Looks like a potentially useful unit, given the problems with address entry can be fixed, however I noted that there wasn't mention of a way to identify and save the current location. For a hand held unit, this would be of great value in navigating back to where your car is parked.

We also didn't see the pedestrian mode addressed in the evaluation. Since this appears to be the reason for the small size of the unit, and a reason for considering such a small size screen over the trend toward 4 inch displays, the utility of this mode should have been included in the evaluation.

The ability if the user to remove and replace the internal battery is a very significant feature, compared with the other GPS units available.

When i get mine i am going to see which way its view your way or the way video show.
Because it shows the screen is viewed with name at top and bottom but you show names right and left.
This would make the screen smaller. I will wait and see. The video where i bought it shows names on top and bottom while beening used not right and left like yours is shown.
Hope mine is like in the video. Bought mine at shop nbc. thanks for your view.
You can check out there video and see what i was veiwing when i bought mine.

Excellent review! When I first saw and read the features of this GPS I thought this would be the ideal GPS given the features and price. Too bad because it has the potential to beat the other GPS models in the same class.

This gps unit was tested in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and norther california. I loved this unit, contrary to other comments, you can save any position you want and have it return you to this position without problem. The unit is small and has small lettering, however, the voice and picture display of your highway-roadway was ample to get you to your destination. I had no problems whatsoever, it was a joy to use and its compactness was equally a joy to put in my pocket.

who ever made this review is either not very smart or just dont know how to exploid the posibilities of the little thing,first if the letters are too small to look at while you're driveing why dont just lay it on the console and pick it up to look at it when you need it i mean everyone talks on cellphones while drive and i'd be just about the same,next you may try to use the device on portrait screen and the keyboard is little bigger,then i found the address he couldn't with no effort i dont even live in new york,i didnt find entering a text any slower than a magellan roadmate 3000t i own too and the map is way faster response to drag arond that the magellan,and it be smart not to use the mp3 player while useing the navigator how genious that is?,who cares about the voice tone as long as you understand what it says!! , and last but not all i found the voice guidance tells the names of atleast the high ways and freeways and i haven't used it but one day so far,yes it lacks some of the POI'S of my magellan but i guess i can call information and get the address,pretty good for the size i'd like to say

This is my first gps unit, so I have limited experience with this technology. Going from nyc to ohio and then to chicago was fine, until I hit chicago downtown. I dont care what new star III chip is available, this unit went nuts, telling me to make random uturns, freezing, and location jumps, it could'nt fine a signal for hours and when it did, it couldn't hold it. Since I never tested any other unit in downtown chicago, I going to give the unit the benefit of the doubt and blame this on dowtown chicago. Works perfectly in Nyc, even when in the lincoln tunnel.

For long trips, it was excellent, telling me how long the trip was. time of arrival, and distance. but for pedestrian use, it was unstable, slow, and inaccurate, it would take several minutes after walking in the wrong direction (gps showed the wrong way)to tell me to make a u turn and it would take several minutes to recalculate, now imagine walking around ohio in 30 degree weather at night.

Since this was also my first time using the unit while walking, this could possibly be human error, but like the gpsmagazine reviewer said, gps units shouln't be difficult to use. I shouldn't have to re read and play around with all the options to get the unit to work via pedestrian option. Which I thought was the main point of getting a unit this small.

Unit is sturdy, walking around in my pocket, despite all the shaking, unit was fine. you can tell by holding the unit
that it's not cheap. good solid feel and great compact design

overall for the original 499 price, run don't walk away, but for it's current 139 price, give it a try, packs lots of features into a great small design, now if they could update all these great features to work in a more timely and quicker fashion we would have a big winner

I agree with most comments. This review is in depth and very through; hats off! I feel that although true the unit is painfully slow, it does work well once you match your input style to its abilities and carefully select the info (although even back spacing takes about 2 seconds per character when a mistake was made). Granted, you probably should not have to do such, but for the $99 that I managed to get this at, it was a bargain for a car to car unit that I can easily cary and even use while walking. My only major issue is with map availability. My Garmin 2610 is now at 2008 Navtec (summer 2007 release), and does contain my current address/street in a 2 year old sector of my development. The 2005/2006 navtec maps in the Navigon v.6 release does not. I do cannot find any newer maps for this unit. This is the critical GPS criteria followed quickly by the receiver quality and then GUI. I can live with slow input, for limited destination trips. I can't find the destination if it is not on the map or on the list of streets. If I new alternate streets nearby (i.e. I know the area), I probably wont need a GPS either.

I just got mine and so far i like it, it is slow to start but it was accurate enough! Paid $180 CAD so it's well priced considering most GPS units are well into the 3-$400 range and you get an mp3 player as well as the photo and video viewer! Just my 2 cents.

Bought this unit for $80.99 brand new (not refurb'd) on sale from Tiger, and absolutely love it. Dollar for dollar (of what i spent), it's the best unit out there hands down.

Good review.
I finally find the infor I need : no text to speech, and too small for driving

Thanks
Lisa

Love it except for 1 thing. that is POI if I want to enter a place i'm at now that has no address , such as a place where the map has not been updated or the middle of a field , I can't. Now either I can't cause I don't know how or the Machine just won't do it !
or its hidden in a sub menu. other than that mine updates with in 45 sec . So not sure what the long time to get sats is all about.

Scott

I purchased my Loox for a $170 and it is slow but effect. It perfect size and somewhat difficult to use but once you get used to it, it works fine. In cities looking for an address you have to turn up the voice and turn off the radio especially if many turns are involved. Does anyone hook up an attenta to the slot in the back. If so does it make any difference. If it does, how and then how do you get an attenta?

Believe it or not, this lil bugger got me from NYC to Houston, Vegas(WOOHOO) then L.A. and back again, and in one peice, almost. I gave to it, my blind faith and it served me well, serendipidously passing me through Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon (Places I did not plan on visiting). I got this at a steal from Tiger, so I figured WTF, lets take a chance on it, but having a USA atlas handy just in case. The atlas was not touched once.
I must admit, the interface and screen are very small and can pose a serious risk for those not as adept as I in the automotive arts. Once I got used to it, I no longer feared for my life touching it while driving. But the memories are still there. The small screen becomes easier to read closer to eye level, so I placed mine right below the mirror and to the left and the view was better. While in TX, I got my hands on a Tom Tom with a much larger screen to play with temporarily. Because of its size, I was naturally inclined to mount it lower, therefore further away. With the LOOX in the closer position, the 2 screens now seemed the same size. So if mounted closer, its much easier to read. For fun, I had them both directing me to the airport, their results varied slightly, but with my mom in the car, it was like having 3 backseat drivers, one of which talks back incessantly. Speaking of talking back, another poster talked of whether this unit can save current locations, this baby CAN do that.
Speaking of talking, I found the British English voice quiet lovely, highly sophisticated, highly recommended, because the domestic voice just sounds . . .too domestic.
Its true that the music from the MP3 player does not lower when directions are announced (wish it did), but if you raise the voice prompt volume higher than music volume it will overcome, not to mention scare the gas out of you if set too high. One thing I really did wish for is either hard key or touch screen control of track skip and volume while in the navigation screen. With a 4gb miniSD card, I had lots of songs on this puppy, so instead of searching for cool hick radio stations in the boonies, I just had the mp3 playing. Quite frequently, I could not believe I put this song on the list, and had to skip it. To achieve this you had to go 2 screens deep to mp3 control while driving. Man, that is just plain irresponcible to do while driving ;) (if Semens/Fujistu is reading)please make it easier! If I wanted to change radio stations on my car stereo, and had to open 2 gloveboxes to get to it, thats just plain wrong man, wrong times TWO. It should be an option to have that functionality on the Nav screen! For me, once I set each of my 2000 mile legs of the trip, there was no touching the thing cept for music control. I was not about to pull over on a 80mph stretch of Tx hwy to skip to the next darned music track.
Now having said that, this lil bugger was just plain indespensible, because I am a lazy man and do not like to look at maps. After my cross country soul-searching trek, I find that I cannot take another long trip (or short one with unknown directions)without her. Its true, the software has bugs, they ALL do. But as long as I get to my destination without the benefit of precognition or better yet, a local's pov, I could stand to take a somewhat less-than-optimal route. Otherwise I will have no choice but to break out that old atlas again.

I read everything here to be read, and find that I personally think the initial evaluator expected to much from this little unit and missed it's real purpose. I have had numerous GPS units from three different manufactures. My most recent being the Navigon 7100. I notice in your review that the software format and views appears to be very much the same. Just made my first cross country trip with it ( the 7100 ) and found it to be the best unit to date. Love the "Realistic View" feature. A feature also, I believe on the LOOX N100. This is not to say that it doesn't have a short coming or two, but Navigon is in the process of putting out free update software. I must agree that at the introduced price, and that taken into consideration, I would have likely agreed with the initial evaluator. At current available prices, I believe it can serve a great niche market. I was just about to buy a Garmin 250W, then came upon this unit, at the very much reduced price. now have one on order and look forward to making my own evaluation. Truly expect that for my intended use, it will be more then adequate. Thanks for and too all the people that took the time to provide opinions and inputs.

Hmmmm.. where to start. maybe with this. "EVEN THOUGH THE REVIEWER MIGHT DO THIS FOR A LIVING I TOTALLY DISAGREE". i like my LOOX. personally i don't want a GPS unit with a display as big as my rear view mirror and one that has 2 inches depth. yes it is slow but i try not to input my destination while i am driving, i do that before you leave the driveway. but i do have a gripe with it. you can't input coordinates as your destination. this is a good GPS unit.

Where can I buy a Europe map (or just France) for my Navigon LOOX N100 ???.

Please reply to my email address.

Hi

i love my loox, its helpful and easy to use, but what bothers me is that there is not alot of maps for it, i life in South Africa and need maps for the southern africa countries, but now their not available here as yet, can one of you guys maybe get it and send it to me, please or tell me where i can get it. accounts@wavestone.co.za

I agree with the primary reviewer's comments. I bought the N100 back in January. My first impressions were good, being my first automotive GPS and having used multiple aviation GPS units in the past. The user interface takes time to get used to, it is slow, has trouble isolating streets that are numbered or have north and south components. I have found it easier to input the first character or two then scroll down the list and hope to find the address I am interested in. I live in the Washington, DC area and my work has me driving around the metro area all day. In downtown DC, the unit gets confused, switches directions while stopped at traffic lights and jumps locations in the middle of the block. Updates for maps are not available, their website is clear on that point, what you got is all that you're going to get. While traveling on new interchanges (not in the database) the unit get quite confused and spends all of its time trying to recompute the route, until it is back on a known road, the display is lost, jumping around and such. I am currently looking for another unit that is faster and gives better warnings for turns, this unit spends so much time telling me to "Keep to the left" or "Keep to the right" that by the time it gets around to telling you to make the turn, its a block behind you, even when selecting "fast car". They could have given us credit for having enough intelligence to pass the driving test and stay on a highway until told to take an exit. My wife's VZW navigator does a better job, and it's running on a cell phone!

Actually you can save your current location by pressing options at the bottom of the screen and then "save this location", also there is a pedestrian mode, just go to route profile speed profile and select "pedestrian mode". Also concerning the review I found the unit extremely fast when entering data and drawing maps, it is slow when you initially start it up and select the navigation mode but when you exit if you choose to start it up in the navigation mode and don't go to the main menu it just takes seconds like 2 or 3 to start up. That and the price drop of 400 dollars makes it an attractive unit to me.