I ordered this for my wife for Christmas. We have used it for a few months and are VERY dissatisfied with it!

1.It didn't come with instructions.

2.The battery dies after about 45 minutes or so. Lose your addresses.

3.It loses all the addresses when the battery dies. It doesn't save the addresses to the "Smart Chip"

4.The battery dies just sitting while turned off. You have to leave it plugged in 24/7.

5.The unit software crashes during use and you have to reset it. Guess what? You lose all your settings and your addresses.

6.The time NEVER displays at the correct time. The amount it's off varies every time you use it.

7.The customer service sucks! This is a side product for Averatec. They sell computers mainly. If you call them there isn't even an option for their GPS units. I called them to return it and they didn't even want to talk to me. Said I had to contact Amazon. Didn't even try to talk me out of getting rid of it. They know it is an inferior product.

Product work fine after replacing the car charger. Other than the inconvenience and small expense of sending the charger back, the company responded quickly to replace the defective item.

I am a contractor and this system does a great job getting me around without having to stop and refer to a street guide. This system is so easy to use that it does'nt even come with directions. Although it is a good system it does have its flaws. Sometimes you know a faster way than where it is telling you to go, also I have been on a few older streets that are not on its map. Another bad point is that this machine is for listed roads only, you can take it off-road to get position, but you can't leave trails or waypoints. Also I called the company about updated maps and the new ones will be available yearly for about $100.00. Overall I would say it is a good product, but I'm not going to throw away my street guides.

I bought it on Black Friday of 2006 for $225.00, and I just couldn't wait to write a review on this product.

Pros:

Very easy setup and navigation right out of the box. Easy mount on windshield, easy to detach. Backlit buttons is convenient for night time driving. Excellent for city navigation. Can play music files, so it's good for a walk.

Cons:

1. Took GPS on a long distance trip, GPS avoided interstate highways, taking us along local roads through cities. We got lost, got directions from gas station attendant to reconnect with interstate. There's no setting on GPS to avoid local roads. We ignored GPS thereafter, until destination city where GPS became useful in getting us to our host.

2. Battery life too short, manual says 2 hours, but unit drains very quickly even when turned off. Takes too long to recharge, and then it drains too quickly.

3. GPS requires frequent reset, losing your local settings.

4. Clock setting is not steady, always defaults back to 12.01 am, or something like that.

5. Regional setting always defaults back to Pacific Time. It refuses to set at my local time zone - Eastern.

6. GPS setting would not remain steady at Georgia, it always defaults back to Oregon when unit is turned on. It also does not remember my home address.

7. When I tried to calibrate, it goes into a loop. Had to reboot to get out of loop.

So today I took it back to store for a refund, just over a week since I bought it. On a final check I found that I still had my music files stored. I looked for an on-screen delete feature, found none. Could not find a hard reset button either. The only way to delete is to reconnect back to computer. Got no time to play with it anymore, so I left my music files in there for the next owner. Received full refund, will add maybe a couple of hundred dollars for a Garmin or something of that sort.

I'm sure Averatec will do better next time.

Pro: Probably the neatest design I have seen in a GPS navigation system. Easy to program, excellent mount, good voice, extremely fast satellite acquisition and route recalculation. Worked well walking.

Con: Third day of use it had two soft crashes - navigation program gave error message and shut down. Fourth day started with a frozen system. Had to reset. It then sometimes took a very long time to acquire signals. Could not get the detour function to work at all. Occasional really odd route recommendations when in a complicated area such as an interchange. Nothing about updates in the manual, and customer service told me that they had not yet decided how to do updates!

Returned it for a refund. (Love Amazon's return policy.)

I am assuming I received a defective piece and returned back. I was disappointed after the entire struggle I made and bought this item as memorable gift. This GPS shut downs suddenly and all the information you save in it is lost. Some times it won't even start back. It has nothing to do with charger. I am really not sure if the piece which I received was defective or this Averatec piece itself is not good. Not satisfied with this item.

I've had the unit for about a week now and am packing it up to return it for a refund:

The price point and function are good, but,

1. I found the units screen hard to read in most light conditions, if I brought it below the dash then it was fine, but anywhere on the dash it was difficult to read at best.

2. It is very quirky - in my opinion being able to view the ROUTE LIST is critical, following the instrcutions I was able to get it to display the route list maybe 1 time in twenty. The topper was when I called tech support (they were there on Sunday !) and described the problem I was told that it sounded like a software problem & I needed to talk to the S/W mfr (navteq) that they only supported hardware problems !

That last really did it for me.

I gave it two stars for effort and being available on weekends.

ALL GPS units will make strange decisons at times and it is crucial to review long distance routes in advance - demo mode doesn't help as it appears to take place in a real time mode.

My experience with Averatec products have been very positive. I own two notebooks from this brand and both have been good work-horses for me. So I decided to try their GPS, since I have been in the market for one and I did'nt want to spend a large amount on it.

From what I have noticed, Averatec products are priced lower than other brands, yet it it comes with the same feature when compared to other notebooks. Also, it actually performs as it should.

The GPS is the same. It comes with alot of features that the more expensive brands come with. It is very easy to use, and the buttons on the touchscreen are very large (I have thick fingers). The best thing about this GPS piece is that it is portable (it comes with a rechargeable lithium battery - will last about 2 hours) so that you can use it while walking in metropolitan areas where the streets are really close by. It comes with a car charger and a home charger (if you use it as a portable).

The price is incredible, I have seen it as low as $350 elsewhere, but I bought it at Amazon because I have bought other things here and I have never had a problem with them. The only other one that I have seen that is similar to this GPS from Averatec is a Garmin, but the Garmin is about $800 and it has alot of other stuff (like playing music) that I really would not care for or need.

Overall, I have been thouroughly satisfied with this product. Averatec is a brand that I can say has earned my business.