Navigon 2000S Review

The Navigon 2000S GPS Navigator offers advanced lane guidance, text-to-speech functionality and and photo-realistic street views at an affordable price. Unfortunately, satellite acquisition took a slightly longer time.

Navigon 2000S GPS Navigator

Design Overview

At less than an inch thick and featuring a 3.5" touchscreen the Navigon 2000S is simple in design and compact enough to fit in a shirt pocket. There is a pedestrian mode as well as a bicycle routing option.

The screen is sharp and the maps are clear and well laid out. You can adjust the brightness of the screen and choose between day or night map colors, though setting it to automatic mode will be good enough for most situations. The touch screen is pretty responsive has a feature called SmartSpeller that will bring up possible search results after you input a couple of letters.

Powered by Navigon's next generation software, the 2000S is fast and easy to use. The Main Menu page presents four clear choices: New Destination, My Destinations, Take Me Home, and Show Map. There's also an Options menu at the bottom of the screen where you can adjust various settings, such as routing preferences and map displays. While the user experience is not as smooth or streamlined as Garmin or Magellan, it's still very user friendly and intuitive enough even for a first time user.

There is a microSD expansion slot on the left side, a reset hole on the right, and a mini USB port on the bottom and comes packaged with a car charger and a vehicle mount for the dashboard and windshield.

Features

The system is equipped with a SiRF GRF3i+ GPS chip with InstantFix II and comes preloaded with Navteq maps of the lower 48 United States. The 2000S supports multidestination planning, so you can have more than one stop along your journey.

The Navigon 2000S portable navigation device offers great value as it comes packaged with a lot of navigation features at a low price.

Technical Specifications

Antenna: Built-in
Battery: Lithium ion
Battery Life: 2 hours
Connectivity: USB cable
Dimensions: 3.8"(W) x 0.7"(D) x 2.9"(H)
Weight : 4.3 ounces
Display: Color LCD, 3.5 inch touchscreen
Expansion Slots: 1 for upgrades
Included Accessories: Car holder , Dashboard disc , Car power adapter
Voice Capabilities: Text to speech and turn by turn directions
Maps Included : 48 United States

Average User Rating :

• "I own a Garmin 255W and love it, Garmin's are great in all areas but it only shows the direction of the next turn, not the lane to be in. I bought this Navigon 2000S for one reason, Lane Assist. Living in Southern California and driving the I-10 west into Los Angeles from the Inland Empire is nerve racking as other freeways branch off all the time and you had better be in the proper lane or your headed north to Sacramento or south to San Diego. In heavy traffic you may not have time to move three lanes over in less than a mile so you had better be in the proper lane when you get to the branch off. This Navagon takes the stress out of freeway travel by showing you the proper lane(s) to be in when the road branches off" - F.Goodrich (CA, USA)

• "I bought this thinking I'd have to live with slow startups and slower route recalculations, but it's very impressive. I turn it on and go, it's that quick. The easy access to POI's and the day/night vision option, are just a couple of the cool features on this unit. I find that it determines the speed limits in my area (Orlando FL) quite well, and programming some of my favorite spots from around the state was relatively easy. The one feature I knew I wanted was the spoken names of roads, and this does it very well. The voice is loud and clear. I'd definitely recommend this unit." - C.Montayne (USA)