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"What's with the hate-fest?" on by ericvisa
Pros: screen size, design/form factor, mounting options, blue tooth, dual-view, position plus, gesture command
Cons: unrecognized addresses, slower calculations, inferior address book dialing
Summary: ATTENTION!!! If you've experienced slow or non-responsive in-put from the touch screen, go back and exchange the unit! I had the same exact experience within 20 minutes of installing my brand new NV-U83T. Lucky for me I was still sitting in the parking lot outside the Sony store, so I just went back in and swapped it. This appears to be issues with some units so if you experience it, don’t assume that they're all like that.
Anyway, back to the review...
So I just purchased said unit and installed it alongside a friends TomTom ONE just to see how both would function on the way home from the Sony store in Paramus, NJ to my digs in Queens, NY. For some excitement, I also activated my BlackBerry Curve's TeleNav GPS on the AT&T network.
Now, I know these are not all in the same class but hopefully this review will give TomTom ONE or BlackBerry/TeleNav users an idea of how the Nav-U performs based on what their expectations might be. I won’t talk about the obvious differences such as price, screen size, portability, placement, data in put methods, firmware/map updates, etc since you can pretty much figure all that out on your own.
For me, here are the things that made the difference:
Address recognition, calculation & recalculation after missing a turn:
Sony - 4.5 points (did not recognize my address, had to use “map” function to show it where I wanted to go and even then, it took about 20 seconds to calculate & 9 to recalculate)
TomTom - 8.5 points (11 seconds to calculate, 5 to recalculate)
TeleNav - 7.0 points (25 seconds to calculate, 10 to recalculate)
Voice choices & clarity (subjective opinion):
Sony – 7.0 points (2 English options, a gal and a dude! Kinda computerized.)
TomTom – 8.0 points (lots more options, both male and female. Also, more realistic voices!)
TeleNav – 6.0 points (no choices)
Number of street names shown on map while navigating:
Sony – 8.5 points (quite a number)
TomTom – 8.5 points (almost all)
TeleNav – 6.0 points (only a few)
Map color options:
Sony – 7.0 points (very limited. Besides, blue highways look like water ways to me!)
TomTom – 8.0 points (also limited, but choices a little more “eye friendly” to me)
TeleNav – 6.0 points (no choices, although default setting is “eye friendly”.)
Overall, I think I'll keep the Sony Nav-U NV-U83T as it seems to work just fine. I think I can live with the cons especially since I purchased it with a gift card and didn't really spend any money on it. I guess I'll discontinue my $10/month TeleNav subscription and return the borrowed TomTom!Updated
ATTENTION!!! If you've experienced slow or non-responsive in-put from the touch screen, go back and exchange the unit! I had the same exact experience within 20 minutes of installing my brand new NV-U83T. Lucky for me I was still sitting in the parking lot outside the Sony store, so I just went back in and swapped it. This appears to be issues with some units so if you experience it, don’t assume that they're all like that.
Anyway, back to the review...
So I just purchased said unit and installed it alongside a friends TomTom ONE just to see how both would function on the way home from the Sony store in Paramus, NJ to my digs in Queens, NY. For some excitement, I also activated my BlackBerry Curve's TeleNav GPS on the AT&T network.
Now, I know these are not all in the same class but hopefully this review will give TomTom ONE or BlackBerry/TeleNav users an idea of how the Nav-U performs based on what their expectations might be. I won’t talk about the obvious differences such as price, screen size, portability, placement, data in put methods, firmware/map updates, etc since you can pretty much figure all that out on your own.
For me, here are the things that made the difference:
Address recognition, calculation & recalculation after missing a turn:
Sony - 4.5 points (did not recognize my address, had to use “map” function to show it where I wanted to go and even then, it took about 20 seconds to calculate & 9 to recalculate)
TomTom - 8.5 points (11 seconds to calculate, 5 to recalculate)
TeleNav - 7.0 points (25 seconds to calculate, 10 to recalculate)
Voice choices & clarity (subjective opinion):
Sony – 7.0 points (2 English options, a gal and a dude! Kinda computerized.)
TomTom – 8.0 points (lots more options, both male and female. Also, more realistic voices!)
TeleNav – 6.0 points (no choices)
Number of street names shown on map while navigating:
Sony – 8.5 points (quite a number)
TomTom – 8.5 points (almost all)
TeleNav – 6.0 points (only a few)
Map color options:
Sony – 7.0 points (very limited. Besides, blue highways look like water ways to me!)
TomTom – 8.0 points (also limited, but choices a little more “eye friendly” to me)
TeleNav – 6.0 points (no choices, although default setting is “eye friendly”.)
Overall, I think I'll keep the Sony Nav-U NV-U83T as it seems to work just fine. I think I can live with the cons especially since I purchased it with a gift card and didn't really spend any money on it. I guess I'll discontinue my $10/month TeleNav subscription and return the borrowed TomTom! -
"Perfect! Helpful! Nice! Amazing!" on by Class_of_2010
Pros: It tells you exactly where to turn and it is very styalish!!!
Cons: Low battery life.
Summary: This is a very nice and extreamly styalish GPS form SONY! I love it, and you will to! It is perfect, there are other GPS that cannot be compared to the Sony GPS! This a very good GPS! With out a doubt!
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"Sony got some things right and some things wrong..." March 3, 2008 by wcampbel
Pros: Clearly visible screen, bluetooth, and great suction mount!
Cons: Dangerously slow route calculations, unit size is a bit too bulky
Summary: I owned this unit for two days before returning it. While having some cool features such as gesture commands, phone's handsfree, ease of removal, and a great suction mount, the unit falls short on a few things:
1. The unit fails to swiftly recalculate a route. I counted and it took around 25+ seconds to either calculate a new route or recalculate a route in the event that you miss a turn. You will wait and wait for the processing bar to make its way across the screen.
2. I didn't like the fact that unit's phonebook listed my contacts' names multiple times instead of nesting the phone numbers under one name. So if you have multiple numbers for one individual it will list that person's name for each number and also will not tell you whether it's their cell, home, work, etc. The name formatting was off, listing all of my contacts by their last name (no way to change that). There is also no way to skip to a person name by selecting the first letter in their name. For instance, if your contact's name begins with 'M' you will need to keep tapping the scroll button until you get to your 'M' section.
3. The unit's size was just too large for my taste. What's the use of having a nice 4.8" screen and all you can do is look at a map? There are no photo, video, or mp3 playback capabilities. Big beautiful screen, but not much fun. (Just my opinion)
4. The unit's software is only Windows compatible. Sorry Apple users. You will need the software and PC connectivity for future firmware/software updates.
These inadequacies annoyed me enough to decide to return the Sony NAV-U, especially since the unit I was replacing (Pioneer's AVIC-S2) didn't have these issues.
I'm trying out the Harmon Kardon GPS810...if this doesn't work out I'll just fork up the money for a Garmin Nuvi model. Alas, the search for a great performing navigation system continues... -
"It's shame for this product with Sony mark on it!" March 13, 2008 by ihchuang
Pros: super suction cup, split screen at highway intersection
Cons: slow response for all touch keys, poor map presentation, bad bluetooth voice quality,
Summary: I'm using 4-year-old Garmin iQue3600 and looking for a newer GPS unit. Accidentally I ordered Sony NV-U83T and just received it 2 days ago. Unfortunately the unit is far below my expectation.
First of all, the menu arrange is not reasonable. When you press the Menu botton, you can see several icons (tabs) at bottom, which are compass, cabinet, briefcase, and return. In campass, the choices are Enter Address, Find a Place, Take Me Home, and My Places. In cabinet, the choices are Phone (operation), and Traffic Information. In briefcase, the choices are Route Planning, Address Book, General (setting), Map (setting), Route Profile, Guide (setting), Traffic Information, Phone (setting). Ok, can anyone tell me what's the relationship between those icons and actual related sub-menu? Those icons seem to be trivial.
Second, after it got signal, it showed the place I'm at. Good, but why I only see street lines around the neighborhood, but no street name on the map. If you zoom out a little bit, it only marks the town hall place, big landmark, and some street it "thinks" worth to show. I still can't see what the road name around me. If you zoom out more, only the major roads or state highways are displayed. Zoom in? you will only see the street lines without name. My 4-year-old Garmin iQue3600 can do this and I can't image the new released (3/1/2008) Sony can't do it. And even interesting, when you zoom out, the response is almost instant. But, when you zoom in, it's about 3~5 seconds delay to show the map.
Ok, go to the next one. I tried to put my company address and I hesitated a while when it prompted me to enter city (town) name. Could someone tell me what the difference is between "Fairhaven" and "Fairhaven, Town of"? Anyway, I tried either one and it found the right place.
After I received signal, it took about 13~15 seconds to finish route calculation, which is about 65 miles away. I tried couple my friends' addresses and most of them can finish calculation in 10~15 seconds range. For most GPS, I believe it is still in acceptable range even it is not great.
Now, I'm on the road. Ok, it's great to see the split screen to forecast the detail turning map and the highway lane recommendation (that's the most attractive part for this unit). However, it only pops up lane information in big intersections (two interstate or state highways), not every exit. The good thing is the voice notice is pretty accurate and fluent.
Hold on, I found something annoying. I needed to be on I-495 for about 60 miles and it showed the next turn would be 8 miles. Oh, it's the intersection for I-290. When approaching the intersection, the split screen came up and told you to stay on left 3 lanes. After passing the intersection, the next one is 13 miles, which is I-90. After this one, the next is I-95 in 23 miles. After this one, the next is RT-24. Come on, it's a 3-lane highway all the way to my destination exit. Can't it be smart enough to find out or only wants to show off split screen feature?
Next annying fact is that I would like to see the near road around the highway. Yes, zoom in. I mentioned earlier it takes several seconds delay to show the map. After less than 5 seconds, the it zoomed out back to the original level. I retried several times and the results were the same, and nowhere to change setting to disable "automatic zoom out". Later, I found that the "automatic zoom out" fact is only for highways or during navigation (with destination defined).
Next, I looked into the POI function. First, I searched on the dining place. Yes, it can get good result as another guy said, who gave rating 9. However, he didn't mention how slow it is to get the searched result. It took at least 5~10 seconds to show the first record and still showing "searching" after 3 minutes. I believe it searches from the nearest match but it is too slow to get result. My Garmin iQue3600 may only have 1M POI but it can find the result much faster than this Sony one. And also, Sony didn't release the information of the number of POI for this unit.
I tried the PIO again. I found it has "Auto Dealer" category. Hmmm, it sounds good. I had a vehicle appointment. I put toyota. It searched, and searched, and 3 minutes later it told me "no record found". What a #!@$%&. I tried to use "Search by name" and it came back after 1 minute with the dealer I needed to go. If it can't find the brand name in Auto Dealer category, I can figure out why Sony wants to create that category.
Did I mention the response time for this unit? Everytime you press keys or bottons in menu selection, it's at least 1 second delay. If the vehicle is moving (map changing) or it's doing some heavy calculation job such as (search), it could be more than 5 seconds to get a key responsed. How will I know, because the pressed botton has become inverted but the actual function can't be performed.
How about bluetooth? That's another joke for this unit. The voice is noisy and toutured. My wife and my boss can't recognize my voice. I can't figure out what they said either. Even if I took it off from suction cup and attached it to my face like cellphone, the situation didn't get better. Also, I can't synchronize phonebook with my cell phone. I borrowed a Garmin Nuvi660 last week from my friend. The voice and phonebook synchronzation worked fine.
What I can say is that the product is a shame for Sony. Except the big display, split screen map and super suction cup, I can't find anything good for this unit. Maybe the one gave it rating 9 is a Sony employee or the designer. I am definitely returning it now. -
"very good combination of features" on by charlie pittsburgh
Pros: large display, gesture commands,
Cons: phone book transfer limited
Summary: Great unit...Had garmin nuvi 760 and zumo 550 and had too many bad routing experiences: once time Garmin took me through a really bad area of philly...that was the last straw...start up on the 760 was very slow and I had many blutooth problems (kept disconecting and reconnecting with a full screen warning
that obscured the map completely) Garmin has "like all" has its issues.
Got for $370 at Ritz camera...not perfect but real good...
Sony NV-U83T user reviews
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