I absolutely CANNOT recommend this GPS considering all the name brand options in this price range. I purchased it based on the price and reviews and felt I had done well. I had no need for the extra bells and whistles that others come with, it was a better price. It had a poor interface, but I could suffer with that b/c of the price. It took awhile to acquire a signal, but I could suffer with that b/c of the price. Or so I thought. One time it took over 35 minutes to acquire signal. Another time my wife really needed it (she was driving to an unfamiliar area, at night, in the rain) and it never aquired a signal the whole 45 minute trip. Now I accept it won't stop the rain, can't turn the night into day, but I DID expect it to help her find her destination. She was scared and late for her appointment! I started wondering, , do I need to suffer with that b/c of the price? Well, I chose to call ViaMichelin to see if I might have a defective unit. The polite, helpful, customer service told me the ViaMichelins have a 'quirk'. If the unit was shut off for more than 8 hours, it would take awhile to re-acquire the signal. His suggestion was to power the unit on about a half hour before it was needed, so it would have time to find the satellites. I thought this was crazy, so I decided to return it and shop for another.

I settled on the Magellan Maestro 3100. Again, based on price and reviews. This GPS has an interface that is a thousand times more user friendly, has that predictive text thing that makes data entry so much more easy, has a million other features that are far superior to the ViaMichelin, and MOST OF ALL, it acquires the signal within a few minutes. Doesn't matter how long it's been off, if it's raining, or if there's thick cloud cover.

The only advantages the ViaMichelin has over the Magellan Maestro 3100 is the fact that it shows estimated time to destination and it has updateable maps. These are too few advantages for my money...

This GPS has a great price, compared to others. It is true that it is not as fancy as the other ones you might encounter, but if you're like me, all I need is a GPS to take me from point A to point B accurately and quickly. Navigation is an interest, as well, but not as much of a priority. Let's look at some important aspects of the device.

Accuracy:

It is very reliable. There are a few spots where the device does not know where it is, but the system will recalculate the route very quickly in a matter of seconds.

Route Selection:

Here is where it could probably improve a bit. It will take you to the quickest route. However, it does not take into account the advantage of major highways and the possibility that you might go over the speed limit on those more often. Therefore, it sends you to backroads more often than you would like. Another point is that it does not have an option to avoid tolls, nor does it not notify that you are approaching one. Even with these disadvantages, the system is still very good at choosing routes.

Navigation:

The navigation, in my opinion is pretty straight-forward. The touch screen is great and the program's levels are very easy to follow and customize.

Other features:

You can set it to notify Points of Interest (POI), so you know when you're approaching restaurants, banks, etc... This is a good feature. I have not been able to find churches on their database, though.

Directions:

Very clear and loud voice, warnings are done on time and the display has displays of the current road (3D or 2D, your choice), the distance and direction of next move, next street or road, current street, speed, and time remaining.

Price:

I did not find any other GPS systems that were this inexpensive and reliable. Very happy with my purchase.

Hope this helped!

This GPS system is the least expensive of its kind and it works. For basic navigation, it is adequate, however, after a 2500 mile trip, there are some concerns. As other reviews have indicated, some of the information is outdated. Also, this system has a tendency to stick to interstates when other routes might be more appropriate. The battery life of the unit is slowly diminishing. Of course, because of the price, this unit will not apprise you of traffic slowdowns or accidents ahead.

The good things this unit provides are these features: distance traveled, distance and time to destination, speed and direction. Being able to estimate ETA has proved handy as I was able to tell those folks at the destination my estimated arrival time.

If you are looking for the basics, this is a good unit. If you are looking for more bells and whistles, you may need to spend more money.

I must admit, I bought this product with some mixed feelings. The reviews I saw here on Amazon made me wonder if I might be better suited buying a higher end unit. I decided it was worth the risk and bought it. Here are my thoughts after using it on a recent road trip.

The Good: I love the ability to pre-program destinations. This made it easy to find and save all of the places I wanted to visit on my trip, making finding them later a snap. The satellite was very accurate and quick to reroute when I missed a turn or chose to follow another path. The audio was solid and made driving easy.The unit is also very portable.

The Bad: Finding locations was a pain. The interface is hard to get used to and the POI info is a little lacking in my opinion. The screen is a little small, and those without good vision may have to rely on the audio.

Overall: I think this is an awesome unit for the occasional user who does not want to spend the big bucks for a more full featured unit. What it does, it does well. The user interface is embarrassingly poor, but you can learn it eventually. The ability to look locations up ahead of time is a huge advantage.

Who this is good for: The occasional traveler, that does not want to spend big bucks on a GPS.

Not recommended for: Those who struggle with technology. Those who need to program addressee on the fly. (Delivery drivers etc.)

Great price. The GPS reception is amazing, I have a $600 Garmin that doesn't come close to this one, and that is without an external ant. The only short comming on the X-930 is the software navagation, It is a bit awkward! For example, you have to go through several screens to get to your saved addresses. To switch to night view is a royal pain, and sometimes I forget how to get to a setting and it takes a while to find it again. Oh and the map screen should let you remove the detail from the top to allow you to see more of the map. I was hopeing that they would come out with a software update, but on the website it looks like they have dropped this model from existance??? You might want to keep that in mind if you plan on buying a current model. Here today gone tomarrow.

pros:

1) cheap, thin and lightweight

2) detailed map on 1Gig card

3) USA and Canada map included

4) good POIs. grocery stores, hotels, restaurants etc. It even showed disney world when I was in Florida.

5) voice prompt

6) select on map. You can select a destination on a map. But I could not find "daytona beach"

cons:

1) Difficult interface to master. All the menus are not visible. For example, to create a route, you have to click on settings, navigate to, my saved addresses and then create.

2) Sometimes it gets stuck on a map. For example, after coming from Florida, I selected a route, but it got stuck in Florida map

3) Not sharp graphics.

4) I think it forgets some settings when you turn it off and then on.

I bought this as my first GPS and really enjoyed the fact that I could figure out (yes, it is a little complicated to put in your address) how to put in my home address and that it got me home with the voice prompts. But over the month that I have owned this product I have found that it has several SEVERE!!!! limitations. So, to be fair, I will list out a few pros, to the X930

Pros:

1. Size - It is small and light weight which makes it easy to carry around.

2. Price - Well... it is priced cheaper than other product. But to say that it is in the same class as the others??? Well, I dont know enough about other products to say that, and that is why its in the pros list.

OK now thats all I can think of for the pros, now here are the cons and you have to realize that I am not comparing it to any other GPS. These are just things that I expect from a basic GPS and the X930 fails miserably at...

Cons:

1. The second day that I bought this unit, I could not figure out how to put in my office address on it. My office is on a US-Highway (RT-1 in NJ, to be exact) and there was no way that I could figure out how to put it in. I later called customer service and found out that it apparently have a "problem" with locating addresses on major US highways and that they would contact me about the next day about a solution after contacting their development center in FRANCE. Day 7 - No contact yet!!!

2.It doesn't calculate directions unless you start driving and get on a road that it recognizes, which means, if you are in a parking lot and the unit doesnt recognize it as a major road, you have to get out and guess the direction you have to turn before it actually calculates where you have to go. A 50% chance that you get the first turn right (for me, i've gotten it right about 20% of the time), this is really bad, because depending on which road you get onto, it has to recalculate the directions and by the time, you might have made a wrong turn again.

3. Speaking of route calculation, it is really slow for long distances, I tried it for a couple of trips that went over 300 miles and it took about 5 to 7 minutes to recalculate. I am assuming that the recalculation occurs from the point that it has picked up the signal, so in the 5-7 mins that it is recalculating, if you make a bad turn, it goes into the 5-7 mins recalculation cycle again and again and again. I finally resorted to stopping the car and waiting for it to calculate the route so that I could get to where I was going. Route calculation for shorter distances is reasonable.

4. Maps are fairly outdated. I have been to places where the device does not recognize the road and keeps giving me the start driving prompt so that I get to a road that it does recognize. This is really frustrating since this is product that was released in 2006 (october I guess) and the road has been there long before that.

5. ViaMichelin did not even have a US website until recently, and even there the support page (I went there hoping for some MAP/Firmware upgrades) only lists the un-helpful customer service number.

Again, all these comments come from a person who has never used a GPS before. Maybe I have very high expectations from a GPS unit, but I would assume that these are basic expectations from a GPS unit.

I would recommend that you stay away from this product.

-- UPDATE

I only have 1 thing to say about this GPS and to all of you who give this greater than 1 start.

Try putting in an address on a local highway, for eg: route 1, route 22, route 21, etc (sure, it will show you the road when you get there, but it will not let you put it in as an address) and see if you can get this thing to recognize it. If you can, please respond to this post an tell me how you did it and I will change my rating.

For me, the entire purpose of owning a GPS is to be able to put in an address and get there, doesnt have to be the prettiest or the easiest route, but it should at least accept the address that I am trying to punch in.

I give it 1 start coz I can not give it 0. :(

If you're considering the ViaMichelin (under $200 GPS), you're probably trying to decide if a GPS that is more than $100 cheaper (much more than $100 in some cases) than its competitors is really any good. Honestly, I would have been skeptical too, however, a relative bought one of these units, and that gave me a chance to get their feedback before I decided to purchase one myself.

My brief summary is that Yes, this unit is a good GPS and a great value. After using mine on a trip, I'd have a hard time justifying the more expensive models when this one works fine.

Background: my GPS experience is limited to a 7-year old Garmin III Plus. I had to plan detailed trips on my PC using Mapsource, then upload the waypoints and routes to the GPS. It could be a time consuming process, and because the unit wasn't necessarily user friendly, my wife never learned how to use it.

Enter the ViaMichelin. We just went on a weekend trip and had a chance to test the unit. Set-up time for the trip was about a minute - all I had to do was program in the street address of our destination.

Now for the rundown.

First - what it doesn't do well.

a) Using it for the past two weeks (as a test only) around my home town, I was a little disappointed. It never sent me the wrong way, but it didn't always take the best route. Some of the routing issues were because of very new road construction in the area; and in some cases old "logging" roads are still in the database where new subdivisions have been built; and it may not calculate what my experience dictates to be the better route. Although this was disconcerting at first, I don't think it is a big deal as you'll see later.

b) Macro-directions - i.e. for a several hundred mile trip. It will get you there, and if you're taking a route that involves some smaller roads between towns, this would be a good device if you aren't familiar with the route. But my route this weekend was very simple. Get to the interstate and drive. It didn't pick my preferred route to the interstate, and it wanted to route me through a city before putting me on the interstate when you can take a four-lane road for 4 miles to another connection to the interstate. (Although it did recover and finally suggest my route as I stubbornly drove "my way.") So, for a major trip, I'd recommend an internet mapping package for the primary route. Use this device if you have a lot of mind-numbing turn-by-turn.

Now, what it does well:

a) voice prompts are great. It doesn't matter that it doesn't say the street names. Turn right in 300 feet is good enough - especially with the map that you can glance at.

b) It did great around my destination towns of Charlotte, NC; Gastonia, NC, and Rock Hill, SC. Did it take the best route as I drove from soccer fields, to hotels, to restaurants? I don't know since I wasn't familiar with the areas, but the routes seems to be just fine, they got me exactly where I needed to go, and I never had to look at a road map. And after all, this was the main reason I needed a newer GPS. It passed this with flying colors.

c) My wife did some of the set-up while in the car. She'll be using this one on her on very soon.

d) We wanted to find a particular restaurant, but didn't have the street address. The restaurant was in the Points of Interest database, and it took us right to it. Also, finding rest stops or nearby dining while traveling on the interstate was great.

I also found a feature that was not listed in the 89-page manual. From the navigation map, if you touch the screen, it has a "bypass route" option. It will give you some distant options (1 mi, 5 mi, etc.) then it will find a bypass route for you. So, if you are approaching road construction or a traffic jam, this will route you off the interstate, take you up the road and bring you back on. Obviously you could just turn off the interstate and start driving, but then it's going to try to turn you around and/or try to get you back on sooner than you prefer. The bypass route lets you see where it is taking you by zooming out.

In the future, I would like to do a side-by-side comparison w/ a more expensive (borrowed) GPS. Also, after more experience, I'd like to update this review.

Bottom line: I am glad I bought this unit. I cannot imagine spending $100-$500 more on a more expensive model. Though the higher priced models may have better features, the value for the extra money just isn't there for me.

It looks like I bought this unit based on the very positive reviews only to come back and see the few less than positive reviews that are brand new. I've had this happen on several products now from Amazon - product has a lot of good reviews, I buy it and by the time I go back to review it there are several non-positve reviews. Makes you wonder if some are being written and scored by people involved with the products. Some of the review sound like sales pitches and brochures and I personally question if these are real consumers - not that I necesssarily think that happened here.

I bought this unit to and just received in. So, far I am disappointed in it as well, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel with it yet.

The interface takes some getting used to, but I don't find it that horrible compared to others. Some GPS have excellent user interfaces, but most just seem average to below average and the X930 fits in there too. So, I would say its interface is just as bad as most are - there are only a few units with very good interfaces IMO.

The POI in this unit seem ridiculous. Michelin tries/wants/is/offers travel type services in general and I thought this unit would be packed with tons of accurate POIs (Points of Interest) - not really. Maybe I expected too much here but I think their POIs are dismal and very dismal if they are a travel services company. This unit should overflow with POI and again, its just about average. Though I will say again, there are onl a couple of very good GPS unit and then there is all the others, so this unit fits in with all the others IMO.

Its directions are not fabulous so far either.

Any route from my house actually has me drive a circle around my block.

I have not found any route from any point in my city where the "quickest" or "shortest" route is any different and I know of shortcuts.

It also wants to route you to the most major interstate and streets even if a less major put acceptable roadways are closer and shorter. For example, from my house to work it routes me 4 miles west to catch the north-south interstate to get me to the west-east interstate. There is a major road that gets me to the west-east interstate less than a mile to my east though. Shorter distance and quicker drive time.

Same on my work to home route - it routes me 5 miles past two major roadways in order to stay on the interstate - and it does this regardless of choosing "quickest" or "shortest". The interstate may be quickest with no traffic, but it is definately not shortest.

It does attempt to tell you what lane to be in on the interstate but its been the wrong lane for me about 50% of the time - 25% is due to outdated maps, 25% seems just wrong.

I've tried it for some in city driving where I already knew the routes and its routes did get me there, but were not the best or shortest route. I expect a GPS to actually return a shortest route when I ask for it. So far, all the directions I've selected - the shortest route and the quickest route are identical.

I am headed on a several hour drive in a couple of weeks and will see how it goes there.

Like the other reviewers, the speaker is ridiculous - at the out of the box volume level the speaker is distorted and crackly. Its not loud enough with windows open, vents on medium or with a carfull of conversation. Its adequate if you are concentrated on following its directions.

The screen itself is decent. I don't have a big glare issue and the unit responds to my commands ok. The mount is adjustable so glare can be avoided. The unit seems to respond quickly to commands.

I don't think this unit calculates routes or picks up your GPS position extremely quickly. It seems about average there too. I've used some other GPS and I would not say they are much better so maybe my expectation is too high. Again, there's the very high end and then everything else and this fits in with everything else.

Overall, I am disappointed but I may keep the unit because I need a GPS and I don't see one that seems much much better. Maybe my expectations are too high, but I don't think they are.

The MIOs, Garmins, Magellans, etc all have pros/cons and none seem to hit the target completely on price, function, accuracy, interface, etc. They all have their quirks and from playing with several the key items of speed and accuracy don't seem much different. I tried a friends MIO 310x and if I were to review it, my review would sound worse than the Michelin.

I've also used a Garmin 350 and other than perhaps the user interface, my review of it would not sound much different.

So this seems to be par for the course for the $200-$500 GPS - I did not look at higher priced units, because I'm just plain not interested then.

I was really only willing to spend up to $250 on one so my choices were cut down to just 3 units really anyway though I did review some of the $299, $399 and $499 sales units.

Up to $250 your choices are the MIO c310x, Michelin X-930 and a Nextar model. I don't think any one is appreciably better than the other so its a dart-shoot.

If your expectations are high and you need/want a GPS now with the low end price target then all 3 of these are about the same with their own set of quirks. If you don't need/want a GPS now then I would personally wait for the low end units to be improved. They are not worth it (nor do I think the higher priced models are) until they improve.

[...].

The unit is very basic. I only needed a basic gps so i purchased it. The price was really good. I was very disappointed when I used it. I took it to a trip and did it let me down. The initial directions were ridiculous. It took me of the highway and put me back on the highway several times. Then, when i reached the hotel, I took the directions for a mall (which has been there for 10 years)... The unit was off by 5 miles. It said you have arrived to your destination but I was pretty far away from my destination. The nice people at a gas station helped me get to the mall. On my way back, the gps just died. I checked the battery and it was dead. Th battery lasted less than 2 hours. I was extremely dissatisfied with the unit. Thanks to amazon.com's awesome return policy, I returned it.