Fujitsu Siemens Pocket LOOX N100

Pros: Awesome LCD Display, Very Small, Lots of accessories

Cons: Slow Start-up

Summary: The Loox N100 has gotten its share of reviews and I will admit that I have read almost all of them. I had been looking at this unit for at least three months and read hundreds of reviews before I decided to give it a try.

I am a salesman that runs leads everyday, so I may go to 40 different addresses per week. I used to Mapquest myself silly, but that can get old quickly. I needed a unit that wasn’t going to be an outrageous price, but I also needed something that was going to be reliable, dependable, and most of all, good for everyday use. I saw many units out there that were adequate; Garmin, Tom Tom, Magellan. All of these units were great and had many features, but they all fell just beyond what I wanted to pay. I am a believer that if you spend cheap, you usually get bad results. In this case, I was wrong.

The Loox N100 definitely has a lot to boast about considering that it is in the $99-150 range. This unit is hands down the best GPS unit that you will find for under $200. Let me clarify. When new items come out, they tend to be very expensive because there are very few manufacturers building the product. The good news is that it’s good for competition. The bad news is that companies that don’t have a clue tend to throw their name in the hat as a manufacturer. The prices are low, but the quality can be awful.

I will admit that I was very skeptical when I saw this unit. I thought to myself, “What good is a 2.8 inch screen on a GPS unit?” Well, I found out very quickly that 2.8 inches of screen can go a long way if the graphics are good. Well, let me tell you; I challenge you to find a GPS unit with a better graphics display at this price point than the N100. The unit has a day mode and a night mode that can be changed from one to the other with the touch of the screen.

The N100 had me mesmerized by the amount of features that are packed into it. The unit warns you if you are going too fast within a certain speed zone. It has a very nice user interface that makes playing with the unit “fun”. The N100 does take about a minute to load all the maps, which I am okay with. Once it is up and running, it is truly amazing what it is capable of. I live in the Atlanta area, and there were very few occasions where it did not recognize an address. Sometimes the unit does not recognize an address because it does not correspond to the zip code. For instance, I had trouble finding an address in Doraville Ga. because Doraville has a zip code that it shares with Atlanta. You have to be careful of this, because it happens a lot in bigger cities.

I had the unit 3 months before I realized that it actually has phone numbers that correspond to the points of interests. It takes a little effort to get to the phone numbers, but not a lot.
I would say that the accuracy of the unit is about 96%. It will get you to within thirty yards of a location without being 100% accurate.
The Loox comes with interchangeable faceplates. The white one came installed, but upon opening the box, I quickly replaced it with the black one. The battery is listed at around five hours, and if you don’t tinker with the features a lot, those five hours are realistic.

I was very impressed that the unit has voice command and it can also store your favorite addresses. These addresses can be accessed rather quickly.

The unit is definitely a steal at the price point of $99-$150. I would definitely recommend it to anyone that needs a GPS that will do the basics and beyond, Fret not about buying this unit. It has a 1 year manufacturer’s warranty. I realized that when I got it, it was made by Fujitsu/Siemens which are two of the most technologically advanced companies in the world. Rest assured that this unit is all it is cracked up to be. You can go out and buy a $300 GPS, but it will not get you anywhere any faster than the N100.