Navigon 2100 Max - Thin, Light, And Easy To Use And I've Got It For Review

Navigon is quickly rising to the top in the Personal Navigation Device market, even superseding TomTom and Garmin in many areas. Their latest PND is the 2100 Max, which is coincidentally one of the few upgradeable GPS units on the market. It also has a 4.3-inch Widescreen, Text-To-Speech functionality, lane guide assistance and speed warnings along with a fairly comprehensive list of Points of Interest; I mean there were more than a couple points listed in the little town I live in.

With the 2100 Max you get Reality View which gives you a 3D photo-realistic view of difficult intersections and things like that. You also get DirectHelp which will give you quick directions to emergency facilities and/or contact numbers for those same agencies, so you can find the police station, hospital, pharmacy, or car service station that is closest to you.

You can also get live traffic information via an accessory for the 2100 Max, on top of that you can sign up to get FreshMaps which are 12 quarterly map pack updates, and ZAGAT Survey Ratings and Reviews for hotels and restauarants, those are the upgradable options and cost $99.99, $79.99, and $39.99 respectively. The Unit itself has an SD card slot which is occupied by the Maps card, a mini USB port which is only used for charging, a car charging cable and a USB charging cable as well as suction cup mounting brackets.

I recently got this unit in for review, and I haven't had a chance to actually put it to use, but it is extremely small for a GPS unit, not in a bad way, like the screen is unreadable, because it's not, its 4.3-inches big and the voice reads off any and all directions to you so you don't really have to look that much. Its small as far as weight and thickness go, I mean it's about as thick as my Motorola Q9h and no thicker and it's about as heavy too, it's extremely easy to hold and use. The best part was that I handed it to someone who I don't consider tech savvy, nor do they have any experience with GPS units, and it had a charge fresh out of the package and this person was able to use it and navigate the menus with ease, and most importantly without bugging me with a bunch of questions. So, without even having used it for navigation I can already say it's worth the $300 asking price but I'll report back with more.