GPS Devices Life

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Have had this unit for a little over a week, driven 2,000+ miles, and about to return it to store.

The system has some nice features, but fatally failed in the performance of the core function: navigation assistance.

Note: Initial GD-72 Navigation System (hereafter GD-72) apparently is slightly different from GD-70 in the title, but the manufacturer, “Global Navigation, Inc.”, does not list the newer model in their Web site so we cannot have a separate entry here.

Admittedly, part of our frustration came from lack of experience in using a GPS navigation guide. I’ll try to identify points related to expectations.

- The purchase

Our friend who were going on a long trip similar to ours at about the same date showed us a new Garmin GPS unit they plan to use. That triggered our interest in obtaining one for ourselves. Our 2K mile trip would be an ideal test drive for such a purchase and we’d have sufficient time to bail out if it didn’t work out. It didn’t.

I’d seen automotive GPS in operation several times (including once in the early 90’s) but hadn’t done much research. Although our friend told us that Garmin was a very good brand in GPS and the store had mostly Garmin lines, my wife really bought into the idea that a GPS/DVD combo could save us some “are we there yet” with a 2-year old in the back. Our requirements were pretty basic: preloaded U.S. and Canada maps and voice guidance.

At $750, GD-72 is as expensive as the top line of dedicated automotive GPS receivers. The steep price tag may be related to the bigger screen as well as its combined DVD player functionality.

The package comes with a GPS receiver combined with a DVD player, 2GB built-in flash memory preloaded with complete U.S. and Canada maps + 2 million points of interest (POI’s), a built-in SD card reader, a 7″ TFT colour display/touch screen, a rechargeable battery, a 12V car charger, a 120V AC power adapter, built-in stereo speakers, A/V input/output and stereo earphone jackets, A/V cables, and a remote control. Along with its bulky size and weight (measures 175×143x38 mm^3 and 0.825 kg, or 7″x5.5″x1.5″ and 1.8 lb), the unit includes a very sturdy extensible windshield mount (13″ to 18″). It also comes with a carrying case with shoulder stripe. The case fits everything except the gigantic mount.

Supposedly, it has a built-in RF transmitter (presumably for live traffic update). But I don’t see any way to use it from the manual.

- GPS Functions

GD-72 has a reasonable feature list, such as

. Relatively large screen. GD-72 also has three buttons to quickly flip some functions such as switch between map and destination selection. A fourth button allows you to switch to DVD mode.

. Quite precise and relatively up-to-date preloaded maps from NAVTEQ. A very welcome feature is the indication of destination by street side. Several online maps lacks this indication, making me hesitate when I’m approaching a destination. We had one severe complaint about the maps as GPS pronounced “in 2,000 feet, turn left” when we hit a dead end in the street. I later found from an AAA map that the street was cut in two pieces. But this can happen to any GPS map.

. Multiple destination input methods - address, cross section, point of interest, city center, etc. Once we get used to the unit, it’s relatively easy to program a route.

. GD-72 allows you to save a destination in a “favourite” list, sorted in alphabetic order; you can also recall previous destinations from a “recent” list sorted in reverse chronic order. Unlike Garmin, however, GD-72 does not treat home address as special. So if you want to recall your home address, you must save it as one of favourites.

. Multiple route options - quickest, shortest, major (highway), and local. Our main driving was on high ways, so we only tested quickest.

. Route fine tuning - you can ask it to display route sections and then pick the legs you want to avoid so it will recalculate. This could be useful if you know of a road construction or rush hour condition.

. In address mode, you can change state/province if you do not want to use current location as reference. Then you have a choice of inputting city first or street address first. (Intuitively I thought that city first was natural, but later found that address first could often lead to faster search if not looking for “main street”.)

. The address mode displays street designations such as avenue, circle, or place, but it omits some designations. It also displays address number range after selecting a street, which can be helpful in identifying a wrong street.

. A category list of points of interest (POI’s): restaurants, transportation (gas, parking, etc.), shopping, tourist attractions, recreation, lodging, etc. The scope of POI’s is also vast, albeit incomplete. (It boasts 2 million entries in U.S. and Canada.)

. Once a POI category is selected, you can then select state/province, then a submode by city, by name (within 25 miles), by distance, etc.

. You can also use current location as a reference point, or even point and click on the map to select a destination.

. Automatic map zooming in accordance with driving condition, e.g., zooming in when driving near a city.

. The maximum scale in maps is 100 feet per inch, the minimum is 10 miles per inch. If you need to view beyond the boundary, you can “drag” the map like with Google maps.

. Voice guide tells you how far your current section (between turns) is, advance notice of a turn in frequences appropriate for the driving condition (2 miles, 3/4 mile, 2,000 feet, 500 feet, etc.). In some cases, the voice even pronounces the exit number and name.

. Associative typing eases the pain of inputting an address using a touch screen. The system lists names containing the string you have typed, those containing the string at the beginning will be displayed first. So if you typed “LEAR”, the list will include both “LEAR” and “JOHN-LEAR”. Amazingly, you often only have to type 1 to 3 letters before the one you need comes up.

. Iconic display of points of interest. This is not very useful while driving, but if you park by the side and want to find the nearest restaurant or gas station, that will be helpful.

. A guidance pane that displays miscellaneous information such as remaining mileage and estimated time, direction of next turn, signal strength, etc. Competition’s smaller screens cannot afford to have this. You can hide this guidance pane in preferences.

. You current route segment is always displayed at the bottom; your next turn is always displayed at the top when a route is active.

Good things about GD-72 stops here. Even here, GD-72 lacks some very basic features such as a trip metre.

- Design concerns

. DVD combo: As one reviewer pointed out, since it is illegal to operate a DVD player in the front row, having a DVD combo doesn’t make a trip shorter for children. We didn’t think about this till we sat inside the vehicle. For off road use, such a design could save some weight and one power plug compared with two stand-alone units. But the benefit is marginal. In fact, during the entire week, we have not even once used the DVD player. So this review will not touch the DVD functions.

. Screen size: As it turns out, bigger size does not automatically translate into better readability. GD-72 has very low resolution compared with competitors’. Other vendors’ smaller screens turn out to be quite readable.

. Weight: The extra weight made GD-72 difficult to mount. I never attempted to install the gigantic windshield mount. Some states, including California, forbid windshield mount all together. (Considering this, the fact that GD-72 is selling in California is strange, because there is really no alternative.) During the entire trip, one of us in the passenger seat would hold the unit in our hands or place it on our laps.

- Problems

. Losing signal. GD-72 easily loses signal, even in open air. Many times when we needed guidance, GD-72 couldn’t give any because it couldn’t locate itself in several minutes. In contrast, our friend who drove half of the same route told us their Garmin rarely lost signal. (In a store, I even noticed a TomTom unit having excellent indoor reception where several Garmin demos failed.)

. Terribly slow route recalculation. Once the driver misses a turn, all GPS guides would recalculate route. But GD-72 is particularly slow in this. We often thought the system hung and had to recycle power. (It may have indeed hung.) Again, our friend told us that recalculation would take only seconds.

Combining the above two problems, GD-72 is rather useless as a GPS guide, even harmful.

. Easily hangs. The unit often hung up or crashed when I fiddled around. The software can also run into dead ends. Such conditions show that the product is not thoroughly tested.

. Precision of receiver. The unit often found us off road when we were on the road, or found us in a wrong street. This is mostly an annoyance but could be harmful in city driving - it can prompt you to make a wrong turn.

. Confusing “stopover”. If you have set up a destination, and then select “Destination” again, it asks you if you want to clear the set destination, set up a new destination, or program a “Stopover”. I thought this would be the feature to allow multi-stop routing (like “way points”). But I couldn’t find a way to clear a stopover either manually. Nor does GD-72 automatically clears a stopover once it is reached. Well, because the car never actually run through the door of McDonald’s, GD-72 seems to always think there’s a few feet left. So I couldn’t tell if “stopover” is really equivalent to way points. Regardless, a manual clearance is a must for any multi-leg routing to be useful in my opinion.

. Heat from battery. The unit becomes very hot in use. If anything, it would be uncomfortable to hold this as a portable DVD. (We had to hold it as a GPS guide.)

. Unreliable touch screen. Despite its size, it is often difficult to activate a link using GD-72’s touch screen. In comparison, competition’s smaller screens are very responsive.

. Speed of voice announcement. In city street where consecutive cross streets may be less than 1,000 feet apart, one can easily miss a turn before the robotic announcement “In_500_feet, turn_left” completes. Due to lack of window mount, it was difficult for us to take visual cue from the unit; but even if it is available, a visual cue may not be a favourable solution. I haven’t compared this with other voice guides, but this makes the unit even less useful.

. Measurement in imperial units only. According to its Web site, the company “is dedicated to introducing GPS technology to North America” - where two countries out of three use metric system. Again, I haven’t compared with competition but in my opinion, a mode switch is definitely necessary for operation outside of the U.S.

- Conclusions

Ultimately, GPS navigation aid of GD-72 fails to meet our moderate expectations. No one should pay the price of a GPS/DVD combo for a DVD player, even if that part is fully functional.

- Additional comments

GD-72 may appeal to promptu buyers by combining a navigation aid and a DVD entertainment system. But do you really need such a combo?

The same brand “Initial” is splashed on several lines of vehicular DVD players from Initial Technology, Inc. based in the same city as Global Navigation, Inc. It is safe to bet that they are owned by the same people. I don’t know how successful “Initial” as a DVD player is, but I would definitely not recommend its GPS system.

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Tags: automotive gps, car gps, Garmin, garmin gps, Global, gps unit, Initial, Tomtom