practical GPS
After testing several GPS units, no one is perfect. But Navigon 5100 is a very practical GPS in affordable price, and it is less mistake and easy to use compared to Garmin Nuvi 750 and 680 in road tests. High recommend! It would be better if there are more POIs(including search options) and alternative hook.

Muy bueno
Muy buen producto, con menus de facil acceso, buena vista, todo esta muy bien para mi.

solo un pequeno comentario el sonido deberia de ser un poco mas alto...

Great Model....READ MANUAL BEFORE YOU OPERATE
I map for a living so this unit makes sense.
I was worried about buying this model when I first read many reviews on this site as well as other sites carrying the Navigon 5100. The price however was too luring at 178$. I am pleased to find that the 5100 works great if you follow the recommendations in the manual.

I am a GIS analyst so i do have experience with maps and creating products similar to google earth. I will say that the Navigon is a great model for a intermediate user. I bought my mom a garmin unit because she will not take the time to read the manual nor does she care about extra funtions like optimum route, excluding tolls or 3d view.

First issue I read about was battery failing.
If you charge your unit for 6 hours (as recommended) when you initially buy your unit you will not have issues with your battery or recharge.

As stated in the manual, powering on takes a while. This is kind of a drag and i'd say one of my "cons" for the model. Powering on and off takes 7-10 seconds.

Many people complained about the unit rerouting with U-turns. This is something that you can turn off so they obviously didn't read the manual.
Rerouting is fast and includes traffic in calculation. Something Garmin does not do. You can also select what kind of vehichle you are in (bicycle, truck, motercycle, car) to add another factor to avg speed and rate calculations.

One of the best features for me and others i work with is the log funtion. If you need to log milage for tax purposes this is a great function. Or if you need to track workers to see if they go home during lunch or leave their car idle for hours this is great as well. With rising gas prices our company saved over 10,000$ due to this tracking.

The GUI is easy to understand if you go through the manual although not as "smooth" and fast as the Garmin unit.
Poi's are outstanding tons of symbology and even better if you get the freshmaps update.It's on sale through amazon for 56$ for 3 years. Totally worth it.

One thing you won't find in the garmin unit is an info button that tells info about the POI as well as a phone #.


All roads come from Navteq or Tele-atlas which is where Garmin gets their roads from. So complaints about roads being different on a Garmin doesn't make sense.

I do like garmin's POI loader. Very nice if you have work data that you need to add to your unit.
I haven't played with the navigon's POI's I suspect if you follow format and add through notepad then your only restriction would be the size of your card.
I must warn it's probably more advanced and not as user friendly as Garmin's POI loader.

Great unit with significant bugs
Overall the Nuvi 255W is a great GPS unit. The unit takes very quickly locks on to satellite signals, tracks very well and when you miss a turn or do something unexpected, recalculates a new route very quickly. I recently took it on a trip from Michigan to Washington, DC and it proved to be extremely useful. There are some quirks that I elaborate on below.

Good points: Hotfix (TM) to lock on to satellite signals works well. Tracking is excellent and without noticable lag. Likewise, it quickly notices that you're off track and recalculates a route quickly. Display is excellent - the layout of information on the screen is very good showing upcoming turns at the top, your speed, the local speed limit and the estimated time of arrival at the bottom. The automatic zoom in and out of the map works well too. I never came across a situation where I felt that the map showed too little (zoomed in too close). On I-76 in PA, I travelled through a mile long tunnel and it tracked me perfectly even though it obviously could not get satellite signals inside the tunnel. There is a sharp turn left just out of the tunnel (going east) and it had no trouble locating me at the turn so soon after I got out. Very commendable.

Not so good points: The quality of the voice (for announcing street names) leaves a bit to be desired. It is robotic as many people have commented and the pronunciation isn't great. It took me a while to recognize the word "ramp". I first assumed it was some Australian term! (I used the Aussie gal to do the announcements - I found her voice the least annoying). But as I got used to it, it ceased to bother me and I could recognize all she said.

I noticed several mistakes in the POI list - for example it did not list the Mobil station nearest my house but listed a party store as being a gas station (about 1/2 mile from the Mobil). I could not locate any of the Smithsonian Institution Museums in the list - a very glaring omission. In fact when I tried to locate museums near Washington, DC, it would not identify Washington, DC at all. It listed several Washingtons all around the country but not in the District of Columbia. I could not even locate the District of Columbia when doing this. It was annoying. Strangely it found a Smithsonian Institution somewhere in Virginia (No, not the Udvar- Hazy center though it located that as well) - I did not follow up.
It would not let me locate a commuter store in Herndon/Reston, Virginia that was closest to my hotel. When I tried to use the street adress it would not accept the Building # (12530 Sunrise Valley Drive, Herndon, VA 20171 ). It was listed in the POI database but at the wrong address.
When I tried to go to Safeway located at 413 Elden Street, Herndon from the Vienna station parking lot, it chose a route that while direct had me make a U-turn to get into the store parking lot. That would have been OK except that the road did not have a left-turn lane at that point and so making a U-turn would have been dangerous. Even stranger, when it asked me to make a U-turn, the symbol indicated a U-turn to the right! but the store was on the left side (as it knew). That confused the heck out of me the first time. I traveled the route again the next day just to make sure that I wasn't reading it wrong and it did it again. However on other occasions, it did correctly show a U-turn as being a turn to the left (all those were legal U-turns). All of this was a little disconcerting.

This model does not feature a compass. So it you're into Geocacheing as I am, other models might be more suitable. I find the lack of a compass very annoying - should'nt it be a basic feature of a navigation device? Particularly one that features "off road" and "Pedestrian" modes?

disappointed with major mapping error and solution
Item contains serious mapping error that Garmin will not stand behind. I have to wait one year and pay for new download if available. Dealer will also do nothing.

Please help.

I have not read the instrutions yet I've travelled 2,000 miles with it!
So I finally got the Nuvi 255w after months of analizing and comparing wit other brands, adding 3 days of looking arownd in Circuit City and Best Buy stores displays.

I have not read the instructions that came with this unit, yet I and my 11 years old son were able to operate the unit like pros out of the box.

I just arrived from a trip that took me from New York to New Jersey, then Bostn, then MAine, then Niagara Falls, then Corning (upstate NY), then to Harrisburg, PA, Hershey Park PA, Washington DC, Philladelphia and back to New Jersey (We live actually in the Dominican Republic, but were on a two week family trip).

Of course,and being our native language, we programmed the GPS in Latin American Spanish, and of course, the pronunciation of some street names was a little akward, but nothing you can't manage. One of the main bugs is that when it mentioned a south route or high way it said, for example, to take I-95 seconds instead of south, since S is the abreviation of seconds in spanish and not south. We overcame that and the rest was easy.

Maps issue: this unit is not up to date on actual maps in the DC and Alexandria VA area. We were trough streets that seem to have been there for a while and it showed that we were travelling trough grass, of course recalculating, but we got used to this fast and as soon as we arrived to the part of the road it had on the map it recalculated again.

Crazy Issue: in NY city or if surrounded by tall buildings, it went a little crazy. I guess it was because during the traffic jams we encountered I guess it loss contact with the satellites due to interferrence by the tall buildings arroung. I recomend that if travelling in a city, try to remenber the first route it displyed and follow it even when it redirects you because after a while it realculates and send you on the right track again.

Overall, I give this unit a 4.75, because of:
1- Ease of use
2- Fast satellite adquisition
3- Fast perfonmance
4- 96% relliability
5- Excellent form factor
6- Good battery life
7- Excellent for pedestrian use (It even guides you through internal walking roads like in the National Mall, Arlington Cementery, Central Park, Niagara Falls Park, Manhattan, etc.
8- It took me and my familly in a two week 2000 mile trip with exellent ease of use and only very minor gltches

Finally, be carefull around Washington DC, because this unit has not updated the actual and latest detours arownd monuments and buildings, therefore taking you to dead ends. Don't trust it to take you to the White House, Capitol, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, because it will guide you to direct streets that are now blocked. Also beware with the sides when you are arriving somewhere.. it sometimes says the finish will be on the opposite side of the street to where it really is.

Best In Its Class - Great For Traveling
If you spend much time driving in unfamiliar territory, especially if you rent cars in big cities, a good portable GPS makes an amazing difference. And the Garmin 255W is the best one I could find in the 0 - 0 range.

First this thing just plain works. I haven't had any issues with mine. It was easy to set up and figure out right out of the box, and it's easy to use. It never has had trouble getting sufficient signal unlike earlier and cheaper models.

I chose the 255W for several reasons: It uses some of the newest and best maps available. It has one of the more usable touch screens for entering destinations. It's fast to acquire satellites. And Garmin almost always comes out on top in reviews--especially in routing.

Ultimately, you buy a car GPS to get you from Point A to Point B as easily and efficiently as possible. And that's what the 255W does best. If you've ever had a "Brand X" GPS take you on some strange route that adds 20 minutes to your trip, has you turn the wrong way down a one way road, tell you to turn AFTER you've passed the street, frequently loses the satellite signal, or has old maps missing streets, you know how important this stuff is.

The 255W has a really clear display that's easy to see in any light. It's small enough to use on foot. The windshield mount works great and it's easy to toss in the glovebox when you park. It even tells you the speed limit on most roads. The "points of interest" feature works very well to find places to eat by type of cuisine, gas stations, etc.

The difference between the 255W and 205W is the 255 speaks street names and includes Alaska and Canada. The 205 and 205W will tell you to "turn right in 500 feet" which isn't as helpful or obvious as "turn right on Ivy Street in 500 feet". The "W" models are widescreen which makes entering destinations easier due to having a bigger "keyboard" and also lets you see more map area while driving.

All in all this isn't the cheapest GPS in its class but it's one of the best. My only gripe is you need an expensive add-on to get live traffic data--something that's included with the Magellan Roadmate 1430 which is close to the same price. But the Garmin 255W is a better GPS in every other way.

N95 8G review
Very cool phone. Does everything it says and more. The only problem i had so far was the video would glitch when recording in high quality and mass memory. Researched it online and figured out that if you format the mass memory drive it will fix it. Others online claim that the problem came back again but mine has not.
Other than that this phone is very very cool. I figured out how to convert DVD's to MP4 format and watch movies or whatever. phone quality is very good. During calls the loudspeaker is super loud A++, but the regular speaker for your ear is a little low. But maybe I have bad ears.

Set your expectations
I owned this phone and although many people praise it, it gave me a lot of grief. It is far from "perfect" as others put it here. It may have to do with Amazon maybe (and I am reflecting what I was told by Nokia) that they are not authorized to sell Nokia products so they may be selling bad batches or refurbished products...

If the phone I had owned is the real deal, then take praises hereto with a grain of salt. There are many flaws to the phone starting in the Bluetooth pairing (drove me nuts..) to GPS which takes forever to sync and get you your position.
Battery life time? The biggest exaggeration. What is stated in the spec, is not even close to reality (but every manufacturer is overstating this parameter because they know it's hard to test).

Camera: Even with its stated 5M pixels, quality is typical to Sony, bad! I have a Canon 4MP which has a far better picture quality. No comparison.

Although it has 8GB, loading songs which is a cumbersome task on its own, will eat up a lot of juice. Couple that with GPS maps and photos you would want to take and save, you quickly run out of memory.
SO I think buying a different model with MicroSDHC is a better option.

Additionally the phone tend to get sluggish takes some time to respond to a menu item, taking photo, editing music, etc...
There are some good features to it in call making, contacts, SMS etc (the classic phone features)

My conclusion: It is not worth the price. Think about what you expect from this phone and consider other realistic options.
I give it 3 stars, as after all it is a phone that serves some purpose.

Excelent device!
Every thing you need in a single device, GPS, WiFi, e-mail, web, Office, PDF, MP3, Video, Games. Feels nice in the hand, very good voice call quality.

The features you need on the move!
The Nokia product is as decribed, only even better with added applications which you can purchase to suit your needs on the go. Also nice to know such Hi-tech can be rugged and tough!