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Review 2 of 3
, from NY, NY
Price Paid:
$499.00 Strengths:
1) Clear display (in monochrome) of the major roads.
2) Helpful as a general, moving map on dash display. With the optional Metro Guide chip insert, the city level street map is quite detailed.
3) Can use it to track the speed and record the top speed achieved, etc.
4) Relatively cheap.
5) No installation needed, and you can move it easily between cars. Weaknesses:
1) Routes must be entered manually-- usually need to do it the night before if the travel is for long distance. You must select by hand which exit to take and manually click on each exit, one by one. Very tedious and doesn't always work well.
2) If the travel involves getting out of one Metro Guide cartridge area, then good luck. It doesn't work well between the general map and the Metro Guide map interphase. But I think that with the newer model that comes with a flashable/loadable map, this may be a little less of a problem, since you can select the area of the map to download onto the cartridge.
3) Many of the POI are inaccuate on the Metro Guide (I've used Philadelphia and NYC area).
Summary:
Helpful as a general map, especially if you hate the inconvenience of the paper maps as I do. But it lacks the automatic route calculation or the voice guided features of the other more expensive units. Entering the route manually is VERY tedious and I simply stopped doing it after a while.
If you can spend only around $500, then I would recommend it. Otherwise, go for the more expensive units like VDO/Carin or the Alpine. Similar Products Used:
I have not personally used the other Alpine or the Carin/VDO products.
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