Averatec Voya 350 review

The Averatec Voya 350 is equipped with a 12-channel SiRF StarIII receiver and is ready to use right out of the box, since all the maps of the United States and Canada are preloaded on the included SD card. Simply insert the card and go; no need to worry about transferring maps from your PC to the device. The Voya 350 features all the standard navigation tools you'd expect in a GPS device, including text- and voice-guided turn-by-turn directions (with support for Spanish and French), automatic route recalculation if you veer off course, and a points-of-interest (POI) database. You can search for destinations by specific address, intersection, or city center. You can also select a place from your Favorites list, recently visited locations, or POI. The Voya's POI database contains more than 1.6 million entries, including all the major attractions and more specific categories such as ski resorts and ferry terminals.

To customize the way the unit creates routes, go to the Settings menu, then Route Options; from there you can choose from quickest or shortest route, with or without toll roads, and so forth. This would also be a good time to mention the Voya's interface. It can be a bit confusing, since each Settings page contains about four to five categories, then beneath each of those are a series of buttons for all the various functions. It's overwhelming at first glance, but you get accustomed to it after a couple of tries.

The Voya 350 comes with an SD card preloaded with maps of the United States and Canada.

Map views are available in 2D and 3D modes, and you have the choice of four map colors and auto/day/night modes. As you're driving around, the map screen displays a bunch of useful information, such as the name of the street you're currently on, your upcoming turn, estimated time of arrival, remaining distance to your destination, and so forth. If you need to have a voice prompt repeated, simply press the Next Turn arrow in the upper left corner of the screen. The Voya 350 does not, however, have text-to-speech functionality, so you won't get specific street names in voice commands.

As we mentioned before, the Voya 350 is a very basic system, so you won't get any of the advanced features showing up in recent models, such as MP3 playback, integrated Bluetooth, or traffic information. It does, however, have a speed alert function that will let you know when you're driving over a user-defined speed. There's also a trip planner and an almanac that provides such information as time of sunrise and sunset and moon phases.

When we first fired up the Averatec Voya 350, it took about two minutes for the unit to lock onto a satellite fix, and it accurately pinpointed our location. The Voya continued to do so as we drove around the streets of San Francisco. The system also gave us accurate driving directions to a friend's house in the Russian Hill neighborhood of the city, and got us back on track after we missed a couple of turns. The Voya 350's lithium-ion battery is rated for up to four hours of continuous use.