V7 NAV740 Automobile Navigator - PMD740USAM-F
V7 NAV740 Portable GPS System - 4.3" Touchscreen, Text To Speech

I was very unsure about purchasing this it is what I call to good to be true, but I was plesently suprised when the gps functioned well and was the best screen for the money. This is a great GPS to get your feet wet, nice screen size, graphics ok, great support (nice response times). Overall worth ever penny.
 
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Hi I am using this GPS for about a week and have not still used extensively. In this short time, i have noticed few things - Pros - Big screen, easy to navigate, hard buttons for volume control, multimedia player for songs/videos/photos Cons - Low battery life, mine dies in 30-40 min as against 3.5 hrs specified in specs. Cradle and car charger are not smoother, needs little bit of hardership, but one can get userd to it. My wife had tough time tilting the cradle and inserting charger in the car socket. Media player does not run in background, so you can either listen to songs or use navigation not both. I am looking for some hack for this. Overall - good features, value for money and will recommend this product. Battery life is something that manufacturer can look into as immediate action to take. Until then you would have to use it on direct power.
 
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Good price for a GPS. But I found it inconvenient sometime. I cannot save the new address I put in as favorite. The only way I found is to save the current location as favorite, That means when I arrive at the destination, then I can save. And one more thing is that I cannot adjust the inner time of GPS. When showing the estimated time of arriving, it always be one hour late. It looks like the influence of summer time. Other than that, it is a good GPS.
 
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I am more than pleased with the performance of the V7 gps system. It has very good clarity of picture and the maps are easy to understand. It is very mobile and something I will enjoy moving from car to car and using when I travel and use rental autos. The only negative is that it came with few instructions. The CD that is available with full instructions cannot be downloaded and printed, so there is really no way to work with it while in the car. I am slowly but surely figuring out all of the great features. All in all, I am very happy with my experience.
 
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I have had my GPS for about 2 or 3 weeks, and I have used it on several short trips (100 miles or so). It worked fine on both and got me there safely. However, it is a bit slow to find the sats, sometimes taking 3 or so minutes. Further, for some reason, when I tell it to take me home, it always wants me to take a U-turn just before I arrive. Of course, knowing where I live, I ignore it and the instant I make my correct left turn it immediately gets back on track. Strange, but that is the only destination to which it does that so far. I have noticed that it does not always pick the best route to your destination. The maps are also getting a bit long in the tooth, being about 2 years old. All in all, it is not a bad deal, and I suspect I'll keep it and enjoy it for several years, until the maps start to fail me because of age. I doubt I will upgrade them, opting, instead, to just get another GPS with a few more features. Note: I had a problem updating the software (still over a year old) and moving everything to an 8 gig SDHC card (comes with everything on a 2 gig) and so I had to call customer service. They were quick to answer, and stayed online with me until I got to the home stretch on updating. Kudos to their customer service department! I wish that other companies would follow their excellent example on providing help to their customers.
 
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I have had this unit for a couple of weeks now. I purchased it because the maps on my Magellan Road Mate were out-dated. With the high price of downloading the new maps and seeing that the newest ones they offered for download were still a couple of years old it was not worth the cost. Also, when I called I was told by Magellan that they were planning on releasing updated maps "sometime" this year, but no sooner than late summer. This unit was rated very well by several of the on-line testing sites, had a 4.3 screen, newer maps, and all for about the same price it would have cost to upgrade the GPS I had. I was skeptical about going with a brand that I had not heard of, and one that obviously was not a "leader" in the market, but at the price it is offered at I decided to take a chance. I am now glad I did. I really like this V7 NAV740 unit. It has a lot of options, and the POI's interface is a great improvement over what I had on my previous unit. I do not use the picture and music features of the unit because I have other devices for those, so I can not comment on that part of the unit. What I can say is that I like everything about the navigation of the unit as good as and in some cases, better than my previous unit. It was a little hard to get used to at first because I was so used to my old unit but now I really like this one better. The only problem I have with the unit at all is the time it takes to acquire a satellite signal. It requires that 4, satellites are locked in before it will start routing. At start up it takes about a minute to get locked in at stand-still and about 3-4 minutes if I am moving. This is more of an annoyance than anything because I just about always know where I am for the first few minutes of any trip, and for the price of the unit with all it's other positives, waiting that extra minute is well worth the trade off for me.
 
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This unit is awesome. I love it. User friendly and detail oriented. Large screen is a plus. Voice options and lots of little extras. Price and quality outstanding. Can't go wrong with this one. Even customer service is superb.
 
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This is my very first GPS unit, and I am a low-tech type. Its pretty easy to use. the features it has for the price is good. could use a little better updating of new or re-routed roads, and the display washes-out somewhat in heavy sunlight, but overall, I am happy with it.
 
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This GPS navigator has some features which make it desirable compared to our old Garmin unit, but the Garmin is very stable and reliable. The main reason for buying this unit was to be able to not only use it powered from 12V in a vehicle but also be able to carry it while afoot on city streets. I think it would satisfy that requirement except that the battery was never good for more than 20-30 minutes of use. It is supposed to be good for 2 to 5 hours. I talked to the tech support people, and send it in (at my expense) to be remedied if possible. Two weeks and counting.....
 
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It would not make any sense to pay the full price since you can buy a decent major league company GPS with TTS for less, however I gave it a try for the sale price of $100. Pros: sleek, good 4.3" responsive touch screen; variety of user customization modes and route options; decent battery life; map graphics are detailed with 2d/3d modes and pleasant to look at; car position on the road is precise and ample warning is given before turns/highway exits; tech support appears to be based in USA and speaks perfect English - the phone wait time was about 5 min. Cons: takes long time to acqire a satellite signal - on the first boot took about 40 minutes, on the subsequent attempts the time variations were between 10-30 min, contacted tech support and was told that if satellite signal is found within 40 min time frame it is considered normal and therefore unit is not defective; TTS voice is not usable as it stutters, again was told by tech support that this is normal for this application; has about 20 languages built in, however only one voice is TTS (unusable as stated above), among language choices are Dutch and Finnish but amazingly no Russian (the 5th spoken language in the world - not that I really need it but the choices are strange to say the least); POI database is huge, however could not identify a major gas station chain in Scranton, PA while I was standing across the street from it; routing software is bugged - in TTS mode the streets which can not be identified are all called "unnamed road", the routing options are not quite optimal for the route option selected. Bottom line: the unit shows potential, but not ready for the prime market time yet mainly due to the satellite signal acquisition time, unusable text-to-speech voice and buggy routing software. If the problems are fixed with the future firmware update(s) you may want to consider it, otherwise I suggest to stick with the known GPS market leaders. My unit is on its way back for the full refund.
 
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Nice GPS with a good set of features. The GPS is easy to use with many custom settings. Good value if bought on sale. Pros: Fast gps lock after the first time used. Nice bright screen with colorful icons. Good routing if set up properly in route parameters. Free map updates per tech support in mid year. Huge POI database. Cons: Some speech studder. No bluetooth. Mount could be better.
 
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I had to get my grand daughter to show me how to use some of the features but overall, I am pleased with it. I look forward to using it on a daily basis.
 
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I've had this for about 3 weeks and find no problems with it. It's the second navigator I've purchased thru buy.com and find it's more up to date compared to the one I bought 2 years ago. Very easy to use and for the price, very good purchase.
 
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I wanted to replace my dying TomTom 300 GPS with something a little larger. This 4.3" screen is very easy to read and the supplied windsheild suction cup does a great job holding up the unit - which, I suppose, is easier now that units have gotten lighter and thinnner. It takes a little longer than I'm used to for the unit to acquire satellite signals, but that's not really a problem as you can get your search going in the meanwhile, and the current map will pop up a minute or two later. As is usually the case, the map is not really up to date - even so called "up to date maps" are usually a year or so behind. Here in Phoenix, where they keep buildind new streets and highways, this unit is best when used in established neighborhoods. I wish that all GPS units would come with one or two free map updates (Cell phone companies update the software on your phones for free, why not GPS companies?) I got this as a holiday Paypal special, so the final cost to me was about $85. Can't beat it for the price.
 
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As soon as a received the NAV740 I did all the initial setup. Used it the next day for the first time. Was happy with the navigation to my destination. But did not turn on (got a black screen) on my way back. Tried to start it again at home with the adapter but same issue. Not sure if this is a widespread issue or if I was unlucky to get a defective unit.
 
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I've had it for about a month and used it for commuting to work and also for running a few errands. CONS: 1. TTS voice is not useable due to too much crackle in voice output. It gets to be annoying after 15min. 2. The graphics has frozen up about a few times already requiring restarts. 3. Display washes out in direct sunlight. PRO: 1. $100 when it was on sale. 2. Signal pickup is quite good. It picks up in a few seconds. I spent $6 for a generic vent mount at Walm and used it with velcro tape to position the unit.
 
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I bought mine because of the low price, larger screen and street named turning. All of those features are fine. The voice articulation is not the best but better than most. I use mine a lot for Geocaching and use the coordinates feature. It seems to take awhile to start working using this mode as it wants to insert extra numbers on its own. after several times of re-entering, it finally works and then seems to be good most of the rest of the day for going from location to loaction. I have ran across a few newer highways where it said turn left on un-named highway!?!?!?! For general applications I think it was a really good deal and bought my sister one for them to use.
 
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