Sony NV-U70 NAV-U 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

• Powerful vehicle navigation with proprietary Sony GPS receiver for extreme speed and accuracy
• High-brightness, 3.5-inch touch-screen display
• Intelligent brightness control system adapts to vehicle lighting conditions
• 1 GB of internal memory contains maps of the entire continental USA and Hawaii
• Intelligent rerouting instantaneously recalculates your route when you take a wrong turn

Received my Sony NV-U70 after waiting for it to be released. I have played with other GPS units in the past and was excited to get my newly designed Sony. Well after playing with it for about 3 hours i packed it up and returned it. The positives it aquired and locked very fast, routing function was very fast (although really took me to the gym in an around about way that no other GPS has ever taken me). Was quick to re-route after a wrong turn.

I have purchased the Garmin Nuvi350 instead. Reasons:

1. I like the fact that it "speaks" street names (sony does not) After using the Nuvi for a few weeks it is clear to me that this is a very valuable feature. Without this feature there are times when you are told to take a right hand turn only to find there are two right turns coming up. The Nuvi will actually tell you the street name to turn on so you dont have to look over to the unit.

2. I like that it also has an SD slot very nice if you plan to use this unit out of country you can have additional maps located on an SD card also good for MP3s.

3. I like 8 hour battery life vs. Sony 4 hour i usually dont even use the 12 volt charger nice not having the wire hanging down the dash.

4. I like the smaller size Sony wont fit in pocket The Nuvi is about the size of a Treo Cell phone.

5. I like the headphone jack to allow MP3 listening

6. Sony had about 1/5 the POI's built in not sure why.

7. After spending time with the Sony and the Nuvi I totally perfer the interface on the Nuvi.

I am by no means an expert on GPS navigators (although i dont appreciate being told i dont know what i am talking about by other posts)I travel throughout the US and Canada for my job so having a GPS is a life saver for me. I have rented Hertz cars with neverlost and that is my baseline (Although not a very good one) Battery operation was a key factor in my decision making along with size since i travel via Airplane and take my GSP with me.

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This is the first GPS system that I have used and I can only find 2 positives about it. The price is right and it is fast to recalculate a new route when you take a different turn.

However, the database must be old as a 2 year old entrance on the Ohio turnpike is not recognized. It also failed to pick up US30 between Mansfield and Bucyrus whcih has been constructed for at least 4 years. It will also not recognize certain streets if you don't call them the same as they are labelled in the system. A case in point was using a postal address the NV-U70 couldn't find it, but when I arrived it had it shown as a county road #!

Don't leave home without having a very good idea of the route you are taking. I use Microsoft Streets and Maps which is far more accurate than the NV-U70.

I regret my purchase and am considering a Garmin product, which effectively says the price is not really right.

AC

Amherst, OH

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I just purchased this Sony GPS and compared it with others. The sony unit has the best visual display of any. The graphics are sharp and clear. That was the primary reason I bought this unit. I don't drive in Europe and I have a car stereo that already plays MP3's so I don't need those extras.

I looked at several units and found the graphics to be blocky and jagged. They offered a lot of extras I did not need. The Sony unit does not speak the street names, but that is not a big issue. The Sony aquires a satelite signal fast, very fast. Much faster than the Magellan and TomTom units I tested. The unit does not have all the points of interest that others have. That is not a big deal for me. It does have all the major name hotels in the areas where I travel. That works fine for me. The recharging input is on the side. I can place the unit flat on my dashboard facing me. I could not do that with the Magellan as the input was on the bottom of the unit.

Some areas where Sony lacks: 1. You cannot choose to use only major highways or exclude freeways. That would be nice in the next unit.

2. The interface really needed some getting used to. It is not intuitive in the least. The manual does not help at all. Confusing? Yeah.

3. It needs longer battery life. However, the battery recharges faster than I thought possible.

4. It is a little bulky. Slim it down and reduce the weight.

If you look around real hard, you can find this unit for $299. I did at Fry's. Circuit City and Best Buy wanted $400 and up for it. For the price, it does everything I want it to do.

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I had a Garmin Ique 3600 Palm OS PDA GPS which unfortunately decided to stop working with the car cradle before our move to CA. I bought this Sony GPS as a replacement. The Garmin had a much better interface. The Sony interface is extremely poor and takes an excessive amount of time to find things. For example, if you want to look for a certain store you have to search by city, not by nearest one (unless you have a GPS feed, which hinders you before you leave your house). Also, the map data is suspect as it lead me to the wrong location a couple of times. The only thing I like about it over my Garmin is it acquires the GPS signal much faster. I wouldn't recommend this device to anyone. Stick to a company which just does GPS and mapping such as Garmin or Magellan. Whomever Sony subcontracted to do the software for this device is obviously new to car navgiation.

Positives:

Nice and small size with a quality feel (although the back bulges outward, it is round and fits into your hands). Map database is fairly up to date, probably around late 2004. Sony's graphics are very sharp and make great use of a small 3.5" screen -this is the unit's best feature. The unit will automatically zoom in/out based on your speed; for example, at freeway speeds, the unit will zoom out so that more of the surrounding area can be seen, and then when you exit into city streets and slow down, the unit will zoom in so that more street names are visible on screen. Calculations and menu inputs are all very fast. Easily establishes multiple GPS satellites, even inside of my car with 5 metallic tinted windows and a heat rejecting front glass window. Auto brightness dimmer is convenient and normally sets the appropriate level. Sound is clear and loud with a nice "boink" for feedback everytime you touch the screen. It has a decent POI database, but allows you to input any address and save it as a Favorite. Also noteworthy is that the voice guidance prompts alert you at the right times so that you do not miss a turn or exit -many systems have trouble with this.

Negatives:

Does not have a gyro sensor and relies only on GPS satellites so that the system has a little bit of trouble determining the car's orientation at the beginning of navigation. This also means it will not guide you when it has lost a GPS signal. Also, voice guidance prompts should sound more natural (its tone/pitch). Does not say the street name you need to turn at (but actually, it does not matter that much to me because most text-to-speech systems do not sound natural and clear anyway). Does not offer added MP3, picture viewer, bluetooth, etc. features that other system have. 3D view mode does not display street names, which limits its usefulness (although 2D view mode does show street names clearly). Finding POI's are more difficult that other systems since it makes you enter a City instead of just recognizing where you are first (although if you choose "Find Nearby" then that makes it easier).

For my basis of comparison, I have only used navigation systems that have come as built in options. We have an Acura and a Lexus system that are excellent. The Sony NAV-U compares well with them, it just lacks the large screen size and the gyro sensor and has far fewer Points of Interest since it only has 1GB of memory. But it is a great quality product that is sold for a great price.