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INTRODUCTION

    It’s a bit tough to find innovation among the sea of in-car GPS devices making their way to the market. At the core, they all do about the same thing. Navman saw this, and went to the drawing board to find something that would truly distinguish their product from the other players on the field. The result was a feature called NavPix, which lets you take picture of places you’ve been through an integrated camera on the unit. When you snap the picture, it records the geographical coordinates, so that the next time you want to visit the particular location, you simply tap on the picture. It’s a very intelligent way to get around. Today we’ll look at Navman’s top-of-the-line unit, the brand-spankin’-new iCN 750. Read on…

WHAT’S HOT

    Let’s see what is unique:

NavPix

: Though a very simple concept, picture-navigation has never made its way into any units on the market. Navman plans to extend NavPix to being a guided tourer when you’re in a new town. Imagine logging online, downloading an intinerary for Washington D.C., and having an array of landmark pictures to choose from in your NavPix gallary on the device. To navigate to any place, simply tap on the picture and click "Go". For more on NavPix, click here.

Screen

: This unit has a crisp, 480 x 272 widescreen touchscreen, which shows more data than your standard 320×240 screen.

Rechargeable Battery

: The unit has a rechargable battery that provided a solid 120 minutes of use in my testing.

Software

: The iCN 750 uses SmartST 2006 software.

Hardware

: Inside you’ll find an Intel PXZ270 312MHz processor, with 64MB RAM and ROM, a 4GB hard drive, and the SiRF Star III chipset for quick signal acquisition times. As with most units using this chipset, cold start times are around a minute, while warm and hot start times are almost instant.

I’ve used price as a comparison…units that are above $650, or the high-end units out there that use an internal hard drive instead of flash memory.

SETUP

    Because this unit has an integrated hard drive, there is no setup. I took the unit out of the box, and literally within minutes, I was navigating. On my unit, all US maps were preloaded.

PRODUCT FEATURES
(all images link to higher resolution)

Box contents include: car and home charger, cradle, lots of documentation, screen cleaning wipe, real leather case (provided by Proporta), software, USB cable, and the unit.

As mentioned, the case is made out of real leather, and looks great.

Here’s a shot of the mount. It’s got a clip (visible on the bottom left) that allows the unit to release easily for times when you want to remove it to snap a picture.

In hand, the unit feels solid, and has a great, clean design.

    Looking at it from the front, we see the 4" widescreen display, along with a few buttons on the right. The top two will locate gas stations and parking areas that are closet to you (very convienient!). The third button will take you to the main menu. The fourth button is the GoTo button which takes you to the screen that you’ll use to specify a navigation point. The fifth button on the bottom switches screen views from 2D to 3D to turn-by-turn and so on. We’ll go through each screen below.

Going around the unit, on the top we have two buttons, one for power, the other to take pictures. The buttons are actually made of metal and not plastic – a sign of great build quality!

On the right side of the unit, we have the volume control. Pressing this in will mute.

On the other side, we have the headphone jack, SD card slot (for storage of additional photos, etc), a power port, and USB jack.

On the bottom, we have a reset button, battery on/off switch, and metal contacts for use with an optional docking cradle.

On the back we have the large speaker, camera, cradle insert, and GPS antenna. I found the voice guidance to have plenty of volume, and great clarity.

The camera captures pictures at 1.3 megapixels.

The antenna flips open to 90 degrees.

Removing the mount is as easy as pulling on the finger grooves on the plastic cup. No more using your fingernail to dig up the little suction cup tab!

    Here is a shot of the main menu. The buttons have a bit of a carbon-fiber look to them, and are outlined in red when they are pressed. There is a back button on most pages. In preferences you can do the usual tweaks including changing the map color scheme, change routing options, alter screen brightness, etc.

Here’s a shot of the camera screen, which works much like standard digital camera. Since I’ve got the unit propped up on a gray sheet, the screen is blank. To snap the photo, you press the camera button at the top of the unit.

    This is the important gallery screen, which lets you scroll through your pictures. If there is a green arrow on the corner of a picture, it has coordinates associated with it, meaning you can use it as a navigation destination. Included on my unit was a bunch of landmarks here in the US, such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA. Also note the neat notched scroll wheel on the right side. Instead of an up/down scroll bar, you drag the wheel. It’s a bit tricky to get used to. Tapping on an image will…

…bring up a larger shot, along with its coordinates. From here, you can choose Go To, which will calculate a route to this location. Note how buttons turn red when tapped. It would have been cooler if they appeared to be pushed-in.

You can also zoom in on any image to get more visual detail.

When you snap a picture, you can add a name. Why no QWERTY keyboard here?

Here is one of the turning screens during a navigation trip. As with most GPS devices, you can get useful statistics such as Time to Go, Estimated Time of Arrival, Speed, and Direction.

Here is the turn-by-turn screen.

Here’s a nice company-provided screenshot of the iCN 750 in action.

…and another. I like how the SmartST 2006 software shows a 3D arrow on places that you are to turn.

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HELP SUPPORT

    The unit was very easy to use, even though the user manual that accompanies the unit is thick.

BUGS AND WISHES

   
I really like the functionality of the SmartST navigation software, but as with the other Navman units I’ve reviewed, my street hasn’t been added to the map system yet. My street is about 4 years old, so there really isn’t any reason why the software isn’t updated.

    Having an integrated hard drive avoids the need of having to buy additional flash memory. The compromise, though, is speed of the device. I found the iCN 750 to be considerablly more sluggish than other flash-based navigation devices I’ve worked with. By slluggish, I mean the time it takes to get from screen to screen, and the time it takes to recalculate a route, etc.

    The touchscreen is very bright, and I like the wide aspect. What I don’t like is the shinyness of the surface. At times during bright daylight, it became difficult to see the screen. Fortunately, the loud and clear voice guided me safely to my destination. The GlobalSat GV-201 that we recently reviewed also has a touchscreen, but seems to have a different, glare-free coating on it.

    Where the heck is the battery indicator? In order to check battery level, you have to go back out into the main menu, and follow through the preferences menu. That can become annoying.

PURCHASING

   
A quick search on Froogle reveals that the iCN 750 can be had for around $700. Not too bad for a high-end navigation solution.

PROS

• The first GPS to integrate a camera
• Internal HDD with preloaded maps
• Good quality case
• Great mount system
• Rechargeable battery
• Pretty GUI
• Crisp widescreen
• Instant access to gas and parking POI

CONS

• Very reflective screen creates glare
• Pricey (but not too bad relative to other high-end GPS)
• No battery indicator
• No remote
• Performance is a bit sluggish

Value
Ease of Use
Features
Overall

What do these ratings mean?

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OVERALL IMPRESSION

   NavPix is a feature much like the iPod clickwheel that many companies will try to emulate in their own products soon enough. Without completely breaking the bank, Navman offers their top-of-the-line navigation solution, and without cutting corners. It’s got a slick design and a pretty GUI, and does a terrific job the mobile traveler around town. If they were to integrate 4GB of flash memory instead of a hard drive, add a screen overlay (or change the coating), and integrate a battery indicator, I’d be inclined to bump up the rating even further. Even without those changes, we still have a terrific navigation solution for those that want the best.