Alpine PMDB100 Blackbird Factory Renewed Portable Navigation System

I was suprised to see some bad reviews about this unit because this thing is great. Here are the gists:

Pro:

Large bright screen

touch screen (this is a MUST now a days)

Sleek design: this thing looks beautiful compared to the clunky design of others like magallen or garmin

VERY FAST calculation time (only a second or two to reroute) (by the way, my unit prompted me to do a U-turn everytime it was legal)

very fast input time. It seems that Alpine uses a better algorithm (or simply faster clock) for anticipating possible street names. I inputted letters like I was typing it in a computer keyboard)

mp3 player works flawlessly: For those of you who do not know much about this unit, this thing has an SD/MMC card slot so that you can just pop your SD card full of music and then broadcast it with built-in FM transmitter to listen to music while on the go. Very useful.

Con

not much, maybe the unit would be better with a better battery life but with a 20G hard drive, beautiful and bright color display, more than 3 hours is asking too much.

It is a bit hard to get to options for choosing freeways over tollroads.

Conclusion:

all in all, a great navi. It is a bit pricy compared to the others but the large bright screen, fast responses, and the mp3 player make up for it I think.

I recently purchased this unit after reading many, many reviews and find the Blackbird a wonderful guidance tool and so easy to program contrary to many other reviews. I find little difficulty disengaging the unit from its cradle when lifting straight up while holding down the release button, and it gets easier each time. You must lift up the antenna before inserting the Blackbird into its cradle. Initially, when turning on the unit, I inadvertently pressed the demo touchpad and the unit would cycle me around the block until I exited the demo. I have experienced no problems accessing satellites. Using it as a stand-a-lone GPS, I get approximately two hours use between charges. When plugged into the charger inside the car, the unit turns on and off with the ignition while maintaining a charge. I am waiting for delivery of the 1.1 software update which includes the NAVTEQ traffic system. I'm sure it will be fantastic. I highly recommend this unit.

Buy Alpine PMDB100 Blackbird Factory Renewed Portable Navigation System Now

This is Alpine's first entry to the portable Nav system so naturally there are bugs in the system as with all new systems.

Recently, I have updated the unit to Version 1.1 software which fixes quite a lot of the bugs that I have found. There are some system performance enhancement as well.

"Traffic" function is now possible with this latest software update. It comes with free 3 months of Navteq traffic subscription. I encouraged those folks who have problems should order this software update from Alpine website. It is available for free on DVD.

Read Best Reviews of Alpine PMDB100 Blackbird Factory Renewed Portable Navigation System Here

I just returned from a 4,128 mile trip in our new (2007) Motorhome from AZ to MN, WI, IA, NE, KS, NM and the navigation on this Alpine PMD-B100 is completely unacceptable. We had to relie on road maps most of the time and thank goodness we had them with us. As an example, just before we reached our home destination it had me turn into an airport which wasn't a road, but a driveway. It told me to turn into a Pecan Grove where there wasn't even a road and then when I was on the main road leading to my home it wanted me to take I-19 N, make a u-turn and come back on the other side of the Interstate to get me to the exit I was already at. I'm going to check with Alpine to see if there is an update on software or I'm going to have to get something else. If it can't be reliable, it's of no use. We learned after the first error, but after the second one, we rechecked our "common sense approach" much oftener. Putting in addresses is also a challenge and at times you have to use a couple of different approaches to enter it. If it wasn't for the bad navigation it would be a super unit, but, how can you give it more than 1 star when it can't navigate. You don't get to the destination based on how good it looks.

Want Alpine PMDB100 Blackbird Factory Renewed Portable Navigation System Discount?

I've been using the PMDB100T since Dec. 06. It started out great but for the past few months it reboots itself fairly often, usually locking up at the startup screen. This always seems to happen as I approach a freeway interchange where the guidance would be most useful. Sometimes I can power off, then on again and get it going but other times it has to be removed from the cradle and the battery removed and replaced before it will start up. Not exaclty a wise task to try while navigating city traffic. The points of interest database seems to be very outdated. I have followed directions a few times only to find the destination no longer exists.

The backlight on the controls constantly goes on and off as headlights from approaching cars hit it. It's very distracting at night.

Other family members have Magellan units and I bet I'll end up switching before long. This thing is just too unreliable.