The very odd shape of this receiver is going to drive away customers.

What is up with that WEIRD shape? What kind of mount do they intend, or do you just lop it over your dashboard (is that a pun, DASH navigation)?

You have to wonder how much fuel would be saved if accurate, real time traffic data were available.

I live in upstate NY, where this is not a problem. I recently spent a few weeks in the Baltimore/Washington area and was amazed by how often the highways were stop and go. This might be the thing that would make GPS worth the money to a lot more people.

I hope that there wont be spam/ads problem at GPS soon too. If its easy send POIs and other info to everyone then its easily used wrong too at todays world. Lets hope the best.

Fletch, if you get a chance, tell us what the deal with the shape! And the mount, if there is one...

Question is: how many drivers in a given market need to have the system in order for it to produce valuable traffic information? Even several hundred thousand spread across the US seems minimal.

Jobow: That is exactly what I was thinking. I had hoped that they would do something with the pricing for early adopters. The more units they get out there quickly, the better the service will be.

I think Dash should have gone with a flip up antenna like the Nuvi 660 instead of this design.
Otherwise, I am very excited to read the first reviews & may end up getting one.

The shape accomodates the antenna for wifi and gprs. they already had a more compact test model and had to switch for this reason. I have already had an issue that was a deal breaker for me, but I worked it out with their excellent customer service and I will be a happy customer as soon as I receive mine.

I beta tested the DASH system, although there is some unique feature that is very desirable a few years ago, I am afraid the competition will be catching up very soon and the wow factor is gone.
There was some routing issues and traffic information on surface street is nice but sometimes not necessary and make things more confusing. It requires a few probe vehicles for it to be more accurate and in a city like San Francisco bay area, DASH will need like 1,000 vehicles to be on the road all the time to get some useful feed back and traffic information from their probe units. The historical traffic data maybe more helpful than the real time traffic information since if the DASH unit is working properly, any probe unit that is stuck in traffic on a highway will be diverted to a surface street and causing the delay time to be questionable on the highway the probe vehicle was on.
I have recommended for DASH to use a cradle for the GPRS / WiFi setup to make the acutal navigation unit more of a slim line product, but they went with the helmet looking unit that houses the GPRS and WiFI anteann on top of the unit which makes it almost impossible for the company to claim it is a portable GPS PND. You are not going to fit that DASH unit in your pocket without drawing lots of attention to yourself.
It's a great idea to make every customer a probe vehicle for DASH, and I think we should be compensated for being a probe for them since I am sure the traffic information would be made available for a price to other venders.
Battery life is short due to GPRS / WiFi and in the area like Santa Cruz Hwy 1 where there is no cell signal, the onboard 1M + POI is not enough and should be increase.
Overall I give the unit a 6 to 7 out of 10, is not a bad unit but I think the U.I and routing is a bit inferior to the current top 3 players.
Just my thoughts

Fletch,
I have a 20 foot catamaran and routinely sail off the MA/RI coast and sometime encounter fog or poor visibilty. Could you reccommend a waterproof handheld gps?

It's really pretty sad that mid February has passed and we've heard nearly nothing from Dash concerning our units. We've spend hundreds of dollars and they don't even respect their customers enough to say "we are pushing out again". Instead, they finally updated their blog wanting to play games - in fact, the've gone as far to ask their customers "what is you best Dash experience" ARE THEY KIDDING??? Maybe instead of joking, they should be updating their customers about the shipping date of these devices we've paid hundreds of dollars for.
When this device was originally slated for release in early 2007, it was revolutionary, but now many other players in the game have either caught up, or are just about to; and we've seen 3D maps from them. Dash needs to stop joking, grow up and realize that their fate lies in making happy customers, as they have a very expensive gps unit, and the only way to get people who are teetering to buy, are good words from their initial customer base.
I still believe that the Dash is going to be a good product, and I am willing to back them if they treat me like they actually care about me as a customer, but I am starting to look around at other offerings and pricing to possibly come up with a cheaper alternative with similar features.
Besides - what's the hold up?? I though they could release software updates to us seemlessly as needed!

Dashless:

Seriously, whats the point of Pre-ordering? Why give someone an interest free loan with no idea of when you'll get your item? :)