Pioneer AVIC-S1 (GPS receiver)

This unit is great for the price. It has good looking maps and I find the directions are okay as well. I have had tried ones from Garmin and Magellan and they seem to give the directions the same way. I paid 399.00 for this unit and if they ever add a route summary it would be even better. I would give this a unit a 7 for menu and a 10 for how the maps look. Other than the menu system i would give this a 10 for speed at finding my location. It does have some short commings like not having a route summary and that is a big one. The POI is ok from what I have seen so far. It seems to work as well as the other units in its price range. I thought about selling it but after spending time with it for the lat few days I am going to keep it. You cant beat it for the price and it works really well at what it does. I know some of hte reviews have not been that good but I have used two other units and they were not any better other than the route summary. I thnk the menu system is better on this than the Magellan. My friend has the high end Magellan and he liks my menu better than the one he is using. I could go out and spend another 3 hundred dollars and get the garmin but for the money this one will do just fine. if you want a nice unit for the money this fits the bill, if you want all the bells and want to pay for them then get the garmin as this is a great product as well. They all have good points and bad ones but for 399.00 this is a great little unit.

In opening, I have owned 3 Garmin models, a Lowrance, and a MIO. I know what works and what doesn't and I know what to expect, in general.

When the box arrived I was impressed with the nice case that comes with it, the overall appearance of the unit, the inclusion of an AC and a DC charger, computer interface cable and the great graphics of the unit. It was easy to set up, program in my addresses, and personalize. I was so impressed I made the mistake of ordering a mount for my car from ProClipUSA for $60 BEFORE I knew what a thundering piece of crap this GPS turned out to be.

For brevity, I will bullet point the numerous problems.

- In northern IN is a major hwy running east and west. To go almost anywhere from Chicago to Fort Wayne to South Bend will include this hwy. The GPS did everything it could to get me to get off that hwy; u-turns, county roads that are gravel, etc. It wanted me off that road when it is the only way that makes any sense at all. I called Pioneer twice and e-mailed them three times trying to get an answer. Long story short, they were not interested.

- I was driving back from Columbus OH to Fort Wayne, IN and the GPS directed me to take a hwy west that I did not even know existed. It had four lanes and was practically empty so I took it. Part way down that hwy the AVIC-S1 directed me to get off that hwy onto a 2 lane rural hwy still heading west. I did. I was disturbed to see this 2 lane road running visually perpendicular to the 4 lane hwy I just got off. It ran this way for 12 MILES! The GPS then warned me that it was time to turn off this 2 lane hwy. I did as I was told. GUESS where I turned to? You got it! back on the 4 lane hwy I got off 12 MILES AGO! I was furious.

- I was in South Bend IN and needed to find a hotel for the night. I looked into the POI database. According to this piece of junk there are NO hotels in the city of South Bend. I happen to know there is a Holiday Inn select in downtown so I went back into the POI and clicked on MOTELS instead of HOTELS. There was the HI Select at $150 a night listed as a MOTEL!

- I called Pioneer again to ask about a map update. "No, it is STILL not available but it should be ANY DAY." BTW, it will cost you $150!

The straw that broke the Camel's back was a trip to Cincinnati. I drove all sorts of back roads at the direction of the AVIC-S1 to get to my customer. When I took my customer out for lunch I told him that his facility is not easy to get to. He asked me what route I took. When I told him he said "get rid of that junk on your dash. It took you MILES out of the way. All you had to do was stay on the interstate practically to our front door!"

I purchased this because I am a long time Pioneer Elite audio fan. Needless to say, this company has done a fantastic job of destroying any hope of me doing business with them again. Not only because of a bad product but due to terrible customer service and dismissive attitude.

When I first purchased this unit (Dec 06/$500) it was an excellent unit. Now Pioneer said they would have updates available (for purchase) on SD card in Sep of 07. However, they now say there is no estimated time for these updates to become available. My boyfriend bought a Tom Tom One about 6 months ago, for $300 and all his updates are FREE. His connects right to the computer for all available updates and optional features. The AVIC-S1 does have bluetooth capabilities that work with more phones than the TomTom.