When portable GPS navigation systems first hit the market, they were slow, quirky, and in some instances, got you more lost with it than without it. With better hardware and more accurate maps, today’s GPS systems finally have what they need to be an asset on the road. Travelling the roads of a foreign city without one seems almost unimaginable these days. Today, we check out Delphi’s latest contribution to the GPS market, the NAV300.
The Delphi NAV300 features preloaded maps of the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada, even Puerto Rico. Driving directions are provided by the industry standard NAVTEQ mapping database which are accompanied by Text to Speech directions that announce street names and turn by turn directions. While driving around, the NAV300 dazzles you with branded icons, speed limit warnings, and when you start getting hungry, the ZAGAT survey steers you towards good grub you can trust.
Other unique features include Bluetooth hands-free capability and a built in rechargeable battery that allows you to take it with you while pounding the pavement on two feet. When not navigating, the NAV300 doubles as an MP3 and Movie player by simply plugging in a new SD Card loaded with either file type.
The NAV300 also has the option of a traffic information service via Clear Channel, using RDS-TMC (Radio Data System-Traffic Message Channel) technology to give real-time traffic data and weather report that helps the unit adapt its routing to help you bypass traffic jams, road closures, and extreme weather. This option is available for an additional $199, but will not be part of this review. Did I mention it has games and a calculator too?
What’s In The Box?
Before we start setting things up, we need to pop open the box and make sure everything is there…
- NAV300 Portable GPS Navigation Unit with Map SD Card Installed
- Stylus
- Car Charger
- Suction Cup Mount
- Dashboard mounting plate
- Handspree Microphone
All instructions are included on the CD inside the box. Our unit was also recently updated with the new ZAGAT Survey software and GPS Updates so we were good to go. The included stylus kind of worried me because I know that fumbling around in the car is bad news. It’s also a sign that onscreen letters and numbers might be on the small side. There’s also nowhere to put the stylus in the NAV300 so it’ll probably go missing pretty quickly. I decided to leave it in the box.
First Impressions
The NAV300 is a fairly compact unit that fits in the palm of your hand. At 7.6 oz, it’s not heavy, but it’s no lightweight either. Personally, I like my electronics with a little meat on the bones. The 3.5 inch Anti-Glare display sports a 16:9’ish aspect ratio and a 320×240 pixel resolution offer full touch screen capabilities. I was pleased to see that the screen had decent viewing angles which is important when placing it on the confines of a dashboard. On the face of the unit, the left side allows quick access to the main menu and the hands-free Bluetooth, while the right side features a set of up and down arrows for quick scrolling.
The back of the unit houses the speakers and the GPS antenna that folds flat when not in use. There are two speakers allowing the unit to bark out directions loud and proud or allow you to listen to your MP3’s and movies. The sound quality isn’t great so don’t expect to get the party started with this player.
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First Impressions Cont’d
The GPS antenna flips out from the back of the unit and folds flat when you want to pack it away. An optional external antenna is also available if you want to mount the unit in a place where line of sight is not a possibility.
Maps are stored on a 2GB SD Card that comes installed into the NAV300. The brand is Kingston, but the performance of the card is pretty slow. With the map files being fairly large, responsiveness could be increased with an upgrade to a faster card. This is also where you plug in your MP3 or Movie loaded SD Card. The NAV300 supports the playback of the following files through this slot:
Music Player: MP3, WAV
Movie Player: MPEG4, AVI, Xvid
Picture Viewer: GIF, JPG, PNG
The unit does not support larger capacity SDHC cards. We tried putting an SDHC card in and it wouldn’t even recognize the files on the card. Bummer.
The left side of the unit gives us access to a headphone jack for rocking out to your tunes. Definitley a better choice than using the built in speakers. To the right is the mic input for the hands-free microphone while the button beside it is the power button. It’s recessed so that it isn’t easily pushed while stowed, draining out your battery.
The right side of the unit gives us our power connector for the included vehicle charging kit or optional home charger. The port labelled TMC is for plugging in the real-time traffic RDS antenna. Further right, you’ll see the master volume dial.
Setting it Up
The included suction cup mount makes it easy to attach it to any glass surface and can be tilted up and down or left and right and locked into place with the locking dials. The mount can also be attached to the dash with the included dashboard mount plate that sticks with an adhesive pad.
The included hands-free microphone mounts easily to the sun visor. The rest of the cabling tucked away unicely into the trim by the windshield pillar and along the space between the dash and the windshield.
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Starting It Up
After powering it on from a cold start, the unit started up and acquired a signal in around 30 seconds under a clear sky. We did find that depending on how many buildings were nearby or how much cloud or smog cover there was, it could take up to a minute. Not bad. But before you can get underway, you need to agree to the huge disclaimer that you won’t do anything stupid like drive through a crosswalk when the GPS tells you to turn right or something. The best policy is don’t do anything that would get you on the evening news.
How It Keeps You From Getting Lost…
The best test for a GPS system, in my humble opinion, is to take it to a totally unfamilar city and try to get around with just the system. If you get lost a lot, you’ll know it’s….crap… Luckily, the NAV300 comes with some tricks up its sleeve that will keep you on the right road.
First off, the screen gives you plenty of data to get you on and off even the most confusing interstate. The left hand side provides data like which direction to turn or which way to get off on the interstate while a visual meter tells you just how quickly it’s coming up as well as distance. There is also a speed limit indicator so that you’ll know exactly how much over the speed limit you were when the fuzz pulls you over. You can also set audible alarms to warn you when you are X amount over the limit. This can be done indepently for urban areas and interstates or highways. I did notice that the speed indicator only seemed to work in the US, but not so much in Canada.
Also very useful for multi-lane interstates like the ones in Los Angeles was the lane indicator that told me which lanes to be in for my next turn off. I also found the estimated time of arrival to be a great way to plan for breaks or for dinner at the nearest ZAGAT Rated restaurant and the branded points of interest made it easy to see where the next Starbucks is.
Taking It On The Road
After spending a lot of time driving around totally unfamiliar places like Los Angeles and Seattle to my backyard of Vancouver, I’ve really gotten to know the NAV300. For starters, in Los Angeles, I found that being able to see which lane, which direction, and how quickly my exits were coming up were a total life saver. In a city where it seems that everyone drives slow in the left lane for no apparent reason (while talking on the phone, no headset), or sometimes the WRONG WAY on a one way street, it really allowed me to setup for my exits properly. I was also impressed with how quickly it rerouted me if I totally screwed up.
I found it similarly helpful in Seattle where I have no clue where I’m going. Armed with just addresses, I was able to navigate with the help of the NAV300 and found that it was accurate to within a 10 – 20 feet of the turns I needed to take. The visual indicators also provided good warning so I could plan ahead for getting into the proper lanes for the next turn. Because of the horrid traffic jams in both cities, I would have loved to have tried out the Real-Time Traffic Data add on to see how well it dealt with routing me around traffic.
In the more familiar surroundings of Vancouver, the NAV300 took me on routes that did the trick, but seemed to pick ones that took me straight through the city which is often plagued with mini traffic jams. However, with the way that Vancouver is laid out, the routes weren’t horrible by any means, but seemed more appropriate for non-peak hours. Just for fun, I did take a lot of wrong turns but it seemed to re-route quickly and send me on my way. Some earlier reviews seemed to have problem with the re-routing, but it looks to be fixed in the latest software.
I did notice however that in all three cities, there were instances where the turns were labelled or spoken, they didn’t match what was on the signs on the road. I found this more of an annoyance. However, I ended up just paying more attention to the great visual indicators when something didn’t seem to make sense. When driving at night, the display colours can be inverted, making it easier to look at in the dark.
Bluetooth Hands Free Action
One of the features that I tended to use a lot was the hands-free Bluetooth system built into the NAV300. I loved how I didn’t have to wear a dorky headset to be able use my phone in the car. Once my handset (a Dopod C500) was paired with the NAV300, it would automatically connect everytime I got in and out of the car. Even the call display worked, allowing me to answer or reject the call with just a tap of the screen. You can also program frequently used numbers into the NAV300 labelled with a voice command. Speaking of voice commands, you can also program locations with voice commands and call them up from the main navigation screen by hitting options then voice command.
The only thing that was a little tedious was the placement of the microphone. I thought I could put it anywhere, but this was not so. After fiddling around, I found that the best spot for the mic was clipped to your sun visor with the mic pointed right at your mouth. One tweak that I did find that provided better voice quality for the people I was talking to was to flip the visor down, slightly, getting the mic even closer to my face.
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Final Thoughts…
The NAV300 came with a huge list of features, and although the majority of them were useful, I found a few that weren’t. First off, the inclusion of the MP3/Movie player I thought was rather silly, particularly because you can’t use this function while using navigation. Also, the movie and picture loading times were quite long. I even used a 150x SD card and it was still really slow. This makes it somewhat of a drag. I’d recommend that in a future revision that these features be removed because they are simply useless for a navigation system to have. Games and calculator? Yup, nuke those too and concentrate on what it does best.
The other thing that was somewhat odd was the inclusion of the stylus. The tiny stylus that came with the NAV300 was largely unused simply because it wasn’t necessary nor was it practical to use it. Also, there was nowhere to store it on the NAV300 making it easy to lose. Having said that, there were instances where the touch screen seemed cramped, particularly when trying to type in streets or numbers. However, I was never not able to punch in what I needed to punch in, albeit with a bit of cursing and some backspacing. I would suggest that Delphi find some way to increase the size of the letters and numbers a bit so that bigger fingers would will fit.
Since the NAV300 is battery operated, it would be nice to have a carrying case included with it so that when you do take it with you, it doesn’t get all scratched up. The screen is a sensitive part of the device and having even a cheap cloth bag would have been better than nothing. I did notice that Delphi sells a case on their site for about 10 bucks, but really, honestly? Do the right thing and include something so that a disaster can be averted. As for battery life, I didn’t get a low battery indicator once while exploring downtown San Diego, which was probably a good 3 or 4 hrs of meandering.
Overall, the Delphi NAV300 packs a lot of punch into its $399 US retail price tag. The GPS performance is very good and definitely passed the test when it comes to helping someone find their way in a completely foreign city. I would love to check it out with the Real-Time Traffic data option to see how much better the experience would be though and to see if the upgrade is worth the extra $199. I found the NAV300 interface intuitive and was able to operate the unit without the help of a manual which speaks volumes for its ease of use. I also enjoyed using the Bluetooth hands-free and found that the feature, ease of use and convenience beat wearing a silly headset any day of the week. Although there are some quirks with the interface and some fluffy useless features included, I definitely recommend this product as a solid buy.
Pros
- Quick startup and intuitive interface
- Good accuracy and on the road performance
- Great visual indication of turns and upcoming exits
- Text to speech was loud and clear
- Built in Bluetooth Hands-Free kit
- ZAGAT makes finding a good place to eat easy
- Branded icons make it easy to locate your favourite fast food and coffee places
Cons
- Fluffy useless features like movie and MP3 player
- Number and letters could be larger to facilitate easier data entry
- A bag or case would be nice to protect it when exploring on foot
Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0
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