Navigon 8100T user reviews

Pros The 4.8" Screen is awesome!
The GPS is solidly built. It feels like German engineering in your hands.

Cons OBSOLETE FEATURE SET -
The 7300T has better features at a $200 lower list price.
NO TRAFFIC MAP -.
I get a list of places with slow traffic or incidents, but no over all map.
SHINY CHROME TRIM
Bad Glare!

Summary I would highly recommend anyone looking for a GPS today to consider the Navigon offerings. The 8100T is a great piece of hardware. If you can hold off your purchase until the 7300T is available, or the 7300T features become available for the 8100T.
OBSOLETE FEATURE SET - The biiggest hurdle of this GPS today is caused by Navigon's announment of the 7300T. At $200 lower than the 8100T, it has better features and software with a smaller 4.3" screen. Because the 8100T is a Windows CE Software based unit, it would have been very wise for Navigon to announce a free or very low cost software upgrade to include the new features and interface into the 8100T. As of right now (March 2009) I would hold off purchasing an 8100T until Navigon either releases a new big screen unit, or announces a software upgrade program for the 8100T.
NO TRAFFIC MAP - I wish the traffic feature would give me a traffic map of my area. I live in Southern California, and we have enough freeways to have multiple alternate routes, if you have the information available. On my 8100T traffic incidents are shown in a list format, and it is left for the user to figure out where the incidents are on a map.
SHINY CHROME TRIM - The top of the 8100T has a piece of shiny chrome. When the unit is mounted on my dashboard, the sun will reflect off that chrome to shine in my eyes, or reflect off my windshield. I really like the stainless steel case, but the chrome becomes a distraction.

Pros the screen size and clarity of information is a plus.

Cons function needs tobe re-thought. see below summary.

Summary I got this 8100 unit for Xmas. In the 2D mode, it won't accept a course-up instruction; the car icon moves on the screen until it drives off the screen, but then the unit does not recycle either the map or the car icon to the then-present position: it simply freezes until manually reset. But the problem very quickly re-occurs. In the navigation mode, several miles of the Pennsylvania Turnpike which included an exit at Morgantown disappeared from the screen, additionally, two interstate bridges disappeared from the screen in the navigation mode: the Betsy Ross bridge and the Walt Whitman bridge. A phone call made in the navigation mode produced a radio station, which made the call impossible to complete, and a phone call later taken shortly after that, still in the navigation mode, fried the instruction lady's voice; it no longer plays at all, even with all adjustments attended. It seems to have trouble holding the settings: Direct Access POIs disgorged the setting after the third retreival from the standby setting. The Day /Night function, set on auto, did not return to Day from the previous Night's use; it had to be reset to day manually. A somewhat more tolerable issue, perhaps: the data base seems quite outdated. It produced a local restaurant which had been closed for more than a year prior to the device being marketed in the USA. This may just be a bad unit; the vendor has agreed to change it out for another. More to follow

Pros I was able to find myself on the map!

Cons I lost myself on the map!