Summary: I bought the Sanyo NV-E7000 GPS unit a few days ago. A year ago I bought the Delorme unit to use with my portable computer – it turns out to be too inconvenient for me and my wife hates it. I have recently traveled around Boston using a Garmin iQ3600, and the built in units in this year’s BMW and Infinity.
Prior to purchasing it, I compared web information on the following units: Garmin – 2610/20/60 (just introduced) and iQue3600, Magellan 700, Alpine NAV-200, and this unit. I wanted a unit with a large display screen, which made the Garmin and Magellan units less attractive.
The Garmin iQue3600 is also a palm based PDA, with a larger display than the 26XX units, and addresses in it can become destinations and waypoints – a nice feature. Typically one can only keep map information for part of the country on an SD memory card for it – to go elsewhere you have to remember to download the map for that part of the country. With beanbag holders, these units are easy to move from car to car.
The Alpine unit, though attractive (and expensive) is two units: a unit to replace the car radio and a nice sized display. It requires some fancy wiring into the car electronics that one reviewer on the web found difficult. It is not one to move from car to car.
The Sanyo unit is a single piece of equipment (5.4x7x1.6 in) and has a large screen It plugs into the cigarette lighter – making it readily transferable to another car. It also plays DVDs and CDs. They supply a permanently mounted installation stand for it, but I bought 5 ft of Velcro and double sided foam tape at Walmart – under $10 – and invented the installation myself for both a BMW 3 series and a Wrangler. Both of my installations have the unit resting on the center console or hump so the Velcro is only holding it in place and not supporting its weight.
I downloaded the operation manuals for the two candidate units: iQue3600 and the Sanyo, and, after studying both decided the larger screen and having all the maps on the DVD one uses in it for map data was preferable.
The map display is similar to those for the built in BMW and Infinity units. Operation seems to be similar. AND there was one very pleasant surprise that was not mentioned anywhere in its advertising or its user manual: if it knows where it just was and loses the signal, it accurately tracks you anyway. I discovered this when I accidentally used it with the exterior antenna attached but left under the front seat (to hide it while parking). It said no signal, but it tracked me perfectly for a mile of city driving with lots of turning, stopping and starting. I then drove through a mile long tunnel – certainly no signal but perfect tracking again. I suspect the unit used the spinning DVD as a gyro to detect turning and an unexplained attached antenna (no mention of it in the user’s manual) to pick up electronic signals from the car, which it correlates with speed. It works. So it does dead reckoning with no wiring into speedometer signals.
The manual asks you to attach to the hand break signal wire (turns out to be easy to do), but the GPS function works even if you do not. This attachment is there to prevent you from watching DVDs while driving.
The Garmin iQue seems to give more voice warnings than this unit, and I did like that better, but, when it loses the signal, it stops tracking. The Delorme unit uses a computer screen for its display – nice and large, but does not have very good voice facilities, and does not track when it loses the signal. It also means your companion has a computer in his/her lap. With a mouse and keyboard, it is much easier to use to program routes.
Routes on the Sanyo can involve up to five intermediate waypoints. Also one can select the routing algorithm (optimal, fastest, shortest) between waypoints. Carefully done, one can make it find the route one really wants rather than the one it initially proposes. One can track a route actually driven to aid to establish a route for saving. The unit uses the DVD to access the map data while operating, and it has data for the entire US and Canada on that DVD.
I would definitely recommend this unit – especially with its dead reckoning - if you are up to paying the $1200 required (best web price I could find from a reliable dealer).
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