Delphi NAV300 review

Other capabilities include multistop trips, automatic route recalculation, and detours. The points-of-interest database includes 1.6 million entries with branded icons for popular businesses (for instance, McDonalds, Chevron, and so forth), and starting in September, there will be a Zagat Survey upgrade kit where you can search for restaurants, accommodations, and more based on Zagat reviews. The Delphi Real-Time Traffic Kit ($199.99) is also available for the NAV300, which includes an antenna and RDS receiver, an SD card with a software upgrade, and a lifetime subscription to Clear Channel's Total Traffic Network.

A new feature to the Delphi NAV300 is integrated Bluetooth. With this, you can connect your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone or smart phone and use the NAV300 as a hands-free speaker system to make and receive calls. Unfortunately, the number of compatible phones is extremely small--just nine of them and only for AT&T and Verizon Wireless--at this time (you can check for supported phones on Delphi's Web site) so this functionality is really limited in mass appeal.

Finally, the NAV300 includes a music and video player as well as an image viewer. The media player supports MP3 and WAV files and AVI video format, while you can view JPEG, GIF, and PNG images. However, like the Averatec Voya 320, you can't use the navigation app and listen to music at the same time, since you have to take out SD card of maps to load another SD card with your multimedia files. Other extras include a calculator, a world clock, and a game.

Performance
We tested the Delphi NAV300 in San Francisco, and from a cold start, it took the unit about two minutes to get a GPS fix under clear skies, while subsequent starts took just as long or less. On routine drives throughout the city, the NAV300 did a good job of tracking our location. We also entered our standard trip from the Marina district to CNET's downtown headquarters. We reviewed the list of text-based directions and agreed with the route, then went on our way. The voice prompts were loud and clear, but when it came to text-to-speech, the system mangled some street names more than other GPS devices we've tested.

We also took several wrong turns to test the route recalculation rate. The first couple of times the NAV300 did a good job of getting us back on track in a timely manner. However, the system seemed to bug out when we took a succession of wrong maneuvers, as the new route didn't make sense to us at all. Since we were familiar with the area, we knew that if we listened to the instructions, it would take us farther from our destination or have us going in circles, and it even told us to take a turn in the wrong direction on a one-way street! Pretty bad.