessory in the box.
Looking forward to finding out more about map updates, etc.
To Navigon tech guy and all who will listen.
I bought a 2100 and subsequently returned it. I found it not to be as good as reviews made me think. here is my ‘review’ of this device.
1.Design: The case and interface are very slick looking. The reality view is a great feature.
2.MAPS: Based on NAVTEQ map software, this unit seems somewhat up to date, but the maps aren’t as up to date as the Garmin Nuvi products. I suspect an older version of navteq was used in early development and not updated before released on this product.
3. Fonts: many of the fonts are too small. The speed is virtually unreadable. This important piece of information [My Speed] should be larger, since I often refer to it as a reference to the accuracy of my speedometer.
4. Routing. No matter what the tech says, routing is broken on this unit. whatever the problem, it results in incorrect routing over 50% of the routes I tried to calculate. I can provide specific routes that are incorrect. I did notice that other people mentioned that it tries to take you back to your original route, even if there’s a better one.
5. Missing Features: Auto day/night, auto off. Sufficient POIS.
That’s about it.
Finally, I would have kept my 2100 if it weren’t so bad at routing. I want to be very clear about this. I have been working with GPSRs for six years and talking to many users. I have worked with many different GPS Navigation units and the routing problem is REAL and it makes this unit virtually unusable.
i agree with Ken on the routing.sometimes it wants to take me on a road n bring me back on the same road after some turns.so i only use the gps when going to places i dont know at all,in that case,i wouldnt know this gps is wasting my time.last time a friend shown me a short route to her place (15 mins) while the gps was taking me through like 25+ route to the same place.i like this unit for the poi icons on the screen and the real view(very helpful for confusing exits or intersections)
You guys are right about the routing. It’s a crapshoot as far as recalculating routes that result in the shortest trip time.
Larger fonts for some displays would be nice.
Hi,
I’m interested to by a 7110. I see here some say that the routing is a problem. Is this US only or a general problem? I’ve let calculate a route in Belgium on a Navigon 7110 and the route is much better than on a Garmin. At least he doesn’t say me on rural small roads like the Garmin does.
I tried to mail Blake Bowen on this a couple of days ago, but he doesn’t seem to respond. I hope he will do soon.
Eddy
I just used my month old 7100 on vacation.
First off, couldn’t find lots of places. If it isn’t in Zagat, it’s most likely not listed.
Several towns that I drove through showed NO POIs, that’s impossible, since I was passing them as I was driving. I absolutely do not like that I cannot locate a place by name. I tried to look for “Blackwater Inn” and it didn’t come up, I put in the town, and it said NO POI’s. I tried so many different ways to locate this restaurant to absolutely no avail. I am so frustrated and I am definitely considering returning it.
There is no updates that I’ve seen other than a rebate offer for $50.
Also tried to retrieve the address of one of my favorites, and I can’t retrieve it., It just comes up as the name I gave it. To find the address, I must do new destination and start all over again.
I tried to put in the location where I was and, i could not save it. The save button was grayed out, meaning, couldn’t save.
Sound is way too quiet when radio or talking in car is going on.
Screen is big, however, to enter any address you need a pen or a stylus. Stylus is too hard to take out when you’re driving ( I know, I know),and I am short, and windshield is so far away, that I have to stop the car to retrieve the stylus, not worth it.
Reality View – FANTASTIC.
POI’s horrible!!!!!!!! I am so spoiled from a garmin I borrowed that this is just so so not user friendly enough. I am very computer capable, but this is for the birds. I am also a woman and my fingers should be able to touch the screen and I cannot.
I try to enter an address and it comes up automatically, but if you do not have the CORRECT # or street name or highway name, it could take you 15 minutes to find it in their system if even at all!
I just do not like this and I am hoping since my son bought this as a gift for me that I will be able to return it ! ! ! ! !
I have not used the traffic yet. I’m still just trying to figure this thing out to begin with, let alone the traffic !
If anyone, anyone at all, can tell me what the heck I am doing wrong that it is not working as well as the NUVI garmin, I would greatly appreciate it. Reality view is great, but not that great to keep it with all the other issues.
Also, highway names, for example Route 19, If I am on vacation, how the heck do I know where I am to ask where something is ???? If I do not enter it exactly as Navigon lists it I cannot locate it on the 7100.
For example: Route 19 could be listed as State Route, or Highway, or Route, or whatever. I feel like I have to google it on the 7100 just to find anything and it takes forever!!!!!
Help me to redeem it or otherwise, it is adios to the 7100.
Also, back to what I was talking about before, to enter current location, I called and the tech guy told me I just have to choose GPS status. This is when I came up with the above problem of not being able to save it.
PLEASE HELP!!!!
No customer service in USA at all…I called them 5 times! No respond! Need new car mount.
My mount broke on the 2nd use also. Have called and emailed multiple times. Did reach a human who "escalated" my case to teh supervisor. Nothing happened. On persistent follow up, via email I was told that they were awaiting a shipment of mounts. 2 weeks later still nothing.
Tried to find out in November from customer service if you could buy European maps for it. Still no reply… I like this unit but will not buy until they get some customer service on it. I don’t want to buy something that is totally unsupported.
Navigon 7100 Is a big dissappointment! I looked at all the great reviews and thought this was the best GPS out there. IT IS NOT! Gives you wrong directions, tells you to make a U turn going down an off ramp. Has gotten me lost in Disney parks. Has given me routes that if I took another route it would have been quicker. I’ve placed two phone calls to Cutomer service the youg lady said it isn’t perfect get use to it. Another man said it will give you some bad route but quickly gets you on track. It even pronounces Tampa Fl, Tampras. The CS agent tells me there is a map update coming out in March at a cost of $75 to $100 dollars. Not only did I pay over $400 dollars I now have to shell out another $100 to make it work correctly. This was a rip off!!!
One more thing I forgot to add. I drove for two hours with my Navigon “charging” in the car charger, within 20 minutes of trying to have my son look at why it took me on a wrong route, the battery died. DIED ! What? Wasn’t it charged in the whole time driving? Ugh !!!! I’m getting more and more upset !
Guys, I dont know why there are a lot of negative reviews for NAVIGON. Now, I dont have the 7100, I have the 2100. I love it.. for $99 it does traffic, and gives pretty good routes with street names spoken. granted there are not a lot of POI’s but I installed PIO-WARNER and installed a whole bunch more POI’s. I’ve never had a problem with the battery or anything although I use it in the car plugged in. Sometimes I even take it inside and charge it using a USB cable and my PC.
Maybe the 7100 is different but I havt 2 2100’s (one in each car) and love them.
Oh Yea.. One more thing.. I see people complainign about not enough poi’s in the unit. Isnt the main function of a GPS to give you directions? I think the 2100 does this pretty good and the 7100 should do the same. I almost NEVER look up a POI as that is not why I bought the unit. But you can purchase and install POI-WARNER and then you can get loads of POI’s from web sites…
Dave: I paid a LOT of money for my 7100, purposely for directions, traffic, AND POI’s. I should get what I paid for. I feel if I had spent for the Garmin half of what I paid for this one, I had many many choices and no problems at all. I kept the garmin on me, in the house, everywhere and even walked around with it and didn’t need to charge it for 2 days. I rented it for 2 weeks and used it all the time (since I was on vacation)
Also, what is this software that you are referring to? How do I do that and can I put it on my 7100? I’m not clear on what you mean about this.
Thanks for your input and help.
PS: Dave, don’t get me wrong, as for GPS, it’s no different than any other GPS unit, except for the reality view. (which I love !!!!) If I wanted it just for directions, then I would have bought the cheapest one I could get, (or ask for the cheapest) (it was a gift.)
Oh Yea.. One more thing.. I see people complainign about not enough poi’s in the unit. Isnt the main function of a GPS to give you directions? I think the 2100 does this pretty good and the 7100 should do the same. I almost NEVER look up a POI as that is not why I bought the unit. But you can purchase and install POI-WARNER and then you can get loads of POI’s from web sites…
Dave – January 22nd, 2008
how do you do that?
Actually I think the 2100 and 7100 are exactly the same except the 7100 has a wide screen and come with zagats and traffic activated.
as far as that software I mentioned… Read here:
http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=97250&whichpage=1
I posted instructions in that thread as to how I have it installed. I works pretty good and I added a bunch of poi’s. I know you can spend more money on a different brand GPS then I paid for my 2100 but for what I use it for which is directions and SPOKEN Street names, its good for that. I know of no other GPS that has a one time traffic fee.
Buyer beware. This Navigon company does not have a repair facility according to customer service for North America. So if you drop it and warranty won’t cover it your done.
It’s clear this product has a long way to go. I’ll be looking elsewhere.
I experienced the same thing as others mentioned. I sent me to an Exxon 1.2 miles away while there’s one right next to where I parked. Also it suggested a longer route than necessary. Both starting location has been there for many years.
David, as for the Exxon, manufacturers don’t try to put every known POI in their devices. You might get one out of every 4 or 5 known POIs listed.
I have another brand GPS and in no way did it have all the POI’s. I know the navigon doesnt have alot of POI’s but as I mentioned before, you can load software at
http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID= 97250&whichpage=1
and add POI’s to it. It does make searching a little different as you have to use the poi warner to serach for the added POI’s but it will create a route to them. I have added a whole bunch including ICONS and they show up as I drive..
So, Navigon update is available. Fixes most of the POI issues, however, still cannot find a local post office a mile from my home. What were the other noticeable changes in this update? I haven’t noticed any.
Bought a 7100 and comparable nuvi 660 two weeks ago. Nuvi was $70 cheaper but equal with traffic expense over 18 months. My plan was to compare and return one.
Observations:
Routing by 7100 in my area is very very bad. Takes me on convoluted routes, on and off of interstate for no reason.
Real battery life on 7100 is about 1.5 hours (Nuvi is 3.5)
Navigon mount very shaky. My guess is it will break on its own in 6 months.
I had read that Navigon had an update coming to fix the bad routing all the users are experiencing. I installed update yesterday. It fixed nothing at all. According to Navigoin, the number one complaint of US users, really bad routing, is not an issue fixed by the software update.
The Navigon went back to Costco.
I would suggest people wait to see if they can fix their routing problems. Navigon seems focused on the European market and not concerned with the big problems in their US software.
to Hampton:
what kind of update did you install yesterday?
To those who installed the update:
when i try ti add the MN6 folder to my gps,it asks me if i should replace the original with the new folder,should i choose yes or just rename the new one?
Hi,
First of all: Yaw, make a backup copy of your MN6 folder on your computer, then replace the original folder and choose ‘yes’. If your destinations are gone, you can copy favrites.storage and recent.storage to the settings folder inside the MN6 folder.
I’ve been using my 7100 since Christmas and I’d like to report on my experience, particularly something that happened about 2 weeks ago. I was driving over to a friend’s place who lives about an hour from where I do. Traffic started backing up and the weather was bad so I checked the traffic reporting function and sure enough, about 20km ahead the highway was blocked. The blockage was after my exit, but I decided to get off the highway anyhow. My Navigon 7100 directed me without a hitch to my friend’s place and updated the route very quickly after getting off the highway. Previously I had been printing directions from MapQuest. I could not have changed my route without the Navigon or I would have gotten lost.
I’ve found that the ‘fastest route’ setting gives pretty good routing – better than ‘optimized’. A lot of people have complained about the routing. All I have to say is that on a 6 hour trip I’ll take the extra ten minutes and slightly less efficient route so long as I get to where I’m going on time – which so far has not been a problem.
I’m enjoying my 7100, and with the new POIs installed I can see lots of restaurants and garages in my neighbourhood now.
Vanski, do you I noticed you spelled neighborhood with a u “neighbourhood” like they do in the UK. Are you in the UK or in the US? The reason I ask is because I’ve heard from previous posters that Navigon is great in the UK but not so much in the US. So if you’re in the UK, you may not be experiencing the same type of issues that people in the US are experiencing.
I’m from Canada GPS-Newbie. Let’s stay on topic, shall we?
Tried the new update out on my commute to work. Lots more POIs plus updated info for instant tellers, gas stations, subway stations, etc.
The best surprise was while driving to work a traffic alert came up and the unit announced that ‘there was new traffic information’ or something to that effect. I was given the choice of ignoring two sections of heavy traffic, or avoiding them. Very cool.
thank you vanski.
i surprise you gps do this after the update,mine was doing these when i bought it on black friday (november) and it’s a 2100 model.
I just purchased Navigon 7100 in Canada and have applied 1.1 patch but I can not find a Beach listing in POI. Is there any way to find a list of beaches?
vanski – Are you in Vancouver on the west coast in canada, I just purchased 7100 and I have not had any traffic alerts yet so wanted to find out if traffic alerts work in Vancouver metro area?
Thanks.
Hi Victor,
I live in Toronto. Make sure you plug the aerial into the unit or you won’t receive traffic alerts. The alerts are carried by FM radio stations and it is a very cool feature.
Hello Vanski,
What aerial are you talking about, I never got any in the box, is this something you have to purchase separately? I thought the 7100 had built-in aerial.
Thanks.
Hi Victor,
The aerial is a very thin black wire with what at first glance appears to be a walkman headphone jack attached to it. If you look closely there are four conductors on the plug and 2 black suction cups on the wire itself. It plugs into the bottom edge of the unit.
Thanks Vanski, I initially ignored it thinking it was a microphone (oops) until you mentioned it and I plugged in today and drove around rush hour but no traffic alerts…may be it is not available in Vancouver or there may not have been any traffic alerts on my route so I will watch what happens in next few days.
you can go to navigon website and check the manual for your model,it tells you the cities with traffic alert.maybe the traffic is not too heavy for the gps to alert you.maybe you can choose a busy bumper to bumper route day and you’ll see how it works.being in NYC,sometimes i get too many traffic alert and i get angry,sometimes causing me to miss my turn or exist
Total traffic network website says
As of July 1st, we are broadcasting RDS-TMC data in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Canadian coverage is Mon-Fri 5a to 7p.
I have sent an email to them asking estimated time on Vancouver but have not heard back yet…Anybody knows when will it be available in Vancouver, BC?
Thanks.
Nice units. Had one, dropped it and cracked the touch screen, sent it off (Future shop) to be repaired. Came back not repaired because parts are not available. Called North American Customer Service, was told a repair service for the Navigon product does not exist for North America. End result, tossed in the trash. Don’t buy these products unless your prepared to take the loss.
I have had a chance in the last couple of months to try a couple of different units the Clarion N.I.C.E, Magellan 4110 and the Navigon 7100. Sent the Clarion back as the maps were3 to 5 years old with not much hope in getting any updates and returned the Magellan after it started acting up while in route. Basically it would lose zoom and zoom way out while driving in route and sometimes power off so it went back and I upgraded with the 7100. I work as a courier and have had a good amount of time behind the wheel with the Navigon, approximately 15,000 km seat time. Here’s the scoop.
Routing was initially fairly bad though usable till I applied the patch and have noticed a great improvement in routing though still not perfect. You can confuse the unit if you really try to like I did one night. The unit seams to every once in a while fixate itself on a particular street or rout and will do anything it can to get you back there though this happens very rarely and is easily fixable by canceling the rout and making a new one. I use the optimize setting for this. As this seems to be the biggest complaint from most people I think Navigon is well on its way to working out the kinks. Multiple point routing or trip routing is good though an optimize button like on the Magellan would be nice.
The Map is decent though approximately 2 years old which was also the case with the Magellan and I found the Navigon a bit more accurate as far as the map goes, waiting now patiently for the new update to come out in March. One complaint about the map, once you leave the city and are out in the country there is way too much white on the screen. A quick solution is to switch to night mode and turn up your brightness …… works …… or if you know xml change some background settings …….. gonna take a look at that one of these days when work slows down a bit.
The mount is a bit shaky but that might be easily fixable with some spray foam, thinking about trying that one of these days …… I’ll let you know how it works and there are some other options available, just check the forums here about it.
All in all I can say I like the Navigon 7100 and would give it a 1 and a half thumbs up out of two
Hi guys,
well, i have spent 2 weeks looking for a stanav that fits my needs, i even bought a becker 7928 traffic assist, but sent it back after 24 hours.
I like the look of the Navigon 7110 (UK Version), any uk users on here got any tips etc before i buy one, also, where the heck in the UK are they in stock? It seems they can only be purchased direct from Navigon.
I am using Car Vent Mount Holder for NAVIGON 7100 GPS , which uses the AC vent. Worked great!!!!
I have to say I’m loving my Navigon 7100, even despite a niggling flaw with the product.
Let’s get it out of the way: the only thing that continues to bug me after firmware 1.1 is the still-wonky routing. It’s not horrible, but it still often succumbs to that standard GPS routing problem where if you leave the prescribed route, especially a major expressway or street… it will do everything except sprout arms and grab the wheel to get you back onto that street.
I suppose this is good if you’re unfamiliar with the area and may have accidentally wandered off the route and need the quickest way back, but if you’ve purposefully left the route for some reason, then the constant routing shenanigans can be a pain.
It’s not a deal-breaker, however. And the good definitely outweighs the bad. There are a lot of little features in navigation and UI that really make the whole experience incredibly useful and enjoyable. That and the free traffic updates seal the deal.
Hi
I live inthe UK and need to replace my Sat Nav as mine got stolen.
I used to have a Tom Tom Go which I found very good. The only areas where I had problems were
- Going through certain areas of cities with tall buildings – no signal left me totally lost!
- Road split and instructions were not clear enough for me to know if I needed to take underpass, stay on-top or if it made no difference!
- I do a lot of mileage for work and it all has to be logged so I love the idea of this being a feature of the Navigon.
BUT – the reviews leave me with serious concerns. I live in the UK so I am hoping choice of route and customer support will be better. But I am not sure. Are there any UK users who can add their experience? Ian did you get a Navigon in the end?
I am VERY dyslexic and totally dependent on sat nav to get me home (even in my home town). Knowing this Tim would you suggest I do not consider the Navigon over Tom Tom? Also is the Navigon based on the same map routing/software as the Navman? (I tried one of these before I got my Tom Tom and HATED it. Totally unituitive, fidley and often did not take me to the right location).
Please could somebody help advise me? Can anyone show me an example of a mileage log created through Navigon? Is this feature enough to forgive it for all its other shortcomings (in your opion?!)
Thanks, Fi
I need some advice in that I am a new GPS user and have bought but not yet received my new Navigon 7100 unit. My question is, do any GPS models allow you to input destination locations through Outlook or from a Excel spreadsheet?
I would think that this would be very helpful in that you would not need to place this information in the GPS unit using the tiny icons on the unit itself.
Lastly, I read some reviews that felt that the 2GB card was slow and created problems for the 7100 Navigon unit. Since I am new to all of this should I purchase a 4GB card to replace the 2GB card?
Any comments would be appreciated!
Mike – The Dash Express has an Outlook plugin that allows you to send individual addresses. The HP iPAQ also has some software, but it doesn’t work that well. Keep in mind most people don’t keep their addresses formatted “clean” enough to be automatically identified… but the software is getting better.
People do find that a larger faster card does offer a speed improvement, but I’d wait until you get yours to decided if you want to go that route.
Hi all,
Anyone having problems with satellite acquisition for the 7100? Seems I have to wait 10 minutes or more at times, no matter if I’m turning the unit on from standby or the off state.
I’ve also yet to see a traffic signal – even with the antenna plugged in. Of course there may be no traffic problems in my area (or I may be dreaming so
I live on Long Island, about 25 miles east of NYC…
Just wondering if someone could answer the following questions:
- Is the Navigon based on the same map routing/software as the Navman? (I tried one of these before I got my Tom Tom and HATED it. Totally unituitive, fidley and often did not take me to the right location).
- Tim / anyone else – could you show me an example of a mileage log created through Navigon?
- Is the log feature enough to forgive it for all its other shortcomings (in your opion?!)
Thanks, Fi
I have a Navigon 2100 with updated software and maps and I can tell you that of the three GPS devices I own, the Navigon is the absolute worst at calculating a decent route. It doesn’t seem intuitive at all. I have no use for the log feature so I never tried it. I understand that Navigon is coming out with updated maps soon which may improve things but I wouldn’t count on it.
I also have a 2100 with the updated software and I just took a trip from NJ to VA to visit relatives and it did a perfect JOB. the route was great when put on fastest route. I normally leave it on OPTIMUM ROUTE but for this trip it just didnt seem right. I also heard about the map updates but I also hear it going to cost around $100 for the update and considering I only paid a little over that, it is an expensive update….
I dont know if any patches out there, fix any of these problems, but from my first day of use, I would only give a 5 of 10.
I used Garmin & Magellan earlier, they make very good use of screen, and easy to operate while driving.
I do have a few things that I would like to see changed or added.
No Auto shutdown
No Auto Day/Night mode
Jumbled Menus
No Phone Book
No Intuitive Help, specially with FM Transmitter
Touch screen is aweful, never responds
Colors of active/inactive buttons should be changed to something more apparent …Dark Grey & Light Grey is very hard in bright day light
Stylus for operating GPS, sounds inflexible and infact very small fonts
Battery life is bad
Text to speech is very very bad, it can’t say the most common names of US roads properly
POI is at very minimum
No Zoomed view of the intersection on half of the screen
FM Transmitter for music thru Car speakers
I had dropped satellite connection, while Magellan still has the connection, when side-by-side
Have had the 7100 for about 4 days. Happy with some of it, but sad with the main problem of no direct fast route. Wanted to go straight down the road 25mi. with a designated address, it wanted me to head west and added 20mi. to the route.
As for Traffic, it alerted me to 4 traffic accidents on a 200+ mile trip yesterday.
The box and receipt are close by though.
Well, you gotta hang out there until end of April. Hopefully the new update with fix the routing problems.
As stated previously I have used the 7100 extensively now for a couple of months working as a courier. Although the routing is not perfect it is no worse than and probably better than “at times” the routing of the Magellan I had and none of the instability of the Magellan where it would zoom out or shut off at will while routing. I have never had any problems with lost satellite signals or acquiring them …… even from cold it gets 3d navigation in less than 2 min.
As far as the traffic reports go they have come in handy at times though I will not let the unit use them to determine routs as they are no better than the traffic reports that you get from your local radio station …… how many times have you driven by or though an area where there was supposed to be an accident and there was none. The radios report what they are told till told otherwise ….. the same as any traffic network ….. if no one tells them about a problem or when the problem is corrected then they won’t tell us. It doesn’t matter which service you use.
I am sure that allot of issues will be addressed with the new update ….. when thay become available. Though I don’t really care for the fact Navigon has used us a beta testers for their new products I have been more than satisfied with the Navigon 7100.
I WAS THINKING OF BUYING A 7100. I HAVE OWNED SEVERAL DIFFERENT BRANDS IN THE PAST AND YOU CAN FIND FAULT IN ALL OF THEM. THE MAGELLAN WAS GOOD BUT DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH POI. THE GARMIN DID NOT WORK WHEN IT WAS PLUGGED INTO THE CAR CHARGER. THE MIO HAS A LOT OF POI BUT I HAVE NOTICED THAT IT’S ROUTE SELECTION IS ODD AT TIMES. IT SEEMS TO BE PROGRAMMED TO TAKE YOU TO THE CLOSEST HIGHWAY AND THEN ROUTES YOU FROM THERE. OBVIOUSLY, THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE FASTEST ROUTE. AFTER READING THE REVIEWS ON THE 7100, MY MAIN PROBLEM IS THE LACK OF POI. I WANT TO BE ABLE TO FIND THE LOCATION AND PHONE NUMBER OF A PLACE OF BUSINESS BY SEARCHING FOR IT BY IT’S NAME. I THINK I WILL PASS ON THE 7100 AND CONTINUE LOOKING AT OTHER BRANDS.
Love the 7100 and have inside info that the download next week will fix most of the routing “problems”. I’m happy with it the way it is, but expect to be even more thrilled after the download. Expect sales to increase after word gets out on the improvements.
i called Navigon last week,and i was told the new update will be on April 21st and it’ll be free.i can’t wait myself,and he told me it’ll improve the POI
Got my 7100 about a month ago and it looks great and for the most part works as advertised. Haven’t been able to receive any traffic signal without the antenna plugged in and at best a weak signal – living out in the sticks, I expected as much… I guess 20 miles from mid-town Manhattan is too far for reception (about 1 mile from the LIE (I-495)
I’ll update the unit to 7.2 with new maps (if I still have it but since I just got a new 09 Murano with OEM NAV, it would be nice to have I suppose on trips out of town without my car, but if someone wants to make me an offer it could be a great deal for you!
Hey Pathfinder, drop me an email at bvparekh@gmail.com with your expected selling price…
Does the Navigon work with an iMac instead of a PC? I’m looking for a GPS that I can use with my iMac for updates, etc. Thanks!
I had my GPS Garmin2610 for about 4 years, I found one thing is so ridiculous, that the GPS can’t same the turn-by-turn direction and jump to the a sort of page that show the turn-by-turn direction once the GPS lost satellite reception.
and you know GARMIN never listen to customer, they just said you could use in-door use, but we are on the way and looking for the turn.
Whatever, does 7100 has sort of this problem?
Thanks,
Peter
Yes Navigon 7100 provides the function to give you turn by turn directions.
It even has the function to simulate the navigation.
I had a Garmin and before and i thought it was a missing functionality.
Thank you, Sunny,
you means the 7100 is able to show the turn-by-turn direction once it lost satellite reception, and don’t need to change it to in-door use?
Here is the biggest reason to not buy a Navigon: No repair service available. After owning my 7100 only 2 months, it slipped out of my hand while attaching to the mount- hit the gearshift and cracked the face, leaving a huge deficit on the LCD screen. Called customer support only to be told “try calling during the summer- we might have our repair facility up by then”. I now own a $400 piece of worthless junk.
I just bought a Navigon 7100 for [snip, see comment policy]. I bought it because I live in Los Angeles and traffic is major problem and thus live traffic updates should be good to have. I also want to be able to call using the bluetooth hands free feature plus the Lane Assist feature might come on handy. I have yet to test the unit; and althought I have read many bad reviews about the Navigon 7100, for the price I paid, I am willing to take a risk and I excited to try it.
My only questions do I need to buy the Navigon Fresh Maps right away or can I wait to buy it?
7100 owners might want to check out the following thread about an update if they don’t already know about it:
Navigon 1.2 Update and FREE Map Update!
Freshmaps will be free for 7100 registered owners and available ,May 14th for both PC and Mac users.
Along with the 1.2 sw update they are providing a free map update as well. Great news (so long as the date is not pushed out indefinitely
I want to buy my first GPS. Is this unit worth it? [snip, see comment policy] It seems like a good deal, but I dont want trouble and I am not sure what to look for
I bought the 7100 on April 18th as the price was right and included a rebate. Printed out the manual that came with the disk only to find an updated versionon Navigon’s website so printed that one. I live in L.A. and have yet to hit any traffic info and I know there is ALOT of traffic there. I used the antenna as well. All I get is the red triangle. Even worse, my battery lasts about 50 minutes and then its gone. My trip to and from work is only 30 mins each way. It asks me to make alot of u-turns too rather than re-route. I will wait till the next software update on May 14th to see if all the above is resolved with the exception of the battery issue, which may be a deal breaker anyway.
I am glad I have waited to buy my GPS Unit. I have been using a Navman setup on my Pocket PC for years but not having text to speech and many of the newer features has caused me to do research on a consumer stand alone unit. Plus you have to have technical skills to get GPS to work on pocket pc and my wife has no patience for that.
I am still on the fence on which unit to buy but I am interested to hear how the Navigon is working with the latest update.
It seems that each unit that I have been reading reviews has positives and negatives and if the routing and poi issues with the Navigon have been somewhat resolved this will be a unit I might consider buying.
I took mine back to C–tco and ordered another. Hopefully when the May 14th update is on the unit, it will work better, not that it would help the battery problem any. While i was standing in the return line, a man in front of me also had his 7100 tucked under his arm. I asked him why is was returning the unit, he stated the same problems, TMC would not work and the battery. I asked him if he ordered another and he had.
Hi Tom C., I also recently got Navigon 7100 and I too live in L.A. I would like to tell you that you can set up your gps to avoid making a U-Turn. As far as, live traffic I took a trip this weekend to Palmsprings and the live traffic update was extremetly helpful; I probably saved about 1 hour because I avoided the usual traffic. I did experience once a mistake in the map but was probably because they were fixing the road; I hope with the update the maps will improve. I used Garmin nuvii in the pass and I think the map in the Navigon is much easier to follow. I am very happy that I bought this product, specially after the price I paid (just like you, I also got a good warehouse price and rebate).
I’ve been reading comments on this post about Navigon not having a US Repair center. I emailed them about it and here’s what they had to say.
Dear Navigon Customer,
Thank you for your inquiry.
We are currently working to implement an out-of-warranty repair process in
North America. We plan to have this service in place by Summer 2008.
Please contact us at 888-848-0701 Monday through Friday 8am to 10pm EST if
you have any other questions or http://www.navigon.com/site/us/en under the
Support tab.
Sincerely,
Navigon Customer Support Team
Hi Excited, Im happy to hear yours is running great. I got my replacement one last night and gave it a good long charge. This morning all I did so far was put in my home address and an address I will be goin to in Las Vegas next week. I will work it going home tonite. As for the u-turn problem, I kept it on default which was “u-turn off” when that happened with the old one, I made sure this new one shows off as well. The new one I got was packaged different than the las last one, I dont if its a newer model or not. My first one had the memory card separate from the navigon itself, in its own plastic holder. The one I got last night was already installed inside it. Ok, will keep you posted.
Does anyone know if Blake Bowen of NAVIGON is still working there? I sent him an email asking for some insight in the 7100, one was kicked back as “undeliverable” and the other one is floating around somewhere in cyberspace.
I noticed he has not posted on here for quite some time….if anyone has been in touch with him, can you please let me know? I am ready to pull the trigger on my first GPS and wanted a few things clarified….he seemed like the guy who could do it.
Thanks!!!!
RS Fan,
I e-mailed Blake on April 27 and he replied to me on April 28. Blake.Bowen@navigon.com
Thanks, Brian…I tried sending him another one. Hopefully, he’ll reply.
QUESTION FOR GENERAL AUDIENCE:
Does anyone own a Navigon in metro-Atlanta? I am curious to hear how the traffic feature works in our Automobile-saturated Metropolis???
Thanks!!
I hope Mr. Blake Bowen is still reading these comments??
First question – where’s my 4g SD card that Navigon was VERY recently touting that this more expensive unit was going to ship with?? Their website “now” says… “oops”-we don’t do that anymore, but if you bought it last November, we’ll still give you the card. Shame, shame. That borders “bait n switch.” I wouldn’t expect that from a company that touts being in the GPS biz since 1991.
So now, after only three days I’m returning my 7100 for multiple reasons. The review pretty closely represents the functions and abilities of this manufacturer and model. VERY cumbersome interface.
I can appreciate the ability offered to have many options to preferences, but once those options become cumbersome – it does the user no good.
However, I will say satellite acquisition was very good, and was able to recalculate a change in route very quickly as well, however, the unit’s incessant… and I mean INCESSANT need to make you do a U turn was COMPLETELY annoying. Often the unit was attempting to make me take a U turn on a route that I found less convenient rather than a route I knew better that I was trying to take.
I like the style & design, including the sleek arm. The arm seems to be one of the BEST suction cups, VERY secure. I really appreciate the swivel head design, and have had no issue with it breaking, or coming loose as other’s have stated, albeit I’ve only had a couple days.
I have EXCELLENT 20/20 vision, yet I, too, found many many menus & text too small and quickly became annoying. In the upper right corner – satellite, traffic, battery status icons lie which are virtually useless. Navigon should have saved the processing power or did something else with the icons. They’re essentially useless! Seriously.
Now I come to my biggest complaint about the 7100 and I imagine all the Navigon series, regarding the battery life. I believe Navigon borders false advertising in this area, too!!
Navigon should NOT even advertise the battery at all, or at least NOT to the extent they have. If you expect to use it exclusively with the battery – DON’T!!! or… you at least better be packing your charger, or car power adapter!
I did call Navigon’s support, upon which I found one possible solution for poor battery life, but was dismissed after my further testing proved it wrong. The Navigon has a standby mode, which can drain the battery. An annoying side issue I found was that the support person (Derrick) told me I had to push and hold the power button for FIFTEEN seconds just to turn the unit off. Annoying to sit there for 15 seconds JUST to turn it off! As I said – this did not correct nor help ANY issues with the short battery life.
Part of my reason for returning the 7100 is because of my conversation with Navigon’s phone support (Brian). Brian tried to make excuses for the short battery life, stating the advertised battery life is “best results.” Being in the electronics business – I’m completely aware of “best results” and the tests that are done to acquire those results. They are all done under the MOST optimum conditions, which generally, are never true life conditions.
When it came down to it – Brian flat out told me I won’t get 4.5 hours of use and that my 1.5 hours (which is the MOST I’ve got) is more common results. I did ask if Navigon had ANY fixes for this issue, and he told me there were none – that was the best I would get for battery life. Brian then quickly dismissed me, ending our call by asking if he could help me with anything else. What help did he give me??!?
To sum up battery results – you’ll be lucky if you get 1.5 hours – let alone Navigon’s advertised 4.5 hours. And more likely you’ll get an hour – NOT even a quarter of the advertised battery life. HORRIBLE. My Magellan 4250 (comparable) gets nearly 5.5-6 hours of constant use!! I’ve been running side by side tests.
Mr. Bowen… WHY is Navigon touting in ALL it’s documentation and advertising 4.5 hours?!!? I dont’ believe Navigon EVER got those results, unless you tested with absolute dim screen with EVERY feature turned off? I don’t believe it’s possible!
CONCLUSION:
SAVE YOUR MONEY. There’s currently rebates being offered with this unit, which in fact does, as someone already mentioned, indicates newer versions coming out. But I would STILL save my money and wait for at least several generations of any Navigon product. If you want “pretty” – the Navigon is for you. If you want a good functioning GPS, get something else, or wait and check out Navigon down the road, maybe SEVERAL years. Other manufacturers have more of a grasp with clean interface and an ACTUAL battery life.
my 2¢
Barry
Portland, Oregon
I have been using my 2nd 7100 (first one I returned) for a week now and it appears I will be returneing this one as well !! Looks like Barry has encountered the same problems as we have. I was going to wait for the May 14th update but it certainly won’t solve the short battery life. As I write this, I am re-charging it. I live only 25 mins from work. On a “full chage” I lose one bar of the battery in less than 25 mins, then I turn it on again to go to work and the low battery icon pops up. Im sure Navigon did not make the batteries but you would think that they would contact the battery vendor and make arrangements to have ALL these batteries replaced as faulty. Again, I get told to make U-turns even when when the U-turn is turned off. I wont get into the other little problems I have had with it in my prior writings here. I will be returning this tonite. I have been looking at the brand new TomTom 930T, it boasts alot of the same things this one does and more (price is higher too over $500 right now). I did give navigon the benefit of the doubt by returning my first one and ordering a second one btu the results were the same and is echoed by most other users here.
After reading Tom’s comments (which were more short than mine and better to the point) I guess I realized there “does” seem to be rather quite a few inherent issues, for more than I mentioned.
Even with a car AC adapter, a “mobile” device that essentially is immobilized because of it’s battery – is a complete deal breaker for me. Besides this major issue, I’ve forgot about a main point regarding the “U” turn issue. I also had turned OFF the U-turn feature, and the 7100 unit STILL tells me to take a U turn. I feel more like a beta tester.
Mr. Bowen from Navigon stated here in this review comment,
“It is the nature of the consumer electronics
category: today’s “advanced” technologies must
continue to evolve (and do so, at shocking pace).
Virtually every technology product out there goes
through some sort of upgrade to improve or
enhance its operation. Our own GPS competitors
routinely release upgrades to address issues that
their users encounter.”
There are “new” features or new technologies that can be added to a device, and then there are just plain glitches that have to be fixed before releasing. These two ideas are very different, and shouldn’t be mixed.
Please, Mr Bowen & Navigon – don’t have me pay you – to be your beta tester. Fix your navigation systems BEFORE releasing it to the public. My bottom line: Navigon has got a good idea, but just a LONG ways to go until they have something good.
BTW – I’m still returning the 7100.
I trully don’t understand why people hate this machine so much. My mother, who is 67 years old and who hardly knows how to use a cell-phone thinks it was easy to use. I set the machine to give directions in Spanish, I showed her briefly how to use basic commands and she said she was very happy with it.
Yes, the icons could definetly be bigger and perhaps battery life doesn’t last as advertised but this is still a great machine. Much better than Garmin Nuvii which I had a chance to use for a year in New york city/New Jersey area. The garmin nuvii was wrong many times. From day one, I hated the machine. I hated it when it said “recalculating”, I hated the map; the map was busy, full of colors for each of the roads.
I remember clearly the first time I used it, I type directions to cross from new jersey to valhalla and the stupid machine send me to a state park; that I will never forget, and that is how I judge this 2 brand of GPS. I own the Navigon 7100 for about a week and so far my experience is 100 times much better than with the Nuvii and the directions has been accurate.
Yes, in the POIs I can’t find walmart, costco, the post office in laguna hills, etc. But I still think this is a much superior product then Garmin that I used last year. I love the lane assist and reality view on my Navigon. Yes the price that I paid is much lower than the Garmin 660 and I will not return it; In fact, I am thinking of getting another one at the same price for my wife and mother.
The bottom line if my 67 yearl old mother, who is not tech savy, why can a smart, tech savy consumer use it?. I just don’t get it?
To “Excited”:
to begin, “truly” is spelled with one “L”
As for the technical aspects of the 7100…
I would base my own personal critique on comparison and use of several other owned GPS systems, and ones that are more comparable – not just comparing to one system.
I can’t speak for your grandmother, but if she has no frame of reference to be able to compare – she probably won’t know the difference between a good product and a bad product such as the Navigon 7100. Of course she’ll think it’s wonderful.
I’m not speaking about the lack of ability in operating the 7100. I’m fully capable of operating it, and understand it’s features, but understanding the unit doesn’t change the fact that it’s interface is clunky, not smooth at all, and plain buggy.
On the other hand – I already mentioned I thought it one of the best GPS systems for acquisition of satellites. It’s very fast to pick up when a route is deviated from, but it still provides incorrect routes, or some that plain just don’t make sense.
All of it’s few, good points are overshadowed by it’s many more flaws and outright bugs in it’s system. (The unit will attempt to do U-turns still even after that feature has been turned off.)
Lastly, one cannot ignore a MAJOR component of what’s part of a “mobile” unit – the battery! It doesn’t operate even near what Navigon has quoted for this unit. Sure I can plug the car AC adapter into, but what’s the sense of having a battery built into it then? If the battery is that crappy, get rid of it altogether, make the unit much slimmer and make it an “in-dash” unit. Right now- that’s how it has to operate with the deplorable battery life.
BTW – I will plug the Magellan 4250 now.
Not the fastest satellite acquisition, nor quick to recalculate changes, but it’s the SLIMMEST 4″ screen I’ve seen, light, and it lasts me 4.5 – 6 hours on a single charge! Now that’s MOBILE!
I think that if the battery lasted even at least 2 hours, I may have waited until the new update comes out on the 14th and if that fixed the glitches and then maybe I would have lived with it. To not even acknowledge that they have this problem with the battery is a bit disturbing as well. As I said, most likely they do not produce the battery and if they changed battery vendors or agreed to replace them, that would be a step in the right direction. Obviously there are batteries out there that last much longer in other GPS units, just not this one. The technology IS there.
Thank you for helping me with my spelling. I know you are much an expert on GPS systems; However, I only giving my two cents, from and average Joe. I am sure your Magellan is much better but I got my Navigon at a bargain and is good enough for me.
TO: Excited -
I purchased and own both the Navigon 7100 and Magellan 4250 for [snip, see comment policy]. You “might” have matched that price, probably not, but I doubt you beat it. However, there’s no need for patronizing sarcasm nor the need for – “my toy is bigger than yours” comments in an area that’s meant for review. Don’t let your hurt feelings dictate your comments.
I merely pointed out & compared GPS units – the magellan 4250 as opposed to the Navigon 7100. I was never bragging. I only commented on your grandmother’s lack of experience with GPS units, in that – she has nothing to compare to, so of course she’ll think it’s the latest & greatest. Kinda like always having burger, and never having steak.
If you can live with the glitches and poor battery life with the Navigon – hooray! You were able to find a unit you like and can live with glitches. However, I simply can’t tolerate obvious, known software glitches, and more importantly, deplorable battery life.
As I’ve previously mentioned – battery life is essential to me, especially with a device that’s supposed to be “mobile.” Unfortunately, the 7100 doesn’t even last 1/4 the time Navigon advertises and promotes it capable of. Other GPS systems… “such as”…(again a “comparison”) …. such as the Magellan 4250 last nearly six hours.
I agree with Tom C – I “might” be able to live with SW glitches, but battery life for a mobile electronic device is near the top of my list. Without power – you aint got a ‘mobile’ device. Some of the glitches might be able to be corrected with later updates, however, that also depends on how long Navigon allow free updates for the 7100, and more importantly, how long they decide to support the device itself.
Mr. Bowen from Navigon said it himself – technology changes rapidly. Typically, technology updates within 6 – 9 months, sometimes less. Hardware itself is outdated and becomes unsupported anywhere as short as one to three years. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who bought Apple’s first generation iPhone. LOL!
It would just be nice if one of those rapid technology updates were to fix the poor battery life with the 7100. I’m still returning mine. Nobody, nor anyone’s grandmother has convinced me otherwise that the 7100 falls short of what Navigon is selling it as.
Just for the record, I own a Navigon 2100 and I’m not going to try to deny most of the negative comments but perhaps try to put everything into perspective.
I really don’t see what all of the fuss is about the short battery life. I think that most of us connect the car adapter almost all of the time we use it anyway. After all the traffic antenna is in the adapter cord so the only way you are going to get traffic reports is to have the adapter connected. But if the short battery life is a problem one has every right to return the unit but it doesn’t mean that it is bad for everyone.
I have had some issues with the way the unit works but I think the company is really trying to make things right. I downloaded the full update to the operating system and was very pleased to find out that the company included a complimentary map update for everyone. They didn’t have to do this so I am impressed.
I haven’t had a chance to test the unit since the update but I’m sure it still isn’t perfect but then no GPS is perfect. But at least we know that the company is working to make improvements and they are relatively new at it compared to Garmin and TomTom so we need to give them a chance.
Hey JeepLover -
I would definitely like to hear your results now that you’ve run the update, especially with the weird routes the 7100 takes me on, and the U-turn issue. I’ve heard others comment – but seriously – the 7100 will take me on the weirdest, and often, not the best route, so it would be great if the update fixed some of these issues.
How long have you had your 7100? I ask because you know that you’re able to get a certain amount of “free” map updates with the purchase? (don’t take this wrong) So…it’s not like Navigon is doing you a favor. It’s part of the”deal” you paid for. So, I’m curious to know how long you’ve had it?
As for battery life – I’ll try to qualify my own previous remarks. I would think for the simple fact alone that the 7100 is supposed to be “mobile” it should be able to run from it’s battery and at LEAST for the amount it’s advertised. But you could also make the comparison with another mobile device – a cell phone. You could always keep your mobile phone plugged into the car adapter, but why should I be expected to, since it’s suppose to be able to run off the battery it comes with. I mean… if you buy a car and it’s advertised to having four tires – shouldn’t you be able to expect it to have four tires and be able to drive on them… “all” the tires?? I’m not always going to be lugging around an AC adapter, especially when switching between cars. We also don’t use our GPS exclusively with a car. Our Magellan 4250 is so slim (nearly half of the Navigon 7100) we use it when we’re on foot in larger cities (NYC, Chicago, D.C.)
I guess if you need to plug the traffic antenna in as well, it makes sense that you can also plug the power in. But I gotta tell you – this is one area that I’ve already given kudos to Navigon. It has a very quick response time with satellite acquisition, and along with that – I’ve actually have never had to plug the external traffic antenna in. In the short time we’ve been using it – it’s always given us traffic updates – WITHOUT the antenna. So I would still argue the mobility issue – even with the traffic antenna.
I would still be interested in your results with your new updates on your 7100.
My first GPS device was the TomTom910, but was stolen recently when I gave it to a friend. Just got the Navigon 7100 and used it this past week end for the first time. Like the Reality View and the Lane Assistant. The battery life is questionable from what the manual/manufacturer claims to be. Not even close to two-hours.
Would I recommend it to someone? All depends on the needs of each individual(s). I still have to take a long drive across several states to make a firm judgement. Until then, I love like the 7100 thus far. There are several GPSs in the market just are there are several cell phones and digital cameras. All depneds on ones need to get what best suits you. But manufacturers should not advitise wrong infirmation just to attract buyers.
Bx. NY
I have been reading the reviews and am really on edge about buying the 7100. I’m aware that ALL systems have their problems but none like I’ve ready about with the 7100. I purchased a Garmin Nuvi200W for my brother and LOVED it until the battery died and I found out that I couldn’t navigate, even while it’s plugged up to the car adaptor.
I went into [snip, see comment policy] yesterday and spent TWO LONG HOURS playing around with the different systems. Garmin was automatically excluded, as I need something that will work while being charged. I didn’t like the navigation appearance of the Magellan, so it was down to the Navigon 7100. Right now I am so turned off by not only the reviews but also by the store I visited. Now, the 7100 was a little sluggish but not to the point where it will cause you to miss a turn. My concern is: Does it show cross streets? How is the reception…. does it loose its connection often? and, Does it really navigate while being charged with a car adaptor?
For those who are trying to use online sales in stores:
I went to the [snip] yesterday and their Navigon 7100, retailing at $689 and on sale for [snip] peeked my interest. However, I received a call letting me know that [snip] has them on sale for [snip] plus a [snip] rebate. A sales Rep. explained that they would honor the [snip] price, however, went to the back and told me that they didn’t have that unit in stock. WHAT? They just tried to sell it to me at their “sale” price! So, I call this morning and speak with Andre, an Associate, and he explained that they have TWO in stock. I go to the store just to be told that they will not honor the lower price. I aclled [snip] corporate office and they couldn’t figure out why the store wouldn’t honor it. Robert at corporate said that he will contact the GM and call me right back. Well, it’s been almost three hours and I’m still waiting to hear back from Robert or the GM of store [snip]….
This entire process has been frustrating! Even with the reviews I’d like to try out the Navigon 7100 (I can always return it, BUT I have to first get it. Will update when I have it.
Thanks to all posters… the feedback was VERY helpful!
Tiffany – The Garmin devices (like most any other GPS) can charge and be operated at the same time. Something wasn’t correct with your brother’s setup if it was behaving that way.
Barry,
I don’t own a 7100, I own a 2100 as I stated. I bought it on Black Friday for 99 bucks with free traffic included.
Since I have 2 other GPS units, I haven’t used it much and not at all since the update. I plan on giving it to my son as a graduation present. From what I have read, I understand that the routing has improved but I have no personal experience. I don’t live in an area with traffic so I wasn’t aware that it is possible to get traffic without the antenna.
I won’t debate the battery issue but to me and a lot of other people, battery life is a nonissue.
As far as the free map update is concerned, I know of no other GPS company that has provided a free update to someone who has had their unit as long as I have so it IS a big deal for me.
My only problem now with the 7100 is that I can’t use it any longer… well, I can, but with the OEM nav in my 09 Murano LE, it just doesn’t make sense!
Free Map update, traffic, Zagat and good looks – and at a price point I couldn’t resist!
I had the U turn problem until I shut it off and U turns no more, go figure. My Granny would have loved it – with her little fingers
Blake Bowen…..if your are still around….please reply to my emails and/or comments on here. I am looking at purchasing a GPS ASAP and would appreciate some feedback on the questions I have sent.
Thank you
Thanks Tim!
I went and bought the 7100 — the store gave me the price I wanted… FINALLY! I still have quite a bit of testing to do , however, I noticed a few things that I don’t really like aboutt eh system.
1. The volume at its loudest setting isn’t loud enough.
2. You can’t incorporate contacts into your system from your phone for use with the Bluetooth function.
3. The ball with window mount doesn’t give you much flexibility as far as rotating it to a view that works best for every height of person. I’m 5′8″ and it doesn’t suite me that well but it’s something that you can deal with.
The good things about the 7100:
1. The color display
2. Haven’t had any problems navigating thus far. It hasn’t taken me out of my way.
3. The touchscreen works very well. I don’t need to use the stylus and my fingers aren’t that small.
4. The voice command works very well when saving a destination as a favorite.
5. The mount is wasy to use but I can see how it can easily break. A clip would be better.
6. The POI’s that are close to me such as a gas station or bank show up with no problem.
Finds:
1. When entering in a destiantion make sure you click the right state (a little symbol is at the top of the screen) and then your zip. I find that it pulls up informaiton much easier rather than trying to enter in a street first.
I’m still going to test the 7100 to the fullest while I have a chance to return it. If I find things that I can’t deal with by no means, I’ll be getting a Garmin… maybe the Nuvii600.
Overall rating for the 7100: 8 out of 10
I just recently purchased the Navigon 5100 after my Cobra Navone GPSM 2100 was stolen and after owning the Cobra for over a year and the 5100 for about 2 days now, I have to say I definitely like the Navigon better. The Cobra 2100 had a terrible habit of encountering a program in the middle of navigating and I would have to shut it own and power it back up again to start my routing over again. Inputting addresses was far too long as the 2100 would have a terrible lag after entering any letter of the street. Also if you weren’t anywhere near your intended address it would take forever to calculate a route. I’ve also read some comments about Navigon having you take too many U turns, that seemed to be my problem with the Cobra. And don’t have to make a quick turn after making one previously as the Cobra would not notify quickly enough to make your next move. Now I liked the Cobra because it was a lot more user friendly as far as the menus go but I would never purchase the Cobra again. The Navigon I like so far it only took about two minutes to acquire a signal fresh out the box and living in the DC metro area having reality view is a big plus. I do wish the volume was a lil louder and the letters a bit bigger but I can live with it. Routing seems to spot on and with the Cobra it would tell you that your destination is ahead and wouldn’t tell which side of the road your location was on which is a huge pain in the rear end espically if you are not familiar with the area. Also the Cobra was terrible at recalculating a route if you missed a turn it would take forever to recalculate and by the time it did recalculate you had already passed the turn it wanted you take which forced it to painfully and slowly recalculate once again. Love the free traggic feature and came in good use today going back to work as it picked up the delay which was an overturned vehicle and the ramp I needed to take being closed and rerouted me around the delay and got me to work in time. I also plan on purchasing fresh maps as to get 3 yearly map updates which seems like a great deal versus payin 150.00 for a DVD update. Like I said so far so good with the Navigon 5100 and I plan on making another post once I take this unit on a real road trip.
Hey JeepLover -
thanks for your input. I understand to a lot of users battery life isn’t an issue, but as I’ve mentioned before, we use our GPS as a portable device as well, which requires battery, and I only expect the least of what Navigon has advertised – 4.5 hours, which it can’t even get 1/4 of that.
I will tell you in comparison to the Magellan, at least in our area, once the 7100 is locked in with satellites, it’s very quick to recalculate, better than our Magellan. And yes, I’ve actually not had to ever plug the traffic antenna in. That’s also impressive.
I still have to try the updates to see if that fixes some of the other issues. I’m not too keen about a lot of the small screen menus either.
Hi All, Just got back Friday froma trip to Vegas and I took the 7100 with me. I programmed in where I was going and off I went. At 33 miles into my trip, the navigation started acting up. By that I mean it would start a sentence, and then maybe 12-15 seconds later, a few more words from prior sentence and then the whole thing just froze up. All I got now on the screen is the navigon start up screen but no spinning timer, just a frozen picture of the Navigon start up picture. I try to turn it off, it wont turn off. I unplug it thinking the screen will turn off, but we all know that in about 50 minutes, the battery will run down anyway and it will have to turn off itself then. I reach the city of Barstow to take a stretch and I plug in the navigon again. Starts right up as if nothing happend. So I tell it where I want to go again and this time it takes me all the way to Vegas. I have no idea what that glitch was. Now coming home, im in the San Bernardino area and the navigon tells me to keep left to the 215 freeway, well the 215 Freeway is on the right side of the freeway. Im assuming that the new update will fix that due to the new stretch of freeway in that area. I also got my first two traffic info alerts since I have owned it. It appears that you just have to be able to pick up a STRONG signal from where ever you just happen to be to get it. So, as I said in my last message, I will download the new update this Wednesday and see how things are after that.
I own a 5100. I bought it in Dec 07. Ive always kinda been on the fence about it. Some things good, but some oddball routes. Voice isnt real loud, but it is clear. I dont jam out when looking for something anyway & hitting the turn indicator will repeat the last directions. The odd routes bothered me the most. At 3.99 a gal for gas I dont need extra stops & miles! The sluggishness prior to the update was kind of a pain. The lack of retail POIs was too.
On the plus side its easy to use, the screen is easily read I think. Its small writing but I glance & pick up all the info. The mount is odd looking but works great. (unless you have a straight up windsheild like a Jeep Wrangler. I find the battery life on my 5100 (3.5″ screen) is not bad at all. In fact If its less than a 2 hour trip I never charge it. I also have never used the traffic antenna which is like the 7100s (the 2100 is in the charger) I get traffic alerts from far away. No complaints so far on that.
I also now have an unopened 7100. Waiting to see what the update for it brings. I was going to sell the 5100 & use the 7100. Now, thinking I may try a Nuvi 660. The Garmin has high reviews tho it isnt much to look at. The screen on my 5100 is much better IMO. I will say after update 1.2 (and 1.2a) on my 5100 it is improved. The goofy zig zag routing is pretty much gone. At least from what Ive seen, users of the 2100 still get the exit highway, enter highway again directions I read. The touchscreen is MUCH faster then before. There are now real retailers on the POI. (walmart, Lowes, Menards etc) It is suppossed to have a new map however there is a new shopping center since 2006 in my town & its still not on there…
There are a few oddball directions. (turn onto a one way street!) The intersection directions seem off by about up to 500ft at times, other times dead on. Weird… Addys are almost always right, maybe 150ft off at most. Like one yard over I guess on a house filled street.
But my two friends with Garmins complain theirs is as “dumb” as mine when I complain about my 5100. In fact on a trip to FL my friend’s son took his 2100 & the other car had a Garmin & the Navigon outrouted it to the point where car with the Garmin just followed the car with the Navigon. Was it user preference & routes selected? Who knows, Im just repeating what I was told.
All this talk of the 7100 battery has me worried though. As does the lockup trouble. (my 5100 never has hiccuped). Id hate to upgrade to a bigger screen only to find I cant use it for more than 30 minutes. There are times I use the 5100 to navigate to resturants or stores. I never take the charger so its a “clean” setup in my car for the trip. I dont want to be taking the charger running that cord for 2 hours of driving.
peace
Still going strong with my 7100 since getting it as a Christmas gift from my wife last year. The battery on my unit lasts just over an hour. I usually leave it plugged into the lighter socket when I’m in the car. Battery life is sufficient for to/from work trips, or to bring the unit inside to program new addresses into my favourite destinations without plugging into a wall socket.
The screen is quite visible with surprisingly good contrast even on sunny days in day mode. The traffic feature works great in Toronto, and the unit has been a real time save a few times where the highway was blocked by an accident. Pulling off the main highway the 7100 would quickly recalculate a good surface street route to get me to my destination. The routing improved with the most recent update and will no doubt only get better. The free map update will be welcome on future trips I plan to take to visit friends in the USA.
Van LaPointe -
I’m glad to hear the updates have improved software performance. It’s encouraging to hear, as I’ve not had time to try implementing them. It’s not the software performance I’ve complained about – it’s the hardware. Need to have BOTH.
I’ve mentioned for our personal use – we have multiple cars, and don’t want to be lugging an AC cable car to car. This is besides the fact that the 7100 battery is “supposed” to last over 4 times what you’re getting now. I have to go back to what Navigon advertised as a 4.5 hour battery life in a “mobile” device.
There are many round trips we take that are more than an hour total. And heaven forbid if you don’t hold the power button down for 15 seconds to shut it down as their phone tech support instructs to do. If you don’t – you end up only putting the unit to sleep. Do that on more 1/2 hour trip on battery – you’re hosed.
I’ve been speaking with someone from Navigon (not tech support) and at this point – it doesn’t sound like they have any concrete solutions or option for users stuck with the battery issue either. I was told, “I’ll let the guys in Germany know.” Wow! That helps me! Im’ encouraged. >:-p
Hardware & software need to function to the specification Navigon quotes and advertises – OR FIX IT. Simply put – you’re not getting what I paid for.
Just bought my first GPS; the 7100 last month and I am loving it, the realty view is amazing, all other features are great…couple things I did not like
1) Life trafic does not get good signal outside major cities.
2) On/Off/stand by function is not user freindly.
I’d recommend this product to everyone… [snip, see comment policy]
When the 7100 upgrade was announced for May 14, I wanted to err on the side of cautiousness so I went out and bought a new SanDisk 2GB chip to make a duplicate of the Navigon 7100 chip and use the duplicate for the upgrade. I found that any SanDisk 2GB chip that can be purchased over-the-counter will check out to about 1.86GB while the Navigon 7100 chip checks out at 1.89GB (i.e. the Navigon 7100 program cannot be placed on any SanDisk 2GB you can buy on the open market.) I’ve considered buying a 4GB SD chip since the Navigon 7100 is not SDHC compliant!!! There are some 4GB SD chips out there but the question now is whether th Navigon 7100 can handle a higher amount of memory even if it isn’t a SDHC variety of memory. Where (or how) Navigon got the SD 2GB chips with excess memory is anyones guess but its clear that it may be wise to purchase any spare chip to be used for upgrades from Navigon and not try to fight the system!!!!
Navigon was originally going to ship the 7100 with 4GB SD cards and then changed policy, so apart from not supporting HCSD I think 4GB cards would work well and might even speed things up a bit.
But why bother with the second card if itls a hassel, just back up to a folder on your PC.
BTW, did the upgrade and all’s well
Yo ….. Henry
“I’ve considered buying a 4GB SD chip since the Navigon 7100 is not SDHC compliant!!! ”
Have you check this with Navigon or read any other posts here in the forums?
http://www.gpsreview.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5737
http://www.gpsreview.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3434
There is 2 posts just from a quick glance.
Currently in my 7100 is a SanDisk Ultra II 4 Gig SDHC card and works great. Non Compliant ….?
The reason your 2 gig card comes up as smaller in size than advertised is the same reason that a new hard drive you install in your PC does ….. that is because your operating system reserves space on the drive …. ie your sd card in this case. What Navigon did was make this reserved space smaller just like you can in your computer. Will the new update fit on the old card …. not sure but I may just try it to find out.
Deno,
Can you elaborate more on the upgrade/all wells comment?
Like what improvements have you seen? What is still lacking?
Thanks
What I meant really is that the upgrade process was uneventful – no glitches or gotchas…
I haven’t checked many features as I have a new car with OEM nav, so i’ll either give the 7100 to my wife or sell it… (hint, hint )
i recently upgraded the software to my 2gb card and I did have to use disk utilities on my mac to reformat the card and erase all data so that the 1.8 or so gigs would fit… but it did all fit and the upgrade went smoothly- so far all who are concerned the 2GB card is just fine..
Re my first post (#165) I have been able to purchase from TheMemStore thru Amazon a Transcend 4 GB SD MLC Card which works fine in the Navigon 7100. This is not a SDHC card. Transcend tells me that the MLC stands for “Multi-Layered Card.” I had previously backed the original Navigon 7100 SD card program into my computer memory. Before the 4 GB card arrived, I re-downloaded the Rev. 1.2 upgrade and installed it into the Navigon 7100 thru the USB cable and then did a back-up of the Navigon card into computer memory. When I got the 4GB SD card, I copied from the Rev 1.2 backup from computer memory to the 4 GB SD Card. Plugged the 4 GB card into the Navigon 7100 and it worked fine with no problems. So, now I have the original Navigon card program backed up in my computer, I’ve upgraded the original card to Rev 1.2 and backed it up into computer memory and then copied that onto the new 4 GB SD card. All works fine. The only problem I’ve encountered is that the upgrade to the Navigon 7100 SD card works much better when using the USB cable hooked to the Navigon 7100 GPS than when I tried doing the upgrade to that SD Card by plugging in it the computer SD slot. Like they say — Back up the SD card before you start anything!!!
I don’t know if anyone else is aware of this issue, so I thought I would pass it along and the response I received from NAVIGON support.
————————————————
I recently installed version 1.2 on my NAVIGON 7100 and then took a trip to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this past weekend. I loved the
Reality View, Lane Assistance and Speed Limit display. I did encounter one issue with which I need help. I stored the POI speedway and hotel
in my favorites; however, when selecting them from favorites, I received a message that the destinations could not be loaded. I got the same
message when selecting them from last destination. Does the upgrade not allow the storing/retrieving of POIs under favorites? Also, I am unable to delete these POIs from favorites. Your assistance to correct this
issue is greatly appreciated.
————————————————–
Dear Navigon Customer,
Thank you for your inquiry.
Thank you for taking the time to let us know about this issue. Unfortunately this is an issue we are aware of and at the current time we are investigating, but do not have a solution. Thank you for your patience while we work to correct this issue.
Please contact us at 888-848-0701 Monday through Friday 8am to 10pm EST if you have any other questions or http://www.navigon.com/site/us/en under the Support tab.
Sincerely,
Navigon Customer Support Team
—————
To Audrey -
well that kinda of sucks! You get the response, basically…. “yea, we know there’s a problem we just created in our NEW update we just provided, but yea… YOU’RE stuck with it – we don’t have a solution.”
Nice going Navigon!
I had Favorite Destinations saved before upgrading to 1.2 and they work fine after the upgrade.
I just hope they could do something about the battery.
I totally agree. My 5100 battery was acceptable, the 7100 not so much. Very disappointed in it. I have the screen brightness turned down also.
Sunny & Andrew -
I’ve commented SEVERAL times about the battery, and have to date been told about 3 -4 contradictory things regarding the battery. I’ve also personally corresponded with Blake Bowen of Navigon who also commented here in this forum. Mr. Bowen now ignores my correspondences once I called for a solution to the deplorable battery life.
Of the 4.5 hours Navigon claims for the 7100 – I like others – have gotten 1 to 1.5 hours, at best! One of the things Navigon tech support has told me DIRECTLY, is that “standby” time is 4.5 hours, and operating time is around one hour. Unlike cell phones that advertise a “standby” & “talk time” – NO WHERE does Navigon advertise, promote or otherwise a “standby” time!
Secondly, Navigon tech support has told me is that the BEST I should expect from my unit is around 1 to 1.5 hours. That’s almost verbatim what I was told by Navigon, too!
Now, again, Navigon has changed it’s tune. Just today I received a phone call from tech support … informing me that what I’m experiencing is unusual and that I should call them back to see about setting up an RMA.
Hmm??! I wonder how long of a process that’s going to be if I choose to do it, and after everything I’ve heard about the lame batteries in the 7100’s – if it would even be worth the time, knowing I’ll probably just end up with another lame battery?!?
I’m curious if Mr. Bowen is still even reading this forum since he posted it in himself??
I found this unit on [snip, see comment policy], had it for a week, take it back to the local store and bought a Magellan 4210 instead.
Pros: Great interface, time zone aware changes time when crossing times zones), Bluetooth, updated maps! Free Traffic.
Cons: Horrible mount, the arm onthis ting is so long, it wiggles like a gigantic wet noodle. The rotary mounting on the arm came apart the first time I snapped it on. (JUNK)
Touch screen, would not respond at times, would have to wait up to 30 seconds, and yes I did update it with the latest updates, it was the very first thing I did!
At the end of the day, the fact the thing would not mount solidly and the non-responsive touch screen, was enough for me to return it.
My old Mio C310X – still the best little GPS I have tried. I should have bought a new one.
so over all is this a good gps or not i want one but dont know witch one to buy i like the trafic updates for life that looks cool a friend has a nuvie 680 he drives a bus all over this country last year we went elk hunting in co. it had a billy goat trail up the mt. that was amazing but this looks like a good gps so should i buy this one or not
Tom – With the full review above and 178 comments, many from people who have purchased the device offering their opinion– I’m not certain people will have a whole lot more to offer to your “is this good or not” question.
I must say the Navigon 7100 is the worst product I have ever purchased. I returned this unit after only one day and one trip; I will detail it a little for you now.
First off I took this on a known route just to check the performance and the features that attracted me to the unit. It took 15 minutes to acquire the GPS signal, I felt this was a bit excessive but figured it would be faster the next time, didn’t happen, every time you turn the unit off expect to wait 10 to 15 minutes to acquire a signal.
I was not impressed at all with the touch screen sensitivity, even after I calibrated it it still required a very hard push so I found that the stylus had to be used or you could use a fingernail. Since the keyboard and all the buttons were so small my fingers just wouldn’t do the trick.
After finding the POI I was traveling to; this wasn’t as easy as other units I have used in the past, it could only be accessed by searching through the city listing instead of under it’s category.
There are two routes to this destination and it automatically took me to the longest and slowest route. I tried rerouting with all the available route parameters and no matter what it would not recognize the shorter route. I decided to just use the fastest route option and headed out. When I came to a rest area the 7100 would try to route me through the rest area and then back on the freeway, I had to laugh at this maneuver. Then when I came to an overpass it wanted me to exit, go across and back onto the highway, I couldn’t believe what this unit was telling me to do, I found it hard to believe that these maneuvers could possibly make my trip faster. It did this on every overpass so decided to recalculate using the shortest distance. This took away the silly maneuvers and I proceeded to the exit I knew I needed to take even though the unit wanted to route me into Wyoming and then back into Montana. By the way the short route is 140 miles while the route the 7100 calculated is 175 miles and 25 minutes longer.
After I turned on my known exit I figured the unit would recalculate and find this shorter route, it didn’t, it kept trying to either turn me around or telling me to turn on the next road. This is where it gets really funny, there are no other roads, every road it said to turn on didn’t exist, it was either a farmer’s field, a pasture of just sagebrush and hills with no paths whatsoever. I was laughing so hard at this point because it would not recognize the route I was on even though it is a major highway.
This went on until I was 27 miles from my destination and it finally decided I knew where I was going. Up until this point it was still trying to take me back to the original route and had me traveling an extra 67 miles.
By the way, it did the same thing on the return trip and every time it had to recalculate it took anywhere between 2 and 5 minutes to reroute, I was not impressed to say the least.
I did get exactly two hours and thirty-five minutes of battery life, this too was totally unacceptable.
I took the unit back that day and got my money back.
If you are looking for a unit that can only get you to your destination from one direction or are looking for something to make you laugh at all the silly maneuvers it comes with, this is the unit you want.
However if you want to get to your destination in a timely manner I suggest you look elsewhere. Myself, I am going with Garmin, I have a Magellan and am not impressed with that unit or the 2006 map update I purchased this year as their newest update.
Tom, two main reasons for me, touch screen sensitivity and the wobbly mount will be enough to drive you back to the store, and with the price of gas, it is not worth it… I went and got a Magellan, still not happy, it is going back this week, and I will order a Mio instead.
Everyone or some in particular are so worried about battery time. It’s really for convenience of putting in your favorites etc in the comfort of your chair at home or hotel, not really meant for navigating unless you are walking. Not a very important item in my opinion. I currently own a Nuvi 760 and previously a nuvi 660. They both have taken me on wild trips while crossing the country, when good interstate routes were available. i will have my 7100 tomorrow [snip] and will compare the two as i make at least three major trips a year (5000+ miles). Just returned from a 9000 mile trip and garmin 760 really routed us badly twice for a total of 600+ miles. Not sure how many extra miles it added but time wise it was bad. I’m looking forward to using the 7100 and seeing for myself if all the complaints are really fact based or just improper set up of the unit. Will probably post in a few weeks what i find. But, Garmin is not the answer to all the problems, my good friend drives semi and it (660) has but them on dead end rural roads more than once. There is no perfect GPS at this time that i know of.
I have a really dumb, simple question. I have the Navigon 7100 and cannot get it to take an intersection as a destination. I know the system can do it but can’t seem to crack the code. Can someone help me with that. Otherwise, I like th eunit so far (2 days).
Ed I have to agree with you, accept instead of returning it i have made the mistake of just dealing with it for the past year, what a waste of money.This device gets you from A to B (and never the easiest way), and that’s about it. The traffic warnings are never actually there, and it’s gotten to the point where they just seem to get in the way.
The user interface is absolutely rediculous, and there is no software update that can possibly repair a sluggish touch screen, that warrants 3 touches of the same button before it actually registers. The mount just started to go on me aswell, so now when i have to use the clumsy touch screen i have another obstacle to deal with. I’m going to get a Garmin if no one else has any other suggestions. How can Navigon possibly put out a product that functions like this? what an embarrassment.
Alec- you need a software update. Go to the website and you should be able to download one from there. I think intersection destinations are something they just included in their software update released a few months ago. Good luck.
Hi there! I have been using the 7100 for a few years now; but I been living in Europe for a few years too. The 7100 in Europe is like the top of the line when it comes to “navigating” the roads; but it does not handle as your common devices found in the US (example Garmin, tom tom popular brands over here in the US) But like always we all specs the new toy to work the same way as the old one. From a tech guy point of view (I do not work for NAVIGON) changes are good; is the only way to compare and improve for the next. And now the purpose of this posting is am looking for ways to modify “Windows Embedded CE 6.0″. It comes installed on the 7100 series. Every time I manage to boot to windows and do certain changes to what I want windows reset its self back to the original settings. I think that is because it does not have backup battery installed to prevent changes made by user… Any way to be able to see windows boot up you will have to prevent windows from launching any “startup files” (it is more simple than how it sounds) On the 7100 series locate the power button- under this one there is one more button press and hold that button while inserting the stylus in the reset hole. KEEP HOLDING the button till you see a GRAY SMALL BAR across the bottom of the screen. That’s it! Tap the grey bar with the stylus and you will see Windows CE! Keep in mind it is not a complete windows embedded Ce 6.0″ it is strip to work very efficiently with navigon software. Now I hope you all good luck!! Brewing new tricks for the NAVIGON 7100!!!
I had just ordered one and i will come back here and report on how it does. I have had others and they are ok.. i really love the looks of this one.
So – does Navigon have European and UK maps available for the 7100 to purchase? That might be a deal swinger for me.
Wendell — For the European and Uk maps use this link
http://www.navigon.com/site/uk/en/maps_services/navigon_fresh
is in english, and download the navigon fresh software…
I have just received my Navigon 7100. I read through most all of these posts before deciding to go ahead with my purchase. Including the extremely repetitive postings on battery life… From MY perspective… no one elses… my own… I intend to use the unit plugged in most always, so it is not a concern for me. Is it sad that the advertised battery life appears to be a gross over-estimate? Sure. But, not a deal breaker for ME for the reason I just stated above. Everyone has their own uses for equipment, and what may be a deal breaker for one, will be a non-issue for another. Something to keep in mind.
I have come to expect not to receive advertised battery life in electronics purchases in general. 95% of the time this is the case. The discrepancy from advertised battery life vs. actual battery life will vary, but rarely will you find a product that actually achieves its spec’d battery life (in my experiences).
With regards to the bug in the POI that a recent poster reported and the subsequent response by Barry: I fail to see the significance of that. It is recognized as a known issue. This is common in software. There are known issues, that are often stated in release notes of software updates (comment on this later) all of the time. It’s common. Happens all of the time, and is nothing but ordinary in the software world. I frequently download updates for my editing software. With each update, they fix some things, break a few, and have a few that they still haven’t been able to fix, or do not have on a high priority in comparison to other bugs that need fixing.
The main comment I have so far about the Navigon 7100 in my very limited use of it, is in documentation. I’ve not found it convenient to obtain the latest information and documentation regarding the unit. Something that could certainly be looked into… But, with a bit of patience and googling, I’ve been able to get up to speed and am currently downloading the 1.2 update with the new map… We’ll see how that goes.
I purchased the unit b/c it has good reports on it’s ability to get you from point a to point b and can even do so with a little flare as well. I also purchased it b/c I found the free traffic reports to be a nice bundled feature that isn’t offered anywhere else.
I live on a remote dirt road currently. The phone company can’t even find my address. And, of course, the GPS couldn’t either by keying it in. I did save the coordinates of this location and mark it as my home however. I then chose a local gas station (small gas station that I didn’t expect to see in the POI, but was pleasantly surprised to see it come up), and began my trek to see how the gps would get me there (or not) especially coming from a backwoods country road that doesn’t even show up as a line on the GPS unit. As I started, I was pleasantly surprised to see that even though the road does not even show visually on the unit, it somehow managed to know exactly how far I needed to go and that I needed to turn. Got me on the county road that took me to the highway, and I uneventfully arrived at the gas station. Drove around a bit, and was again pleasantly surprised to see a fair number of poi’s pop up along my trek in this small(er) town of 10k people. I keyed in my folks address which has nothing but a caution light and noticed that the poi showed the one gas station on the outskirts of that town.
I’m sure there are a lot of poi’s missing, and maybe more will be added with the new map update and all. So far, though… I was encouraged to see many lesser known places pop up… Even a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant known only by the locals here shows as a point of interest. I’ve never used POI’s before, but I just may start using them after my initial encouragement.
I don’t know what has/has not changed since the initial review. I will say though, that I have not experienced any button lag. I have smaller fingers and don’t find it too difficult to use the touch screen in most “while in use” circumstances so far. It is definitely recommended to use the stylus to key in addresses though, and when navigating through other similar menus. Calloused fingers (from guitar) have always wreaked havoc for me on touch screens, so I don’t mind using a stylus, and hey… at least it’s there.
I am pleased that they did not skimp on the included accessories and was pleased to see the included usb cable, ac adapter, and car charger, as well as the external antenna for traffic reports. For the price I paid (which I was very pleased), I wouldn’t have been surprised to see some of these things conveniently omitted from the box.
Anyways. Sorry for the long winded post for such limited time spent with the unit thus far. I will say again, that for the very first conditions I put it in, I was quite pleased with the navigation ability of the unit (albeit for a short trip with a few intentional wrong turns to see if it would indeed give me a new route, or try to get me back on the old one… it did give me a new route once I got to where I was heading away from the main road it wanted me on). And, so far, it’s been pretty easy to setup and find various locations in my experiences.
I try to be aware of what I want to get out of a purchase. I try not to get too caught up in the negatives of things. The unit does (more than) what I want so far. I didn’t have expectations of grandeur, and thus far have been pleasantly surprised.
Take care,
Jason
I would also like to add regarding turning the unit on and off. A little piece of paper in the box with the unit said to hold the power button down for 6 seconds to turn it on. I did so, and it came on in less that 6 seconds… (5 or so, but around there). When I attempted to turn the unit off the first few times and turn it back on, I quickly realized that I was not turning it off all the way, but was kicking it into standby mode (documentation would be good). So… I figured, I would reverse the process. I counted to five or 6 while holding the power button down. This turned the unit off. It takes about 5 seconds of holding the power button. Not ten or fifteen or whatever was reported above. At least for me.
REGARDS to Jason’s post:
If you don’t mind having extremely poor battery performance on a mobile device – I guess that’s a personal preference. For me -a mobile “battery” device means just that, “MOBILE” and able to operate on battery if/when necessary. And although I may not always expect to receive 100% of advertised performance, I do expect to receive better that 1/4 of what’s advertised. Our Magellan 4250 model (equivalent to the 7100) actually DOES get it’s advertised battery life – and actually….better.
To begin with what I told Navigon corporate headquarters when they personally contacted me regarding the battery issue: One person’s concern is no less important than another. If mine is battery performance, and another is POI, they’re no less or greater than the other – but important none the less, and they completely agreed. Most people don’t understand that position of customer service.
I’ve already come to some serious resolutions directly with Navigon HQ in Illinois over the battery issue and have personally been in contact with them on several occasions via telephone. I’m happy to say they’ve actually initiated battery testing and tracing battery manufacturers/suppliers to further address the issue. So despite what Jason might think of as insignificant, it seems Navigon themselves feel it important enough to initiate an investigation.
But to further report on battery/AC-DC performance……..
We recently took a day trip, with several points/stops along the way. We kept the unit plugged in the entire time, shut down every time, except one stop where it was put in standby mode. We were told by HQ the unit should have been able to run all day (24/7) but rather the unit lasted less 4 -5 hours and we were unable to finish our routed trip (at least using the GPS unit) We’ll have to do another “test run” with several points on a route to see if we get the same results, but it should be noted the 7100 may not last as long (even plugged in) with several points entered on a route.
Granted – we’re not getting rid of the unit over the battery issue. I’ve been assured Navigon is working on the issue, and receiving the quality customer service from HQ that we did, I feel confident they’ll actually address it and do something about it… unfortunately… in a newer model probably. Until then, we’ll enjoy what I’ve pointed out before: quick calculating times and free traffic reports.
Happy Navigating
Barry: Just a “what if” suggestion from one who was scalded by the “accessory port” of an automobile. Some cars turn off the power to the “accessory port” when the ignition switch is turned off. Obviously, you can tell if there’s external power coming into the N7100 if the light right below the NAVIGON insignia is lit. …but if you’re on the way out of the car it’s hard to remember to look for the little light under the front of the N7100. Hope this is useful. Chuck
I connected directly with Navigon regarding additional maps outside of NA and they confirmed that with the introduction and release of Navigon FreshMaps, they will be making lots of various map packages available including single and bundled countries.
FreshMaps is available for download from the Navigon website now. Given that I can pick a 7100 up from [snip, see comment policy] for an unbelievable price, I am starting to lean away from Garmin & TomTom and towards Navigon. They seem to be the Hyundai of the GPS market. Good value, great price-point, reasonable reliability.
Can anyone comment on how the 7100 compares to the TomTom 7xx & 9xx and Garmin 7xx series?
Ooops — forgot about the store and pricing data, my bad.
Navigon have also confirmed with me in an email that they are finalizing out-of-warranty service facilities in North America soon – although they weren’t able to commit on a target date. Good news for Navigon owners and buyers-to-be.
Chuck -
Are we talking about the same model? My model is strictly “7100″ – unless you’re just referring to it in short as “N7100″?
I’m aware of what you’re referring to when the power port of a car is turned off with the ignition. Most cars do this, and I know the power system of our Saab, but regardless I have the power adapter hardwired to the fuse box.
But even so… I believe you’re mistaken about the light below the device, and my conversation with Navigon HQ confirms this. The only time the light on the lower side of the unit turns on is when you’re charging it from a home electrical outlet. Orange when it’s in the process of charging, and green when it’s reached full charge.
Otherwise – when operating the unit in the car with it plugged in – the unit will indicate it has power with a small icon of an electrical plug in the upper right corner. Otherwise – it indicates a battery icon if it’s not plugged in.
In any case – with our day trip it didn’t matter if I the unit had power when we made stops during our day trip. As I mentioned – I completely turned the unit itself off when ever we stopped. There was only once I left the unit in standby, and that was for, at most ten minutes.
So there’s still a little mystery there from our day trip that needs further testing and investigating.
At any rate…
Hello,
Navigon 7100 road warrior here circa Christmas 2007. When the unit is plugged into the cigarette lighter adapter it will also light up orange while charging, and green when fully charged. If your unit does not illuminate when plugged into the adapter then you may have power/connection issues at your cigarette lighter receptacle. Also, the part of my adapter that plugs into the lighter socket has a red status LED that lights up when it is powered. I have driven for many hours with the unit plugged in and it eventually fully charges while I’m driving. I’m not sure why Barry’s unit would fully discharge while plugged in.
Van
I just downloaded the N7100 latest update, it took a total of 22 minutes with Rogers Cable Internet Extreme at peak time. I don’t know what everyone is complaining about it taking hours, that is not a Navigon problem, that is your connection and you get what you pay for.
About the pwoer problem, I would suspect that the power problem is most likely your end. I plug my 7100 in and like as has been mentioned here, it runs 24/7 and maintians a full charge on the battery. So either you have a bad unit, power cord or bad charging system.
I am always reluctant to use a cars charging system to charge anything, it can really be a battery killer to a vehicle with a weak battery or one that is on its last legs.
jww, I recently (2 days ago) sold my Garmin 660 and before that I briefly tried Garmin 760. All of those units are great, delivering solid navigation. I went back to 7100 when I learned that recent update delivered almost the same quality routing as Garmin’s. On top of that, Navigon offers beautiful maps, free traffic, reality view. There is just no comparison to other GPS out there, especially now when routing issue was fixed.
I finally got my hands on a 7100 today, for the first time ever. I did some initial side-by-side testing with a Garmin 750 and TomTom 920. While I will give input ease to the units that have qwerty keyboards, I really liked a number of things about the Navigon. Screen colours and icon size is fine. I have been wearing progressive lenses and reading glasses for a few years, but don’t need them for driving. I found the size of font, and text, etc. acceptable. All in all, I wouldn’t say any one single unit was better than the other — and while I do agree that the buttons on the 7100 are small, I found that I used my fingernail tip tanyway on the other units as well. It was a tad slower on input, but I really liked the predictive input with the listing to the left hand side of the address entry screen. I think that I could easily live with any of the issues, it’s such a good looking product — i.e. the screens are outstanding, the TTS is nice and loud. Making non-North America maps available, and fixing the repair depot issue makes them a more viable option now, to Garmin and TomTom, imo.
Chuck -
I got mixed up regarding the power. Yes, when the unit is plugged into the car’s power, the light underneath is green. However, you don’t have to try to squint in the sunlight to see the the light underneath – just look for the “plug” icon in the upper right. of the screen.
Tom -
In regards to the recent power problem…
I’ve already confirmed there are no issues on our side… no issues on the side of our auto with power, and no issues with the car power adapter. The only thing I can think of is if the unit got slightly unplugged at one point of the trip, but I don’t believe it did. So, yes… most likely the issue is within the unit or battery.
I don’t know why the unit would completely discharge while plugged in, but as I’ve already mentioned – not to rule out any possibility, the mystery is going to require another lengthy test. Unfortunately, we don’t have any day trips, or long trips currently planned.
ok here is my 2 cents worth on the navigon 7100. I live in the Toronto area. The unit itself performed quite well overall. I will list the negatives first. As the reviewer has said, the first and most obvious problem is the number of clicks on the keypad it takes to actually register a keystroke. A great deal of patience is required when entering an address, but its not impossible. Secondly the well known battery life issue, i got about 2 hours after an initial 24 hour charge, then it deteriorated from there to about an hour. The poi menus were really not overly bad once you got the hang of them, but they could still be a minor source of frustration if you clicked the back icon, instead of the sub menu. Im wondering why Navigon didnt use a more logical approach to Pois with a more direct search option. My last two points concern the Traffic, which living in the Toronto worked well for the first 2 or 3 days that i had the unit and then nothing for ten days, i know its not Navigons fault, because its an independent supplier that provides traffic. When i contacted them i did get a fast response to my question (about 30 minutes or less). They advised me that there was a problem with the Toronto traffic antenna and they were working diligently to repair the problem, but ten days come on. My last complaint with unit was that the posting of speed limits never worked at all, and therefor the warnings never worked either and i did have those features turned on. As far as the unit itself, the routing was fairly good it even found a quicker way to work which i now use. The mount was very good and strong. Pois were good although a few were out of date. The startup and location of satelites took less than a minute on most days and it never lost the signal after it had aquired it. It was really accurate and rarely messed up on the navigation end. Overall id give a 7 out 10. But in the end i did return my unit, the main reason i returned it was the keypad and now im holding out for the 8100 which promises to trump anything that is out there.
Sorry about the long review, if i think of anything else ill include it or if anyone has a question, id be happy to answer.
Take care
George.
Good unit on paper, great features. I got for a week the 7100, went right ayay with rev1.2 to avoid old issues. ok. To use it, you need patience, then support-arm broke, then after 1 week the unit can’t be power on. totally dead. I returned it to TigerDirect.
Quality-Roburtness should be improved.
I’ve never had any problems with the speed limit posts. They’ve always worked and have always given me warnings if going over the speed limit – at the point of warning I’ve set.
On the issue of the support arm breaking…
I would like to hear from people who have had their support arm break. The suction cup is very strong.
I would like to know where & how the arm has broken on them. I’ve had our arm in the car for several weeks and have had no issues with it. We even keep a windshield screen in the window. When we put the screen in – it always has to be pushed up and over the arm, and still we’ve had no issues.
Where is the arm breaking on people?
I got the Navigon 5100 one month ago. I chose it over other brands because of its price and the life time traffic. I live in LA and tested it on my normal route as well as some longer trips. My experiences are:
1) Display Quality: Image is very sharp and clear with good contrast.
Traffic information: Extremely helpful. I normally previewed major alerts before a trip.
2) Design: Very sleek and stylish.
3) Voice commands: Instructions clear and accurate. Volume is low. Will get a little speaker for amplification. Wish they can announce sooner than .1 mile for turns (sometimes they do and sometimes don’t).
4) Touch screen key pad: Very sensitive – don’t have to tap more than once to enter the data
5) GPS lock on signal after power up:~ 2 min.
6) TMC signal reception: Very good. Never use the antenna.
7) Routing: Very good. Recalculation is accurate. Told me to make U turn once and it was necessary.
9) Traffic Avoidance: Very helpful. At one incident, it redirected me to Vincent Thomas Bridge. It is my personal route to avoid traffic but not well known. Even traffic.com does not pick it up but the 5100 did it correctly.
10) Real view: Very helpful. It lets you see which lane to take in confusing highway intersection.
11) Lane assist: I have no idea what this is supposed to be.
12) Menu navigation: A little confusing at first. “Back” button sometimes takes you all the way to main menu instead of to the previous one. There is no “Cancel” button if you make a mistake in some steps.
13) POIs: Plenty for me. Wish that you can just tap on the screen and select the POI. Wish you can search POIs by name.
14) Battery Life: Never tested this. Always plugged in when operate in car. At home, always charge it full with my Motorola cell phone wall charger.
15) Window arm mount: Don’t even bother to try. Will get a vent mount instead.
I am very happy with the product so far. My husband is amazed with all the features and gadgets this little thing offers. The price was rock bottom. I’m keeping it for now and if it ever acts up in the future, then we can always return it.
I bought my Navigon 7100 to use on a holiday trip. It was in the first 5 days when I discovered the local that our local Wal-Mart wasn’t in the system. The road that the store was on or any other store on the street was missing. Wal-Mart had been here for 3 years that told me the map in my new navigon 7100 was at least 3 years old. I phoned navigon and the nice man told me I had to purchase the map updates for $79.95 I said I couldn’t understand why, the machine is only 6 days old. He insisted that I had to buy the new updates but I refused. Since then I have found many errors in the system. It can’t find its way around New Brunswick very well it doesn’t know where The Trance Canada Highway is in that province and it had me going the wrong way on a one-way street in St John. I would not recommend this GPS to anyone. You would be better of with a map and a compose. I paid $329.00 for a guessing game piece of junk. If Navigon can’t stand behind there product I’ll slam them every chance I get Eldon Booth
booth.e@netzero.net
Yes, the pin to unlock the GPS to the arm broke, so the GPS is kept being locked to arm. The concept is looking fragile and difficult when you are distant from device .
About the sw:
-The option to mute volume is useless, the voice is always coming back.
- The speaker sound is noisy, not natural.
- The option for Zooming in/out is not trivial, too much sensitive, sometimes the continent is displayed without contacts to the screen.
I think the next generation will be #1 once Navigon will fix some problems.
Pierre, just because you can find an error for a place that is three years old doesn’t mean the maps are three years old. (And they are not.) It isn’t as if when they produce a new map it is 100% accurate to each and every street that exists at that instant. Unfortunately, 3 years is relatively recent when it comes to mapping.
Also, not all known POIs are included as in your Wal-Mart example. Most GPS devices only include about 5-25% of all known POIs, unlike the map database where they strive for 100% inclusion.
I would also add that one missing Walmart does not mean the 7100 is a terrible product. I have used 7100, then Garmin 760, then went back to 7100. I have been going to the same Burger King for almost two years. It must be there for many years before that, yet none of GPS’s I used had this BK. I don’t think stores like Walmart need to have POI anyway. I am pretty sure everyone knows where they are.
To Tim & Vadim:
Beauty. Brains. All in one box; That’s right off the navigon add It sounds to me like you two work for navigon. Read all of my complaint not just the first sentence. Would you be happy if you bought a new Car and the motor was 3 years old? The company has all the new updates available why were they not in my new navigon. The thing tells me to go the wrong way on a one way street ARE YOU GOING TO PAY MY FINE! It’s a toy and it should be sold as a toy at a toy price.
Wow! sounds like you had one bad experience… My 7100 works like a charm! No one way streets in my experience. In fact, I like it better than my OEM nav in the car.
As for the ad-speak, maybe so, but in a whole lot of cases it’s just the truth. If Navteq is routing down one way streets te wrong way – we’ll all wind up in a bad way! But not so far… Got my update and installed it no prob. My only issue is battery life – but I keep it on DC so it’s moot.
Eldon, if you want maps that are 100% accurate today… or even 100% accurate to three years ago then you will have to go make the map yourself because they just don’t exist.
There are basically two major mapping companies in North America, so any GPS you find will have a 99% chance of being used by one of those two companies. The mapping company NAVTEQ uses is used by about 70% of all GPS companies out there.
You don’t have to like it– but it is what it is. You can go purchase another GPS, but chances are it will have the exact same maps.
I agree that Navigon is not perfect, however, after the recent update, which also includes most recent maps for free, it performs not worse than other GPS’s out there. Like ALL GPS devices, it requires some common sense. That means if it tells you to make a U-turn, it is your responsibility to make sure it is safe to do so or even legal. Same thing goes for turning into wrong way streets. If Navigon is your first GPS and you purchase another one, I can almost guarantee that you that it will give you funny directions sometimes or some Walmarts will be missing while the other non-existent appear.
A great Forum. I ordered my 7100 yesterday and it will arrive tomorrow. Having read the forum I feel well prepared to address many of the issues. My expections have been well tuned.
Later this week I will head out on a 1,000 mile road trip with many side trips along the way. I expect to have the unit set up and ready to go to take to all of the locations. It should be a good test.
I do appreciate all of the inputs int he forum, they have been very helpful.
Tom: Vadim:
See how many states Miss Navigon can pronounce. When I was in Maine of course the short form for Maine is ME. so I was in the state of me. St. is the short form for street or it could be the short form for saint some times I was on a street and other times I was on a saint. Vadim this is part of my beef,navigon will not give me updates I have to buy them. My unit was shipped on the 27. of July 2008 the updates were suposed to be out the 1st. of Aug. Bill Gates honors updates longer then that. If you can get updates for free on a 7100 feel free to let me know how its dun.
Thank you
Eldon
Eldon – Updates to the 1.2 software and the maps are still available… and I suppose always will be. Simply go to the site and download them. A GPS can not guide you through ignorance….
So I had a Garmin and it pronounced “Doctor” instead of Dr= Drive. Things like that. Not the biggest problem. Text-to-speech is not fully perfected yet. It’s a computer that translates text into speech! When you come up with a way for it to distinguish ST between Saint and Street, you’ll be probably worth half a mil per year.
Despite the negative comments, the positive features, reviews and pricing were too good to pass up at current pricing at [snip]. Had a Garmin. Ok but flaky on approaching intersections (late). Got the 7100, downloaded update and gave it a try to my local driving range on an access road next to a major hwy in CA. Found it with no problem. Went to Houston on business. Found every destination no problem. A little late on 1 interchange. Plenty of warning (multiple times)on change of direction. Much better than Garmin. Map is very current. Haven’t tried Traffic or Bluetooth, just A to B and couldn’t be more pleased. Best deal on the market.
I recently purchased a 7100, it has software version 1.2 installed, as is mentioned in some of the previous comments, DON’T BUY ONE until they get some more of their bugs fixed. Yes, it is a slick unit and it seems to work OK in the city areas, but part of the reason I bought a GPS is because I have a travel trailer that we camp out in. I’ve set the GPS for a state park, I set it with an address, it directed me to another street, in the middle of nowhere and stated this is my destination. Another time, I set the GPS at a campground entrance using the latitude and longitude. Later when I used it to get me back to the campground, it told me I was at my destination .6 of a mile before I reached the entrance. Coming through South Carolina, I had the avoid tolls feature set. The GPS led me off the main highway, when I got off the main highway it told me to make a U turn, this happened numerous times. Mind you, I’m getting all this wrong information, making corrections and I’m towing a travel trailer. When I turned in the last bug, the support people told me to buy the latest edition of their “maps”. I stated, buying the newest “maps” probably wouldn’t have the problem I just reported, fixed, because I’m just now bringing it to their attention. If someone reported this bug prior to the release of the maps update, possibly the problem has been fixed, but neither I nor they knew if that was the case.
Richard:
I totally agree with you. When I was in New Brunswick my 7100 didn’t know where the trance Canada highway was. I went into a store that sold the 7100. I went to the manager who told me that his store was the biggest in the chain of stores in Canada I asked him to find an in town street on the 7100 that they had on display, he couldn’t. I guess no one on that street would buy one they wouldn’t be able to find there way home! But then again, if you already know where you are going the thing would work great!
Cheers
Eldon
I have used my 7100 now for 2 months without any trouble. I don’t know why people are experiencing so many problems. I have tried out 2 other GPS units and they were returned with a week. The 7100 blew them away. As with all electronic mediums, you always have glitches. I also would like to have a 4 gig card. The 1.2 update allows the 7100 owners a few MB’s as a buffer, I think this is my incidental gripe. What are you all using for an SD card when switching to a 4 gig? Has anyone had any transfer problems???
Re: 223. Gary read comment #171. It will be useful to you. Chuck
I have owned a 7100 for more than 6 months and I love it. In fact, I’m seriously considering selling my wife’s Tom Tom 920 and getting her a 7100. The 7100 finds satellites more quickly, calculates routes faster, has a brighter screen in daylight, has more accurate maps, and doesn’t “argue” with me so much when I alter my route.
The only things I wish Navigon would improve are battery life and the traffic receiver. I always have to use the external antenna to get traffic alerts and I only get about 1.5 hours of battery life. However, I consider these minor problems since the 7100 performs so well in all other respects.
It would also be nice to be able to connect and control the 7100 from my computer (like the Tom Tom) but I knew it didn’t have that feature when I bought it.
tbirdguy, if you are wanting to get another Navigon I would get the 7200T, which is about to released. Your wife could have the 7100.
How can i use the 12V AC adapter for charging the Navigon 7100 outside of the car .. it has only 2 little clips with can’t fit in the regular electrical socket, can i charge it by using USB cable?
I wanted to buy one Navigon since I am interested to get the traffic update. But like in case of tomom, this unit does not display traffic update on the navigation menu. If one needs to get traffic info while driving, they should work with the number of menu options to see the traffic incidents ahead.
I recenyly purchased a 7100. I was amazed by the clarity of the sceen. I really don’t understand all of the negative comments. This thing is awesome. The reality view and POI’s as you travel makes this unit worth the price. I have a garmin also. My college aged daughter gave me cool points for the Navigon 7100. It is functional and Cool. As with any product, we have a wish list. Get rid of the flemsy traffic antenna. It cuts into the cool points.
I read most of the reviews before purchasing my Mavigon 7100. At that time I promised myself I would write a review after my wife and I took an extended road trip with the 7100.
Out of the box I had a little difficulty navigating the screens. However after a short period of time I was set up with my firet destination (995 miles) and hit the road. Within 100 miles I was impressed. The first instance was as I was drining along on a 10 lane highway in a major city. My wife said I could stay in the HOV lane all the way through and out of town. Shortly after her directions that sweet Navigon lady advised me to get into the right lanes to exit onto another highway. The right highway I might add. Without Navigon I would have proceeded a good bit out of my way. At the poin in time My wife decided to leave the driving to me and Ms. Navigon. At that point in time I got my moneys worth from Navigon and we proceeded on a very enjoyable and successful trip.
It is not a toy and once a user has learned all of the functions and features it is a delight to have along on a trip or merely in town looking for a specific address.
Two great features are the Traffic Reports and speed warnings. Saved me time and I’m sure a few speeding fines.
And, it is fun to use wven my wife is now an expert and has gotten accustomed to another woman in the car telling her what to do. Something I couldn’t accomplish in 40 years
I can’t say enough bad things about this sorry excuse for a GPS.
RUN ! Do not buy! Warn the others! Where do I start?
1. Takes FOREVER to lockin on a signal.
2. Updates? Forget it. The company is asleep. Had to wait for months for the first update, took 3 days to down load from there sorry web site.
3. Ease of user interface? LOL not a chance… you get lost at Hello.
4. Realview? LOL Really…..hardly ever…..
5. Freezes up.. crashes…
6. Had it about a year now and it has finally died for good, will not turn on now. Reset not working.
7. In the past had to hit the rest quite often…. Do you know how irritating it is to have to pull over, find a needle to reset the device?????
I hate the Navigon and I think the company CEO’s should be arrested for selling a lie.
I’m going to smash mine with a hammer and burn it….. I have been waiting for this moment for sometime now !
Free at last I m going to stick to the Garmin or the TomTom.
Wow! Seems like you have some issues here… I love my 7100, so my guess is you had a bum unit! Customer svc was prompt (if not always telling me what I wanted to hear about the updates) and while I had some “moments” with it that were frustrating – you have to remember it’s a machine…
If you were so miserable and couldn’t wait for it’s demise, why’d you wait a year? You could have taken that hammer out much earlier
Well Juan… I purchased the 7100 as a christmas gift for my wife. I didn’t want to take it and crush it in front of her and she didn’t want me to suffer the fact that I had made a bad decision.
She left last night on a road trip and as she was trying to leave, could not get the 7100 to power up. So i gave her my Garmin 250w and sent her on her way.
As she was pulling away, a smile filled my heart, I knew what I had to do.
After about 5 minutes of hitting the reset-on off switches … It finally came on….and then……. I THREW IT ACROSS THE ROOM !!!!! And shattered it !!!
As it lay there blinking giving me the last error code of its miserable life, I picked it up and threw it in the kitchen sink and watched it drown with much satisfaction.
I will tell my will none of this, only that I too could not get it to come on.
I have to leave now and go buy her a real unit.
I have decided on a Garmin 880 or a 260W.
I and glad that you are happy with your unit… It just shows that God wants even stupid companies to eat.
Navigon should just stick to making flashlights or something simple.. Maybe weaving baskets or something….
Slam AND Dunk! Now that’s what I call a Navi Gone!
The 7100 is really a moot issue for me now as I brought a new car with OEM Nav… Good luck with the Garmin – I bought my wife a Mio last year on Black Friday for $99, great little unit and very configurable..
Looks like someone is in need of anger management classes. I would take advantage of those if I were you. If you want Nuvi 880, go for it. I bet it is a solid unit and performs as described. But paying $800 for a GPS with less functions then the one for $200? Come on, that’s simply retarded. I tried few Garmin units after I’ve used Navigon and came back to 7100. There is just nothing like it. The future possibilities look even more appealing.
Jeff, if you still have your broken unit, I am looking for accessories. I will take it of your hands. E-mail me at xxhaimbondxx@aim.com and we could work something out.
I have brought Navigon 7100 last year. From the day one, I am seeing the touch-screen issues in the device. The POI search is really horrible. I was not able to find the warehouses like Walmart and Costco. I have finally called up the Navigon support for a repair of touchscreen. But POIs will still haunt you when you will try searching for them.
Only better feature is the traffic rerouting. So far Navigon stands nowhere near Garmin in terms of response, user-interface and ease to use the device. Leave the advance features apart, first fix the basic features !
Yeah Juan….. it’s a Navi Gone !
As for you poor Vadin… where do I start????…..
1. Your Anger is a good thing. It only needs training if it hurts someone. Venting your anger is healthy… keeping it inside… hurts yourself. No one was hurt during my release of emotions. No management classes needed.
2. I pay full retail for very few things… I would never pay $899.00 for a GPS… thats what [snip] wants. I can get a new Garmin 880 [snip] w/free del.
3. I wll not sell the pieces to you. I have to break the evil cycle and place my 7100 to rest. I will not allow it or any part of it to continue. I know this is hard for you…. it’s for the best.
4. But what disturbs me the most is that you are living in a fantasy world… Here are the facts.
1. The 7100 got decent reviews when it first came out.
2. Now… well just check this site….. very low ratings….
3. Low rating means that you are taking your chances when purchasing…
5. Vadin my friend…. I am pleased that you are happy with your 7100 but many of us have higher expectations…. just read the reviews… More of us are unhappy with the performance…. than there are happy.
I wish you well !!!
P.S.
I just bought a New Garmin 260W [snip]… its basic but it turns on every time !!!
Jeff, be a nice dude and sell me a mount. Why waste it?
My fellow navigators,
I may have fallen to the Navigon trap but I just bought the 7100 unit couple of weeks ago.
I’ve read every post and blog on the subject (including your invaluable inputs) and still decided to go with it. Main reasons being:
1. The 7100 unit presents the best ROI out there. If you simply do the math of features and services divided by price, you’ll end up with the same conclusion (given you’re not buying a defected unit…)
2. At the end of the day, how often do you use the POI’s or Bluetooth connectivity or any other advance feature? 90% of time we drive around the familiar block, to/from home/work, etc. If the basic turn-by-turn navigation and TTS work properly, the rest is a nice to have. Let’s not get to picky… Still, it’s very convenient and nice to have all the advanced features on the 7100.
3. The single most important advance feature to me is the traffic updates, and I’ll explain: Thus far my cars had built-in GPS. The only good trait they had was the big size screen. Otherwise, touch screens were lousy, graphics was poor, updates cost money and were complicated and worst off all, I always found myself standing in a huge traffic jam (I live in NY metro area). The idea of having a PND with built in traffic – and free – was very appealing.
4. From all the PND’s I’ve examined, the 7100 had the most pleasant physical design and graphics (yes, poor argument, I know).
So, now after using the 7100 for couple of weeks (not extensively, I’ll admit), all of the above consideration materialized.
Before I started using it, I’ve flashed the unit with the 1.2 SW update which I assume fixed some of the bugs described in earlier posts.
- The touch screen works well and is sensitive enough;
- Finding an address is easy and the auto-complete feature is helpful;
- The voice recognition feature saves time;
- Routing is quick and logical;
- Traffic feature is working well, though you need to use the external antenna to make full use of it;
- The speed warnings (voice) are helpful (though reminded me of my Mom…:-)
- Window mount, speaker volume and physical integrity are solid;
- Zaggat POI are showing nicely on the screen, though I haven’t tried searching for them;
- Navigon’s Service center was responsive and helpful;
The only disadvantages I came across thus far are:
- It takes a bit longer to get a GPS fix once you fire it up;
- Location accuracy is off by 50-100 feet – i.e. The Lady asks you to turn when you’re already at the turn point… but you got plenty of heads-up to make up for it.
So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed I made a good purchase. Even if not, it only cost [snip]. Small change compared to TomTom or Garmin…
Enjoy.
HI! I used to own a Garmin (C530) and what I found great was the manner in which the POI’s worked ie; if I wanted to know where the closest McDonald was it would give it to me as I wrote…Navigon 7100 doesn’t seem to have that feature or I dont know how to use it. Although the unit is indeed appealing in appearance the arm to wich you attach it, leaves to be desired! Otherwise I enjoy the unit and have no quarrel about it.
Claude
In regards to POI’s – I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean by… “give it to me as I wrote…” but the 7100, will in fact give you POI’s nearest you… obviously being a different manufacturer – it will also be different. I LOVE having the actual company logo icons show on the map as you drive. I don’t believe any other manufacturer does that?
As for the mount arm… I “COMPLETELY” DISAGREE! I love the single uniformed flow of the arm… not cluttered with nuts and bolts attached to a clunky arm. In fact – I’ve had people think the arm is something factory made in our Saab. I have to explain… “no, that’s my GPS mount,” and they’re amazed how sleek it is. And I’ve had no issues of it breaking as others have commented.
The reviews and testimonies on this page have really helped me determine whether or not i will purchase the Navigon 7100. I beleive that by now most of the bugs have been fixed and the company is growing in reputation and class. Granted Garmin will probably always be the best but I think i will indeed give the Navigon 7100 a chance to impress me. I will post in the future how i think it did and will continue to post with any problems or comments. Thanks to all for the input and great reviews!!
I just got my 7100 yesterday and charged it up. Used it today on my way to work. Now, while I know how to get to work, I wanted to run this unit through some paces to see how it operated.
First, let me say that the stylus or the smaller than normal inputs aren’t a big deal. Just use the stylus and all is fine. Like I said, it’s no big deal! Secondly, the display is amazing! If you can’t tell where to go or where it’s leading you because the other information is too small, buy some glasses. I do agree that the time of arrival and the miles to destination are too small. This is pretty important information and to have it displayed so small is a flaw that needs to be corrected.
It is very easy to input destinations and POI’s are easy to understand as well. As long as you spend an hour or so with the on-line manual, you’ll have the operation of this unit down. It’s a sophisticated GPS but if you give it some time to understand the operations, you’ll know your way around the screens with no problems.
Also, the Bluetooth works great and the volume is plenty loud enough. Even for me who was in rock bands for years and don’t hear as well as I use to. In fact, I had to turn the volume down. It was a breeze to pair my cell phone and to reconnect is a breeze as well. Just tap the phone icon; tap the middle icon on the next screen and it’s done! Speaking of tapping – I’ve seen complaints that the touch screen isn’t responsive. So far, every tap has yielded a response.
As I use this more, I’ll post again with an update but at this point, I’m very happy with the 7100.
Oh, one more thing. While I was charging the 7100, I also downloaded the 1.2 software version. All 1.86 GB’s! It took a while to download (even with a broadband connection) but once it was downloaded, it was very easy to update the software on the GPS. Since I never used the 7100 with the older version of software, maybe that’s why so far, I really have no complaints.
I was Wondering if the 7100 has the option of accessing your contacs on your cell phone through the product? i know it has bluetooth so i thought i would ask!
Yes, The 7100 maintains a list of numbers which you have entered as well as a list of numbers which you have talked to recently. I find the list of recently talked to numbers very useful for call backs, answers, etc. However, understand that the 7100 is a bluetooth device which becomes a speakerfone device attached electronically to your cellfone. The 7100 has no calling capability unless it is linked (actively bluetooh connected) to your cellphone. This is a relatively short range connection ability.
Well,
My 7100’s mounting interface has lost all friction so the unit just flops around. The suction cup has let go a few times and the unit has subsequently fallen onto the gearshift lever cracking the display. Time to go to Future Shop and see if they will honour their extended warranty…they haven’t on other products I purchased there. For what it’s worth the speed warning never did work. Ever.
By the way, I never did get my rebate. I think I’ll look elsewhere when replacing this unit.
Van -
wow. seems like you’ve had bad luck?
I admit the mount can lose friction, but even though mine is now looser – it still holds very steady. I’ve NEVER had any issues with the suction cup. It’s quite honestly, in my opinion the best I’ve used. When properly placed I can’t even rip it off.
I keep the suction cup on the windshield all the time, and in fact, I place one of those huge expandable sun screens into the windshield that I have to slide up, and all over the mount, bumping it, etc, and it never comes off.
I’ve also NEVER had any issues with the speed warning, and in fact it’s caught newly updated speed changes in my area I wasn’t aware of UNTIL the unit told warned me.
My only complaint (really) has been the poor battery life. I don’t know if you’ll be able to argue “damage” with ANY warranty. You might be able to argue with the suction cup, but that would go back to an argument of – if you had properly & correctly applied the suction cup.
Good luck though.
Hi Barry,
I doubt that warranty will cover this. It has happened a few times where the suction cup has come unstuck. On those occasions I was either lucky and the GPS didn’t hit anything, or I caught it before it went screen-first into my gear shift and centre console.
I will see if Navigon can repair this unit but I am not hopeful given the lack of North American service. I’m going to look at Garmin units today as a replacement as I’ve really come to rely on the GPS as opposed to google maps or a pocket street atlas. There is no going back.
To sum up my experience – the good:
-ok routing
-reality view
-bright display
-text to speech
-live traffic
The bad:
-fussy touchscreen that is frustrating to use especially while driving and only responds to maybe half the inputs given
-wonky routing which at times yielded a much longer route in either distance or time
-small text for time remaining, distance remaining
-speed limits don’t work in Canada
The ugly:
-the mounting system comes loose without warning pitching the unit down (yes, my windshield is clean
-good luck getting this serviced in North America
In summary, I think for the price the consumer can do better. I feel bad that my wife spent a lot of cash on a unit that is not as fully functional (touchscreen, routing, and battery issues) as others on the market. I feel like Navigon brought this unit to market without real world testing. My recommendation: Avoid. **1/2 out of *****.
Van
Add this to The Ugly:
-bold lie from the manufacturer about battery life. Maybe one hour, tops.
Van
Update: Navigon service says they will be able to fix my unit, and that to replace the display would be around $50. I’ll give this a go. They will also replace my mounting arm free of charge.
Van
I just bought 7100 a week ago, before I found this website. If I had found this website before I would not have done it. The boxo and the manual say abt. the overspeeding warning. I hate speeding tickets so I decided to buy this model. But it does not work in Toronto, Canada. and no one in the store could tell me if this feature works in Canada. I just upgraded the software and I hoped that this problem would be solved. But it is not. I had, and still use Nextar – it has this option (it estimates the speeding limits basing on the type of the road. It is not 100% accurate, but enough to protect me from the tickets- so it proves it can be done. So far, it is the only thing I complain about. I will be using it, hoping that one day this feature starts working. Maybe with a new upgrade? And one more thing – maps are pretty up to date. Overall I like this unit – ONLY THIS OVERSPEEDING WARNING……
Vlad, not sure about Canada, but in US, speed warnings work like a charm. This is one of the reasons I ride with my GPS on on known routes. They are dead on and update within seconds of changing speed limits. I am pretty sure it does not work by knowing the type of road you are on since again, it has ability to change the speed limit on the same HWY. Not sure if you were aware, but 7200T was just released and it is awesome and not as expensive.
I need help setting this thing up. I just got it today for my birthday and it keeps asking me to insert my memory card and press go. Im so frustrated with this item and i only had it for a few hours and i still cant set it up.
Do I have to have the antenna plugged in and be in my car to set this thing up or is there something not working with the unit that is not detecting the memory card.
Sometimes it does reconize it… I think… It shows the demo but thats it. The demo will keep repeating itself.
Can someone please help me!!!
It doesn’t need to be connected via an antenna, although if it hasn’t been charged you might need to connect it just to get some charge in the battery. I assume you’ve tried popping the SD card back in?
Make sure you correctly insert the SD card the unit came with and it is not write protected. Try resetting the GPS with a pin if the unit still asks you for the card. If nothing works, you might have a corrupted SD card. If that’s the case, time to call Navigon, they should be able to send you a new one. Or you can download the software from their website.
I started with a Garmin but have switched over to Navigon. LOVE it!! Not only is it slick looking but it’s about as functional as they come. I guess each unit is different or people have unrealistic expectations but my 7000 series works brilliantly. A few times it took forever to pick up a signal but then again so did my Garmin from time to time. It’s a piece of electronics people! I wish you had a star rating because I’d give it a perfect 5*****!
I just got my unit back from service. Navigon was able to replace the touchscreen for a $50 fee, and sent me a new mounting arm to replace the original floppy unit. They covered the shipping. Updating the software to 1.2 as I type this. I have to compliment Navigon on their prompt service: to their depot and back to my home in less than a month.
Battery Issue:
I don’t own a Navigon unit, but I may well end up buying the 7200T (assuming Tim’s upcoming review is favorable). However, while researching the 7200T, I noticed that it is advertised with an “Internal 1500 mAh Lithium-Ion battery.”
The 7100, in comparison, is advertised with a “Rechargeable 1150 mAH lithium ion battery.”
350 mAH may not sound like much, but then again, a small increase in battery capacity was enough to (mostly) silence the critics of the original Nokia N95-1 when when the N95-3 was introduced, as the small increase in battery size resulted in a significant improvement in battery life. (Hopefully Tim will address this issue in his upcoming review.)
Perhaps Navigon has been listening to Barry and others, and the decision to increase battery size was made in response…?
All in my humble opinion….
Hi Scott,
The extra capacity would probably give you over an hour and a half capacity. Sometimes I forget to plug my power adapter into the lighter socket and on those occasions run my unit on battery power alone. On those occasions I get just over an hour of battery life.
The issue with regards to battery life (for me at least) had more to do with the false claim made about the 7100. Otherwise, for long trips it just makes sense to power the unit from the car’s electrical system. When I get home from a trip the last thing I think about is recharging my GPS. If its powered while in the car then it is always fully charged. This is handy as I like to program the unit while I’m at home rather than on the road. There is pending legislation in Ontario that would forbid people from operating electronic devices that are not hands-free while driving. Programming the unit at home in advance of trips saves me the hassle of dealing with that, and is a fun thing to do with the Navigon without the hassles of driving through traffic. It is under these circumstances that the actual battery life is quite adequate, and saves me from having to dig out the Navigon’s AC adaptor at home.
I keep reading of battery problems and I wonder if my “good results” come from always using the “Ten second plus” turn-off and the fact that ambient temperature during charging is usually 60 to 80 deg F. Most of the time the temperature while charging is above 70 deg. F. I find that if I leave the 7100 in standby and not being charged that the battery life is considerably reduced. If stored cold in the garage in standby, the operate time is reduced or the battery goes dead. If charged while cold, the available operate time produced is noticeably reduced. Therefore, I do the “ten second plus” turn-off, store warm, and charge in this condition.
I use the Bluetooth connection between 7110 and my cell phone Nokia E65. It’s working without any problems, but I need to transfer/see my adress book (contacts) from the cell phone on the 7110 screen. Is that possible or maybe will be possible?
Battery Issue (revisited):
I’ve spoken with someone directly with Navigon Exec offices – not their outsourced call center. I asked if the new 7200T would have the same battery issue, and I was told, “No not really. Updated lower power usage hardware is working for us.”
7100 Mount/Arm Fix:
Okay… I’ll admit it. I was always saying my mount /arm never had any problems, until now, after having an issue with TWO of them. But I’m here to say there’s an EXTREMELY easy fix!
This fix is only for the pivoting head – where it becomes extremely loose.
Look at the face of the pivoting head, the flat surface that says “Navigon” in silver. Below, near the release button, there is a gap in the face. Take a very small screw driver and VERY GENTLY pry up on the face from that hole. The face very easily pops out and underneath you will find a single torque screw. All you have to do is tighten it. I believe a #10 torque screwdriver should do it.
I will say though – the suction cup is STILL the best I’ve ever used, and I still think it’s the best designed, sleek arm.
Pros: the mounting bracket, “reality view”, lane assist.
Cons: Navigation, battery life, small text, tech support.
Google Maps and Mapquest provide better routing. Navigon tends to make you get off a highway, detour through town, then get back on the highway again. If you already know where you’re going, you won’t follow its instructions. If you don’t know where you’re going, it will eventually get you to your destination, but you’ll wonder why it chose the route it did.
Battery life is only about 30 minutes on a full charge, even after following tech support’s bizarre instructions for several cycles of charging the battery.
(Apparently turning the unit off isn’t enough… you are supposed to hold the power button down for 10 seconds every time you shut it off. Gee, that’s a great design!)
But it really comes down to poor navigation performance. I would not recommend Navigon to a friend, nor would I buy another.
I just got a 7100. The only way it will work on external power is with the AC adapter. Using the USB or car plug I get a computer with a line going to what looks like a GPS. Am I doing something wrong??? or do I have faulty equipment???
I’ll kick off by giving full disclosure – I published here quite a favorable review on Sep 26, after playing around with the NAVIGON 7100 for 2 weeks.
I’ll be the first to admit – it doesn’t provide the goods! It’s not a bad PND and it’s packed with nice features, but the overall experience isn’t good enough:
- Finding a destination is way too cumbersome. It starts with the keyboard which isn’t arranged like a proper one or a QWETRY. It continues with null results if you haven’t entered the exact street name. Forget about finding an airport (and not a remote one, JFK nonetheless). It’s hidden in the sub menu of Transportation POIs. A nightmare.
- Routing: sometime the device will choose the weirdest routs, taking you off highways.
- Finding a signal after a “cold start” – takes a good 3-5 minutes under clear sky
- Don’t dare deviating from the route: the Recalculating function takes forever. By that time you’ll loose your way.
Worst of all, I bought this PND for my wife’s use and unfortunately she can’t easily operates it – and I’m getting all the heat. NAVIGON, why did you have to complicate my marriage?
I’ve used the 7100 now for a couple of months and found that I can easily live with what some might consider shortcomings. Acquisition of satellites is quite fast , even indoors, so setting up addresses in the comfort of my home is a snap. It tracks quite well but could indicate MY position a little further along than it does. It indicates me a little behind where I really am. I like to use it even when I know where I’m going but, as other have observed, takes me on routes that I wouldn’t normally take. Maybe I’ve set my route preferences wrong. I rely on it to take me to places I have never been and never have been disappointed in my route. It reroutes exceptionally fast. Showing elapsed time and distance is, although taking up a little more screen, nice to be able to see. I use that ALL the time. It would be nice if I didn’t have to hold the off button 10 seconds to make sure that I’ve turned it off but now big deal. Auto day/night would be nice and maybe that’ll be a software upgrade as I understand that it is a part of the new generation 8100. The windshield mount works great and apparently isn’t illegal here in Illinois. I’ve never run it exclusively on battery for any length of time and keep it plugged into my cigarette plug outlet and don’t really know what the battery life would be. I tend to use the stylus when inputting a new address but since I do that indoors it’s no problem. I’ve never used the antenna and living near the Chicago Metro area, traffic problems come up fine. I’ve updated my maps once using the available service and found that really new streets were already there. Updates seem to be on the ball. Some small lakes were absent but they must not be natural. Now if they would only update where I live to be accurate…the Post Office changed my area code and I have to input my OLD area code to find my own address. I’ve alerted the map service that’s used but nothing yet has come of it. The change involves some 700 homes and their inhabitants that can’t be found by inputting the new proper area code.
Sorry to be rambling on but I’m writing of my experiences as I think of them. If it doesn’t appear here, I haven’t found it to be of particular concern to my use of the equipment.
Anyone know what the T after the model 7100 designates? Any features on it that mine doesn’t have, (and could)?
I love my 7100. I hate Vista. I started 8 hours ago to do an update of maps and software. After a 3 hour download from Navigon to my desktop I tried to update the smart card per the instructions. When I tried to open the download to effect the update nothing happened. WHY YOU AKS. Because VISTA scans all 175GB to check for problems and that takes 20 minutes without any message telling me what was going on. Therefore I assumed it wasn’t working.
Finally after a few calls to Navigon Tech support I waited the 20 minutes for VISTA to “verify” it was acceptable FOR ME to continue and then the NAVIGON update to the smart card worked perfectly and fast.
I think Bill Gates should send every onw with VISTA a check for $1,000.00 to pay is for our aggrevation with VISTA. What the hey he will still have 100 billion to live comfortably with.
And there in is the reason WINDOWS 7 is being released.
I write this with the hopes it will help everyone else with the updates. AS I said I love my Navigon 7100 and use it every day as a home inspector. Often doing 15-20 locations a day and NAVIGON is dead on every time.
I’ve just ordered a new 7100 navigon, and my question is , can I set where I want to go with latitude and longitude from google earth?
David…Try this web site and run the Video that seems to be an answer to your question. They are great little tutorials from Navigon and are new to their web site. I personally don’t think that it is possible since you can only input the usual coordinates, city, zip code, street, state, etc.
Hope this is some use to you.
I have had a 7100 for 3 months and have been unsuccessful contacting Navigon for an update. The sensitivity issue you mentioned is a plague for me and my family. The screen almost needs to be hit rather than touched. The large screen is nice but data entry seems error prone, using the stylus helps but is a long way around from using the finger tip. Getting an initial map update seems to require inside knowledge. I would think the initial update would be free and subsequent updates perhaps by subscription. I will not need subsequent updates as a Garmin is probably in my future.
Philip Brown
Texas
Phillip…I have found that just brushing the very tip of my finger on the intended bar seems to work. If you can just use your finger nail, that works too. I will have to admit that the stylus woks best however. I didn’t have any problem with the initial map update but I did subscribe to the map updates and they have been on the ball with that since then. You might try this web site for answers to any other questions you might have.
Phillip –
I’ve had the 7100 coming up to a year now. I had to do the update almost immediately because it had come out shortly after purchasing it. I would hope Navigon would continue with updates with this model, but I find it doubtful since they’ve already come out with two new tope models since the 7100.
However, with that said – the update works absolutely fine. I’m not sure what exact issue you’re having with obtaining the update, as you only mention you’ve been unsuccessful contacting Navigon?
I do recall though, to obtain the update, all you have to do is simply register your item online and create a user ID. It was something as simple as that. I will say – you will need to be sure to have a consistent and stable internet connection and the faster the better.
You have to download the update… and it’s BIG. Then all you have to do is replace the data on your card with the new data you’ve downloaded. If you’ve got a Macintosh its a WHOLE lot easier than a PC, too. But again, to do all this… if I recall correctly – you have to register your unit, then you’ll have access to download the update.
As for the screen sensitivity – I admit… it’s not as sensitive as other GPS units, but I agree if you use your finger nail it’s fine. I will also add that I even have a rather thick screen protector on mine, and I’m still able to use it with my fingernail.
Apparently there have been lots of improvements in the newest 8100 T. It’s got some cool looking features, including now actual terrain view.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=NAVIGONUSAcom&view=videos&query=7100
the web site doesn’t seem to forward with the reply.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=NAVIGONUSAcom&view=videos&query=7100
Hi,
I bought the 7100 last year and don’t seem to hear anything from Navigon for the FREE map updates? Also, we are in Beaverton MI and when routing from this location it never seems to find the correct roads, constantly tries to send us down that don’t exist or aren’t through roads.
Please help!
Thanks for your time!
Sherrie
Sherrie…
Try this site for map and software updates.
At least it will get you started as to where to go for the updates. I bought
their map update package 6 months ago and have received two updates so far.
The program is for 3 updates a year for three years. And it works. As far as
your routing goes, I can only suggest that you check your route preferences
and make sure that you have indicated what kind of roads you want the
equipment to route you on. If you continue to get wrong routes or
incorrectly indicated roads, you can notify the mapping company to change
their records on them. That works too. Their address is in the manual.
– Glenn Emond
Q2 2009 Maps are now available through FreshMaps.
IMPORTANT!!! Navigon is no longer in the person GPS device market. THEY WILL NOT OFFER ANY FURTHER SERVICE ON THEIR DEVICES. THEY WILL NOT UPDATE THEIR MAPS. THEY WILL NOT SEND ANY FURTHER UPDATE FOR THE GPS DEVICES WHATSOEVER. Do NOT buy a Navigon device. You’ll immediately own any obsolete GPS with NO SUPPORT or updates.
Josh, that isn’t quite true. Navigon has said that they will continue to release map updates. They have shown this as well– since they announced they would stop selling PNDs in North America they have released map updates to their customers and are continuing to respond to support requests.
Now I agree that people considering a Navigon in North America should consider other options, but they have already released map updates since their decision to pull out and have said they will continue to honor map update subscriptions.
Tim -
You are absolute INCORRECT, and Josh is CORRECT! I got word STRAIGHT from Navigon support, and if that’s not enough evidence, I’ve actually been in direct communication with Navigon’s FORMER director of customer service. BTW – he’s looking for a new job, too!
They will NOT be providing new maps to the U.S. market, and they’ll not give me a straight answer about the FREE LIFETIME traffic I purchased.
I smell a class action law suit, and I’ll either start it or join it!
Well, you guys are obviously looking in the wrong place or talking to the wrong people. As recently as two days ago people have been getting new map updates for their Fresh Map subscriptions. A *FORMER* Navigon employee wouldn’t really be a reliable source of information about their current policies.
Tim..I too upgraded my maps about two weeks ago. And since I still have a year and a half to go on my subscription, I hope they will continue their upgrade policy, at least until all the subscriptions run out.
Glenn -
The only CURRENT fresh maps was from a year ago. Good luck with that.
And the CURRENT Navigon tech support person said they have no plans of continuing support. Here is a DIRECT quote from the email I received from tech support. I can paste the entire thing if it helps convince you.
June 26th, 2009
Accessories, map material and content are not available in North America through NAVIGON.
Unfortunately we don’t have information concerning the availability of these products at other major retail shops.
Sorry charlie- out of steam. Good luck with that. Hey it bites, I know. I bought one last year!
As I mentioned before, they won’t confirm “lifetime Traffic” – even though the service Navigon purchased is through a U.S. based company that is STILL in business.
Navigon actually released a *new* map to US based map subscription customers as recently as eight weeks ago, after they announced they were pulling out of the USA market. They said at the time, and so far have met, that they will honor existing fresh map subscriptions. Glenn indicated he got the map update, and you can read the same story from several other Navigon owners who got the recent map update without issue.
I don’t know what “fresh Map” you’re looking at?? The one I dowloaded about two weeks ago is the EXACT same file as the one I downloaded last summer after purchasing my 7100.
If that’s the file you’re talking about – it’s the same one as last summer. I compared the file.
Barry, perhaps the bigger question is which map are *you* looking at. All jesting aside… here is the bottom line. Navigon has pulled out of the North America PND market for now. That means you can no longer purchase new maps or devices in North America aside from any inventory that might still be around at stores. (But very slim now, and probably none in the case of maps. As you mentioned, product support is also a big question mark moving forward. I agree that people seeking new devices should look elsewhere.
However, for people who have purchased the subscription map update, so far Navigon has lived up to the product and even since the date they pulled out of NA they have released a new map update to subscribers. This has been confirmed by dozens of people in our forums and is the “Q2 2009″ map. A few of them are people who I’d even consider “expert” GPS users and they have confirmed the existence of road changes and updates since the release of the first 2009 map this past winter.
I don’t know why you are not seemingly able to download the newest map. And if there is a technical glitch on Navigon’s end then that reinforces the reason why people should avoid Navigon for future NA PND purchases. However out of dozens of experiences you are the only one I’ve seen report unable to get the latest map. I sympathize with your position, but it isn’t correct that they are not providing the update to other subscribers.
As to the note from Navigon you keep citing, it makes no mention of map update subscribers. All it says is that you cannot purchase products, accessories, or maps. It doesn’t say anything about people who have purchased the map update subscription that are redeeming map updates. Also note that the map update subscription makes no note of any minimum service level. It says it will deliver “up to” a certain number of maps, but doesn’t provide a floor limit. So they could stop providing updates to map subscribers and probably be within their rights. That would be terrible for those map update subscribers and I hope they don’t do that. But so far Navigon has come through with map updates for map update subscribers.
Barry,
If you are referring to the FILE NAMES on the new map download, they are the same. But the map information in them is not. My new maps have roads and subdivisions that were not on the previous version. And around where I live, (Chicago area), the addition of new roads happens a lot. The only file I seem to have been shorted on was the Alaska file but I merely added that to the download from a previous download. Fortunately I don’t throw anything away.
Since I subscribe to get the new posts and have read the stuff about Navigon I did go to visit their website. Since it appears that they are going to offer an Iphone software product which is going to have to have updated maps. They also appears that Navigon is going to do work for non consumer purposes in North America which would mean they would have to offer / support the existing fresh map subscriptions.
Going to my “My Navigon” site the current model and software and maps information are still up to date and until they tell me that they are not going to support it I am not going to panic.
As far as the traffic the signal comes from an FM signal which is broadcast independent of Navigon and since the unit (7100) has lifetime traffic turned on in the software I assume that it will continue to work as long as the FM signal is broadcast (which is sold to more than Navigon for subscription services.)
Brian –
You’re right about the FM broadcast of traffic, however, that is done through a company Navigon has a contract with.
You would have to assume Navigon is going to spend money to renew a contract with a company within a country in which they have no more financial incentive to provide service. You did hear they left the U.S.???
Why would Navigon spend money on an essentially dead market?
Barry,
You Said – “You’re right about the FM broadcast of traffic, however, that is done through a company Navigon has a contract with”
My Reply – And since Navigon is using Clear Channel’s TTN which broadcasts on their existing FM frequencies and supplies this service to many navigation companies the signal will continue. Since there is no reactivation process for a subscription on the Navigon units there is no way to “turn off” the ability to receive the FM Broadcasts.
Clear Channel does not specifically encrypt or scramble their TTN signals for specific navigation companies so there is no real way to “Block” a Navigon from not getting the information while allowing a Garmin’s lifetime traffic plans to continue to get the traffic information via FM signal.
With that being said the Navigon units will become obsolete not because of the traffic data, but the lack of future map updates once the existing freshmaps subscriptions sunset or Navigon decides to no longer support freshmaps.
The one short-sided revenue stream that Navigon is not looking to is selling maps to existing customers. Since they are going to buy NA maps from Navteq for their I-Phone application as well as they supply commercial GPS customers solutions that include North American companies they could have made easy revenue by selling maps into the future. You don’t even need a US or Canadian presence to sell software related things today via the internet.
For those of you sticking it out with Navigon, here’s at least one REAL confirmation FROM Navigon. Anyone want the email I’ll be glad to directly forward it to you.
=========================================
Dear NAVIGON Customer
Thank you for your inquiry.
If you have already purchased Life Time Traffic, you will continue receiving Lifetime Traffic. NAVIGON makes sure that all NAVIGON Traffic customers will still receive the Traffic they purchased.
Sincerely
p.p. Christian Josopait
————–
NAVIGON Support Team
E-Mail: support.us@navigon.com
Tell me Barry.
How does that work after you guys go broke?
Navigon doesn’t directly provide the traffic data, a third party does so it can work independently of Navigon.
And your independent third party there, they continue providing their service with no ongoing revenue stream? Is that correct? How does that business model work?
Fred: I, nor this website, have any affiliation with Navigon. So we are not privy to any contracts or agreements Navigon may have with Clear Channel or any other traffic provider. With that said, a typical business model with traffic services is that the traffic provider gets a flat rate, single payment for each device sold. So the traffic provider was likely paid for the subscription in full and therefore they wouldn’t have reason to shut it off. Different GPS companies have different agreements, but the structure I described is common.
Or Christian or whoever?
Who am I replying to here, Fred?
This string got so convoluted and argumentative – I gave up on it and Navigon a long time ago, so I honestly don’t know why I’m writing again?
And even still… I have no idea, Fred, if you had any real question or comment, nor do I know what it may have directly referred to…. if you had a question in the first place?!?
People, including myself, have contradictory information (emails) from Navigon tech support listed in this forum. However, I’ve also personally talked with Navigon’s U.S. head quarters, former customer relations director, which by the way, the HQ no longer exists.
This is what I know and will not argue.
* I have no affiliation with Navigon.
* Some of the info got mixed up here regarding “maps” and “life time traffic.”
* I “WAS” going to buy Navigon’s latest 8100 model, but will NOT since Navigon pulled out of the U.S.
Will you get lifetime traffic and continual updated maps. I doubt both if either if you buy a new model. Will you get continual updated maps for your current Navigon device if you “buy” them?… I don’t know. Take a chance.
My final question to myself regarding this would be:
“IF I HAVE TO ASK MYSELF THESE QUESTIONS – IS IT WORTH ASKING?”
Meaning: I’m switching to a Garmin for my next GPS. At least I know they’re here in the U.S. and I don’t have to ask these questions. Plus Garmin is now offering free life time traffic on some of their devices.
At least Navigon offered some competition while they were here – pressing the GPS market forward in quality and services.
Good luck… with whatever question or comment you had.
I’ll try this again. I have had my 7100 for almost two years and am more than pleased. After you learn how to enter the data in the right order and how and where to search for POIs it becomes your best friend on a trip. I haven’t experienced a tremendous delay in acquiring the satellites that some allude to. I think a max of a minute is my experience. I got new maps from eCost for $28.00 for three year quarterly updates. That’s 12 updates for that price. I did have to purchase a 4 Gig SD card to download all the new data. So far I have downloaded the ‘Free” maps in mid 2008 and three quarterly updates. The 4 Gig card makes it easy but it’s still a lot of data even on a high speed connection. I have a friend with a comparable Garmin and I wouldn’t trade.
Where on eCost do you get the maps and are they compatible with Navigon 7100 and / or is it an update..? What is the link that you refer to when you say ” I got new maps from eCost for $28.00 for three year quarterly updates.” ?