Omnitech Portable GPS Navigation System

"very nice for the price. it doesnt have all the bells and whistles that the more expensive units have but for the price it does its job."

"I could not believe that one could get such a nice unit with text-to-speech at that price. But it was true. I went to the store to check out the unit, and in a few minutes bought it and took it home with me - well actually I asked the unit to take me home. I powered it up with the car adapter, set it up in a few minutes in the car and then entered my home address and we were on our way. I really like the fact that as one enters the address info, relevant hits appear and all one needs to do is pick one. It speeds up the entry process tremendously. Route calculations are very fast, and all directions are very much to the point and accurate in terms of distances from the turning points. If one purposefully disobeys a direction and avoids a turn, the unit simply recalculates the new route and continues. This is a nice change from my wife's GPS that keeps insisting that I make a U-turn immediately! One has full control of the route recalculations by selecting what streets to avoid or include. The unit also has a detour function where one can specify a reroute from 200m to 2km. All the maps have AUG.2007 dates. However, at a few locations around my neighborhood the system seemed to indicate incorrect turns. I have been looking for some kind of updates, but could not locate any on the company web site. Display is very legible and adjusts to driving conditions very fast and without any distortions.One can set the address to any state and search for POI anywhere, regardless of home base. It also allows storage of up to 64 Favorites or POI.The system runs with WinCE and the included SD card can be read and backed up on a PC. This is one of the first things I did, in case something went wrong while playing with it. So far the only thing that I don't like about the unit is the touch area sizes. Specially the tiny icons along the edges are hard to register as one's finger keeps hitting the edge of the frame. But I think this is a common issue with all these small units. It is best to use it with the included stylus - or as I did, with the pinky ! It took me a while to find the stylus (it is in the top right corner) and I cannot believe that nowhere in the documentation or on the box is it written that it is INCLUDED. Actually there is a picture of the unit with the stylus location indicated, but since I have not read the docs initially, I missed this bit of info. The inital volume of the unit is very audible and the pronunciations are mostly good with a few strange ones thrown in every once in a while. However, if the car windows are open, then the unit voice is sometimes hard to hear. I have not tried the headphone options, but that might come in handy under these circumstances. The unit voice is a pleasant female voice and there is no option to change it. There is a discrepency in the screen resolutions between the what is shown on the box (320x240) and what is stated on the web site (480x272). Since the screen is in wide format, it looks more like the second one is true. The speed warning option is very accurate and alerted me at 1mph over the limit as I was driving around.POI database is only 1.2M and I found that many of the local gas stations, food places, etc are not reflected. eg: a search for a [....]pizza pointed me to one 26 miles away!! On the other hand, POI feature allows one to search any destination (city/state), thus allowing one to plan an outing anywhere.Overall this is a great unit and highly recommended for simple GPS functionality."

"This gps left me on the side of the road so many times...I tried to use this product about everyday...when you first turn the gps on, it will take about 5mins to load, then if you are lucky it will find a signal..touch screen don't work all the time, so you have to turn the gps on and off untill it decides it wants to work...takes about 5 to 10 mins to find a signal once you put in the address you want to find....OMINITECH customer service is rude and NOT HELPFUL at all...STAY AWAY from this product or ANY OMINITECH product...I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYONE.."

"I gave this Staples brand GPS a try because of the price and the features it offered. The first thing I noticed was that the touch screen didn't respond well. The unit missed the first letter or number entered, nearly every time, though it beeped to say that something had been inputted. Programming in an address was difficult, especially compared to my now-stolen Garmin. The very first time I used the unit to navigate, the screen froze on "searching for signal." I thought it would only last a few minutes. Being fully charged, it stayed that way for several hours. The auto shut-off didn't work, nor did trying to turn the unit off manually. I had my Garmin for 5 years. It never froze up once. I returned the GPS to Staples. I guess it's better to stick with a brand name."

"I picked this up on black friday and compared to similar products on sale at the time it was the better deal. the screen is larger it also has text to speech, which is very helpful, the only thing i dislike about it so far is that I cannot change the voice and it can be slow giving directions, it will say "turn left on main street then turn left", but it doesn't say what the next street you should turn on until you are almost past the street so I had to constantly keep an eye on the gps to see what the next street name was"

"I was so excited to buy this GPS and play with it. The feeling was short lived. The system always says searching network.... does not come back on if I turn it off. I have already returned two. I hate it! I am going to try Garmin or Magellen. I have called the store and they don't seem to know much about my problem. The first GPS I thought just a fluke but now my second- naw! something is wrong with these. I had the same problem to as with another review, the keypads or touchscreen does not pick up when you first hit it sometimes not all the time. I could live with that just not being able to turn it on. And the reset button DOES NOT work either. Very frustrating!"

"I bought four of these last Christmas -- one for myself and one for each of my married children. This year I bought another one so my daughter and her husband don't have to share. She says she can't live without it! And he needs one, too. For the price, it can't be beat. The text to speech is great. One reviewer complained that it mispronounced words but, come on, it's a computer "voice" doing what computer voices do -- pronouncing each syllable in a prescribed way. For example, it pronounces Mohave as Mo-have rather than the correct way Mo-hav-ee. No big deal!



I have to say that when I first got it, it was tear-your-hair-out slow to acquire a signal...or so I thought. I was complaining to my daughter what a nuisance it was, BUT she pointed out that I was turning the unit completely off each time I arrived at my destination. She showed me how to just tap the on/off button and put it to sleep. So now it comes on within a minute or two.



Is it perfect? No. For example, it cannot figure out how to do a "Michigan left turn", but then most visitors to our state have trouble with that concept, too. But you will get used to its little quirks and wonder how you lived without it.



With its many features and price, I would definitely recommend it."

"I have owned it for a year (since it was introduced). I am very satisfied and impressed with this product. It is priced very well, it has worked very well with only a few hicups (it has frozen up about three times total). It acquires signals very fast and has always been spot on accurate. I'm not sure why other reviews have been poor (maybe quality control issues in manufacture).This unit is close to perfect. I did not rate 5 stars for the following reasons; 1. The text to speach sometimes pronounces words incorrectly. 2. there doesn't seem to be customer support. (Except I recently found this link which may offer updates to the maps (updating the maps is an important feature for me).[@]"

"I have this for a month now and no problems what so ever. Gets on to the satellite signal quickly even the very first time. Come with the lastest maps from Navteq. Has TTS (Text-to-speech) and a good looking 4.3" Wide Screen and SiRF III receiver..very fast. Battery lasts 8 hours!! Really satisfied!"

"I have had this unit for about a week. It has some very nice features for the money! The large screen 4.3", is Bright and Contrasty in Daylight and at Night! Semi-Easy menus, some on-screen buttons are small, almost requiring a stylus. Takes some time getting used to. Requires the careful use of your nail tip or the very tip of your finger! First there is only one-voice available though it is a pleasant female voice. Some pronunciations of street names are strange, sometimes even funny! First Big Con is the POIs, first I tested the unit by typing in Staples, while standing outside the store parking lot, and the unit directed me to the Staples Center 26 miles away in Los Angeles! Best Buy, Costco, Sams Club are not even listed in the POIs! Strangely though the smallest little burger joint down the street from my house is listed in the POIs! Extremely Disappointing! Also there is no Omnitech website and the provided WWW.Navsupport.net support website is a dead site. The unit is slow in finding POIs! The unit is a flash memory based unit that utilizes a 1gb SD card that must be inserted for the unit to work. Battery life is about 3-4 hours, it does come with both a D/C card adapter as well as an A/C adapter for use at home. The provided mount attaches securely to the windshield but wiggles around and is flimsy and moves around every time you touch the screen, very annoying! If you have the address you want to go to the unit works well! Sometimes the unit guides you onto small side streets instead of just guiding you onto a nearby freeway and saving you time! Not always the fastest routes, but it does get you to the location you wanted eventually. This Unit is a Mixed Bag, Great features, nice screen size, nice clear voice directions street by street, Great Price! But the limited POIs and the lack of any type of support from Omnitech and or any, upgrade ability of the Maps and POIs in the future! Are all deal breakers for me. Back it goes [...]regrettably! Too Bad!"