Sony NVU44 3 5 Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text to Speech Gun Metallic
Sony NVU44 3 5 Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text to Speech Gun Metallic
Manufacturer’s Description (September 2, 2008)
Easily portable and offering power on-the-go navigation features, the Sony NV-U44 Portable GPS Navigator makes folding maps a thing of the past. First and foremost a portable navigation system, the NV-U44 offers Sony’s POSITION plus solution to difficult GPS reception conditions for navigation assistance even while under dense foliage or tall buildings. But it also features a photo viewer and Memory Stick Duo slot for uploading photo slideshows. Other features include pre-installed maps for North America, over 5 million points of interest (POIs) with quicker searching, an anti-glare 3.5-inch screen, Gesture commands to help you stay focused on the road, text-to-speech capabilities, and stylish black coloring.
The NV-U44 portable navigation device features a brightly colorful 3.5-inch screen with gesture controls and text-to-speech capabilities to keep your focus on the road. |
GPS signals can easily be distorted by tall buildings, very dense foliage, or blocked altogether when underground, and when this happens a GPS device can easily give a false location. Sony’s POSITION plus feature is a unique, hardware-based solution that consists of an acceleration sensor, a pressure sensor and a gyro sensor that together can calculate the vehicle’s current position based on the last known GPS location. The result is a more consistent and accurate position that helps provide interruption-free guidance under the most difficult of GPS reception conditions.
Enjoy powerful, portable navigation out of the box pre-loaded map content covering North America–Canada and all of the United States (including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico)–as well as over 5 million POIs. During address searches, the device can automatically complete partial entries of states, cities and street names. The new Sony nav-u device also offers a revised search algorithm for quicker POI searches and the Quick Link search features that provides a one-touch search for your favorite POI. For example, you can save a favorite coffee shop destination to a Quick Link button and perform that search any number of times without having to retype the search string. Brand icons help users quickly and easily identify their favorite restaurants, hotels, gas stations, stores and other locations while traveling through unfamiliar cities. And this Sony nav-u unit now have 30 percent more brand icons than previous models (more than 150 brands).
With the new Gesture Command feature, you can jump to commands with one touch on the display. For example, you can advance to the next picture in the photo viewer with a swipe of the finger from left to right across the screen. Commonly used commands such as “take me home” may be accessed by gesturing an inverted “V” on the screen versus paging through numerous menu screens. Other gesture commands include zoom in or out and call home.
Stable and secure while driving, the NV-U44 can be easily removed whenever you want to take it with you. |
Using the included Super Suction Cup, mounting the NV-U44 to either the dashboard, console, or windshield in virtually any vehicle is quick and easy. Stable and secure while driving, it can be easily removed whenever you want to take it with you.
Other features include:
- 3.5-inch anti-glare LCD touchscreen with 4:3 standard aspect ratio
- SiRF star III GPS receiver with POSITION plus
- TTS (Text to Speech): The device utilizes spoken commands ensuring you are able to follow the directions by street names.
- 3D Junction Guide: The device’s dual view capability displays dynamic route information, in addition to the conventional map view, to provide an even clearer view of what’s at the next turn or in a highway merge scenario, which junction to take.
- The new photo viewer feature turns the screen into a picture frame. You can view your digital images by inserting a Memory Stick into the Memory Stick Pro Duo slot.
- Battery life: Up to 2 hours
- Battery charging time: 3 hours when on, 1.5 hours in standby mode
- Dimensions: 3.7 x 2.1 x 4.3 inches
- Weight: 5.5 ounces
What’s in the Box
Sony NV-U44 (black), car cradle, car battery adapter (XA-DC6), USB cable, quick start guide
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Unfortunately it broke
The GPS was working well for a couple of weeks and I was happy enough. Then when I returned from a trip to VA, it stopped working. Now the battery will not charge and the touch screen does not work. So it is dead in the water. I contacted Tech Support and they told me to return it for repair, so I am hoping to return it to Amazon for refund.
Too bad !!!
3 Stars Good while it lasted
I enjoyed this GPS while it lasted. After 3 months of not-so-heavy use, it no longer picked up the satellites. I returned it to Sony and since they no longer have any left in stock (getting out of the GPS business?), they refunded my entire amount. Also, the battery would not hold a charge after several uses which I didn’t care about too much since I had it mounted on the windshield and plugged in.
Overall, I liked the interface and it was very easy to learn how to use. The routing algorithm was a bit weird where it would take me off a major interstate too early, causing a longer trip. I did update the unit to the latest firmware and played with some settings but it didn’t help. Some addresses where hard to find as I had to type in alternate forms of the street address. However, as long as my defective unit isn’t a sign of common problems, I would recommend it as a cheap entry level GPS.
4 Stars Not Bad At All, I Like It Better Than Magellan
This is my fifth GPS. Three of my previous ones (a TomTom One, a TomTom One XL and a Magellan Maestro) were stolen and the third was a Magellan Maestro that I thought was dead but repaired. Nonetheless, I bought this one because I didn’t want to spend another $200 on yet another GPS.
My favorite of my previous GPS’ were the TomToms because of their user friendliness and their routing intelligence. The Magellans were just plain stupid and their user interfaces were klunky.
This Sony has a very nice user interface but doesn’t quite reach TomTom level but it is good. Address entry and marking locations on this GPS is pretty good. I wish there was a GPS that would just put the current state as a default before you type but I haven’t found one yet that does that. The order of entering the address is not what I’m used to. I think this unit does number, street, city, state. I like the reverse (state, city, street, number). But the entry feels less klunky than the Magellan.
At first, I was disappointed at how garbagey the graphics looks but I quickly got over it when I noticed that the response time this unit beats any other GPS unit I’ve had. The route recalculation speed on it is phenomenal as well. Also, the simplified graphics seem easier to follow. The voice navigation is much less annoying than others I’ve used as well.
All in all, it’s a pretty good device considering it’s sub-150. I’m going to keep using it for another week and if I still like it, my Magellan is going on eBay!
Update: I felt compelled to add this since it is pretty important to me. The unit is great but the PC software for this unit STINKS! In the TomTom, you can edit an address book with real addresses but with this software you have to enter actual coordinates. What geek knows actual coordinates of addresses off the top of his/her head? This type of nerditry is what makes Apple number 1 in consumer devices. They really got lazy on the software on which would otherwise have been a 5 star unit. The Magellan software wasn’t any better so I guess that gives me some comfort?
2 Stars cant find streets
unit will not find some streets by street names it decides that I need to know the county road number. It also will just not find some roads that have been around for over 20 years. Sony tells me that if I buy their $50 map update it “might” fix the problem. I wasted enough money buying the unit. It does no good to have a gps that is lost half the time. I’m going back to Magellan.
4 Stars Not bad for the price
I just purchased this gps system for about 79.00 at SEARS. I had some running around to do today and I just pluged in all destinations and the little device was really accurate. I am a first time gps buyer so I can’t say what I am suppose to get and what I am not suppose to get.
You can clearly hear turn by turn directions.
Im satisfied for now
**Cons*** None yet
