The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet
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stars
"Returned after two weeks" on by dhugomalan
Pros: Compact, with built in battery; Good interface
Cons: Very slow, especially when searching for place names. Screen too small to be useful while driving. No AC charger.
Summary: My only other experience with GPS products is the NeverLost devices in Hertz rental cars, which I've used extensively and found to be generally excellent.
I wanted similar functionality, in a portable package. Quest II seemed like a perfect solution - small, built-in battery, the entire US maps loaded, and even waterproof! Bought it from Costco at around $600.
On the positive side, the Quest 2 has a decent interface, clear screen, and is attractively made. In terms of routing to a specific address, it does fine.
On the negative side, however ... First a minor nit: it does not come with an AC charger - for $600 you would think that would be included in a "portable" device?
Most irritating, however, is using the in-built lists of places (e.g., hotels, attractions, etc.). In short: be prepared for a very, very long wait, as even the simplest request seems to completely overwhelm the processer.
Two examples:
1. Searching for Chelsea Piers, the largest sports complex in Manhattan, locked it up for minutes. I tried looking for it under recreation, also tried searching bowling centers, to no avail.
2. Searching for The Cloisters - a huge museum in Manhattan required parking by the side of the road for several minutes while it tried to find it.
It appears that the processor is simply unable to cope with the large amount of data now pre-loaded in the device? (CNET reviews of the Quest 1, with much less memory, do not mention these problems).
The device is also quite slow in updating the screen (certainly compared to Hertz NeverLost) - often the screen goes blank at a crucial moment as it switches to a different display close to a turn-off, leading to plenty of wrong turns when driving in a dense road network.
In summary, this device may be useful for simple, address-based navigation in areas where the road density is low.
However, in New York city is was pretty much useless - too slow in calculating and giving directions when driving, and hopelessly slow when searching by names for specific places.
I would not recommend purchasing this product until it comes out with a much faster processor.
- 2 replies to this review
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Can you please advice me how to switch marin to automove.I mean switch from Marine map to road
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Your problem stems for the same reason that DirectTV has low sales in NYC. The Manhattan skyline. A GPS receiver needs to track a minimum of 2 (preferably 3) satellites to perform its calculations. Most of those are ove central U.S. which means yours needs a clear (clearer) view of the western sky, not directly overhead, for better results. Until they launch more satellites, or install signal repeaters in NYC, the problem will exist for all GPS receivers.
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