ViaMichelin Navigation X-980T (EU Maps) Best Buy

Nice but.... - 24 Oct 2007

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Nice to have all you want and nothing else, Blue tooth, traffic, great POIs (from the Michelin guide) and no wasted tinny MP3 music that we can do better through the car.

But: Sent down lots of residential dead ends (pedestrian outlets!) and forest tracks. Worst though was being directed ONTO A DUAL CARRIAGEWAY THE WRONG WAY ('turn sharp left' yeah!) and because the very helpful split screen tracks your progress through each junction, it confirmed the wrong turn right through the slip road: Pure bad mapping; humpf. German autobahns with lots of parallel slip roads are not always well explained, though on the whole the voice guide and long distance 'motorway mode' functions do well to get you ready.

Not the very most intuitive interface either, lots of screen taps to get to where you want to be with small areas to hit with a finger nail (stylus is out of reach in its holder when mounted. 2 examples- First: 9 taps to get to the nearest petrol station, not for while driving really! Second: When typing in addresses will not jump to the selection when only '1 result found' stage is reached: 3 more taps are required!

The screen is too reflective: Screen info can be nearly invisible if you've got the angle wrong, though the holder is good.

And I'd have chosen different functions to be on the 6 quick dial buttons for at least 3 of them; but you only find out what they're for after you download the PDF manual.

Traffic info doesn't seem very clear to me, and have not been able to spot congestion to try diverting round that yet; when keen to go by particular roads, as opposed to via a point, can't get an alternate route easily.

Oh and what else: Registering the product online; to complete the process I need the code ViaMichelin will email back to me: No sign of it yet after 3 months: It'll be impossible to save/ reset / recover from CD if I have a problem in the meantime. That said, the company helpdesk and website has been efficient for other things: New drivers/ updates are easy to do, you get a high-grade human for tech fixes early in the electronic menu options!

So do I like it? My 1st GPS: Still impresed by how much it helps but lots of room for improvement. (Particularly: still no registration code).