By Robert W. Griswold
There has bee a little bit of a learning curve. I have had a little difficulty finding how to use various items on this device. I think this would likley have been true with any GPS I purchased. The letters are a little on the small side. And it it frustrating when entering the name of the location in your favorite places that there doesn’t seem to be a section for symbols or lower case letters. I want to save a location as “Dan’s House” and I can only seem to type “DANS HOUSE”
Directions: This thing has given me some good directions and some bad directions. I have adjusted the routing to avoid local roads yet there is one point on a major road where it asks me to get off and take local roads and meet up with the main road further down the way. Deffinately it is a shorter route, but with traffic lights it is slower. Overall, the routes are good though, and have even shown me some better ways to get places I travel to frequently
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By Ahmed Fazly
I was a previous owner of a Garmin 750. I must confess the features that I really admired in the 750 were its ease of use and its multimedia capability. However, the lack of bluetooth capability (useful in states where answering your cell phone while driving is illegal) and the lack of free traffic updates (which required an optional reciever and subscription) were a turnoff and did cause some inconvenience. Then I discovered the sheer joy of the Navigon 7200T. It’s the best GPS you’ve never heard of. The free lifetime traffic updates, optional freshmaps service-which provides 12 map updates over 3 years for less than what Garmin would charge for one update, the Zagat ratings, logically arranged POIs were just what I was looking for. The cons were the lack of Mp3 playing capability and the lack of an FM transmitter. However, I do carry my ipod around quite a bit and i already have an FM transmitter for my ipod. So, I could easily forgive Navigon for this minor infraction. I highly recommend this product over any similarly priced item from any competitor.
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By Atlanta traveler
I’ve had the 7200t for about two months and overall, I’m very pleased with this unit. I live in Atlanta and have tested it around Atlanta, as well as trips to Knoxville, TN and Augusta, GA.
Display - very good. The street names are white against a black background which is very easy to read. The other screen options are also clear and easy to see. When passing things such as chain restaurants, gas stations, banks, etc. the display will show the company’s icon instead of the generic POI symbol. Mostly this is eye candy, but a neat little feature.
Reality View - very good. This only works on interstates and major highways, but so far, I’ve found it to be very helpful in guiding you to the right lane for your next turn.
Text to Speech - good. The older Navigon’s (2100 Max) had an annoying habit of mispronouncing street names and giving highway numbers as opposed to actual names (”turn right on U.S. Hwy 23″ instead of “turn right on Buford Hwy”). Navigon has corrected this with the 7200t and pronunciation is much better. On the down side, when you approach your destination, it will not announce which side of the street your destination is on until you are literally at the destination. This is offset by an icon on the screen which will show a finish flag with an arrow pointed right or left to tell you which side of the street your destination is on. Hopefully, a firmware update will correct this. Volume is very good. I’ve actually had to turn the volume down a notch on mine.
Satellite acquisition - average. From a cold start, the unit can take up to 2 or 3 minutes to acquire a fix (sometimes it’s faster). When started from standby mode, this seems to be much faster. After it has acquired your position, it does a very good job of keeping your position, even when walking into a house.
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By Chipmunk
I have used delorme for many years and finally decided to try something else. The reality view is not worth anything and I find it to be more of an annoyance but other than that all the features seem great. Voice recognition works pretty decent, I use it to get from house to house in cities I have never worked in before and it’s nice to be able to just speak the address rather than trying to type it in, I thought it would be hard typing on a little screen hanging on the windshield which it’s not as bad as I thought it would be but speaking into it is still a lot easier than pecking at the little letters and numbers. This unit runs laps around the delorme computer software and it’s very easy to use, my mother that can barly turn on a computer was able to use it.
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By Ilya Tsymbal
Got this GPS a few days ago. First impressions overall positive. I am upgrading from a TomTom PDA, so comparisons in my mind are inevitable.
The good:
o - nice packaging, minimalist, not a huge box filled with junk. Good job.
o - GPS InstantFix works like a charm. Satellite fix was established very quickly, a matter of seconds rather than minutes. No complaints there.
o - Response times to screen input are quick. Previous versions generated complaints of slow response; that’s clearly been fixed. The only delays I noticed were when I updated settings.
o - Nice design, compact, frameless screen. Matte finish on screen and on the case, hides fingerprints well, unlike the previous version which was a fingerprint magnet.
o - Screen is large, bright, and has nice sensitivity to touch, both fingertips and fingernails.
o - Reality View of exists is certainly appreciated.
o - Free Traffic was a major selling feature. Keep in mind here, the traffic radio receiver is built in, but you still need an external antenna. The supplied Mini USB car charger cord doubles as an antenna, but I also found out that any old USB cable with a mini USB plug will work. Would have been nice to have an antenna built into the unit, but I don’t know if that’s possible.
o - Charges via a standard mini USB connector - a huge plus - can plug into a PC or a USB hub, or any mini USB cell phone charger. Very nice.
o - When you plug it into a PC, it becomes a Mass Storage Device, assigned a drive letter, you can just copy files to it if you want. No need for custom software
o - Text-to-speech is very good, accurate and easy to understand.
o - Speed limit display and alerts are good.
o - Speaker sound is plenty loud enough, easy to control from main screen.
o - Bluetooth speakerphone feature was easy to pair with my cell phone, and works flawlessly. It allows me to dial either from the phone and speak through the GPS unit or dial directly from the GPS when I look up Zagat reviews or any listed POI.
o - Automatic night/day display brightness switching worked great. It switched to night mode just as it started getting dark. I assume it calculates the sundown times based on exactly where you are.
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By Groundsquirrel
After owning a Garmin Nuvi 660 for around 2 years, I got tired of not having updated maps (even after purchasing Garmin updates) where alot of the areas already developed over a year ago STILL weren’t there — especially the DFW area. While traffic was nice, I didnt think I should have to pay extra when the unit originally cost over $400. Enter the Navigon 7200T. This GPS fixes most of the previous version’s issues (auto night/day, more accurate directions, etc) plus it has built in Zagats and great Voice recognition SW. The Zagats is ultra cool for folks like me that do alot of business travel and know restaurants only by name. One of my colleagues will say “Lets meet at Noodle Wave” and all I have to do is type the name in my Navi and Bam! I have the address, location, phone number and directions in my car. Truly awesome. Also, I like the ability to plan out my route beforehand so i can verify the directions with google or mapquest. I dont miss not having videos, mp3s on my GPS since thats what my ipod is for. So for me, the keys for a Navi are accurate and updated maps, free traffic and the ability to search places by name (not just address), the 7200T is really it.
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