Eliass Blog

Product: Magellan Magellan Maestro Eli List Price: $599.99 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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Just to clarify: I own this unit and while it’s exactly what I was looking for (needing neither Bluetooth nor Voice Command) I can clarify the inaccurate information stated above - the 5310 has neither of these features. The Magellan Maestro 4050 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator has both features available for those who are interested. It is possible that we’ll see Voice Command came out as an upgrade for the 5310 as it did for the 4050, but it’s not there now. That said, this is a great little unit with a large, easy-to-read screen, great AAA extras, good maps and a very intuitive user interface. I’d highly recommend it and at $350 Amazon has one of the best prices I’ve seen (it’s $500 elsewhere).

Sirs,

I recently purchased a 5310 GPS on 10/30/2008 at Costco for my HVAC business and I was shocked to learn the 5310 GPS unit with a production date of 10/01/2008 has a map that is from 2006/2007 and the update due in the first quarter of 2009 will cost $[…] more, and would not be provided for me at no cost, I learned this after speaking to your resolution specialists.

This is my second unit I also own a 4040, I did buy the upgrade for this unit 6 months ago.

Any reasonable person would expect to receive the latest software with a new unit, the Garmen units we own are provided with the most current software at NOCHARGE, so when I return this unit even though I like it because of its intuitive capability you have no one to blame but your poor customer service and unrealistic company policies.

So in closing I repeat the 5310 and their Customer Service is Crap on a Cracker

J.Holt

I got my Magellan Maestro 5310 today and tested it thoroughly. This is my first GPS Navigator and I liked it a lot. It works with no problems.

Pros: It talks a lot: the actions you take, the street names, warning for approaching turns, etc. and bells/chimes at the turning points… Route recalculation takes about 3 seconds. Big screen is awesome. Satellite connection is perfect in Texas. The accuracy is about 4-5 meters. And it is full of POI.

Cons: So far the only con can be the difficulty to connect the cradle with the swivel mount. It’s not easy to push the cradle all the way down until it locks in place with the swivel mount. Don’t force it, it will break, or don’t mount the Magellan Maestro 5310 before having those two pieces lock perfectly. What I did was to put some soap on the tabs and the holes and then the cradle slides and locks without forcing it.

Product: Energy 1008199 List Price: $499.00 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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I’m using this sub as part of a 7.1 system that includes two Energy Take TWR speakers for the front channels, a Take FPS for the center channel, and four Take SAT speakers for the surrounds. It produces deep bass down to about 31Hz, which should be plenty for all but the deepest of bass aficionados. This results in a sub that handles all but the most challenging home theater tasks with ease. For example, at the beginning of the movie “Transformers”, you hear and feel lots of deep bass for the helicopter in flight, but you just hear (rather than feel) the shock wave that the evil transformer sends out in it’s first attack. (In all fairness, you’d need at least a 12-15″ sub with considerably more power to feel that in your living room.)

The flip side of this lack of hyper-deep bass response is that the ESW-V8 is an extremely musical sub. I’ve thrown a large quantity of material at it, anything from classical to pop to dance to live jazz, and it handled them all with equal aplomb.

Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase and would recommend this sub to anyone looking for a solid upgrade to their home theater system.

Product: Makita BTW450 List Price: $678.00 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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I’ve only used this a few times as I only received it a month or so ago, but so far I am impressed. It’s not a light weight tool. In fact it seems to be built like a tank. But it is well balanced and fairly easy to use with one hand. It has plenty of torque, and the toggle power switch is easy to use, although it may take a little getting used to. I guarantee you will run it the reverse direction of what you want once or twice till you get used to it.

Product: TomTom 740 List Price: $499.99 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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I have used multiple generations of the TomTom, and I have been a fan for a while. TomTom has always had the best user interface, but the rubber meets the road on directions and map accuracy, and here the new GO 740 Live shows solid improvement.

I drive in the Washington DC area, and occassionally commute up I-95 to New York and Long Island. In other words, it’s traffic, traffic everywhere.

I depend on the TomTom GO 740 Live. The traffic updates are frequent, and almost always match what I am seeing in the real world. And IQ Routes are clearly having a positive impact on route selection. IQ Routes is the feature than anonymously gathers actual driving experiences from all TomTom users and then factors that history into its route computation. I suppose it works best in metro areas where there are many users.

Why this matters: Anyone who drives north out of DC knows that 16th Street is much, much better than Georgia Ave. They both appear as normal city streets, and though Georgia appears more direct, it has more untimed lights and more local traffic. Before IQ Routes, TomTom would suggest Georgia, and I would ignore it. Now, TomTom suggests 16th. With IQ Routes, TomTom is gathering the experience that only local drivers have.

After second-guessing TomTom for a few months, and usually being wrong, I now let it automatically route around traffic. Between the traffic reports and the IQ routes, I am getting the right routes and very accurate estimates of arrival times.

My previous TomTom was the 930, which reached its traffic service through a bluetooth connection to my phone. The connection was flaky (I blame Verizon, not TomTom.) and did not work if I was on a call. The new LIVE series has it’s own cell circuitry built in. I stopped paying $15/month to Verizon for “broadband access connect”, and I will gladly pay $10/month to TomTom for the LIVE services, which include traffic, fuel prices, speed cameras, Google searches, etc.

Final note: In addition to the LIVE services, I subscribe to TomTom’s map update service, and I dock the unit to my PC often to download map corrections. I depend on my GPS, so these update services are a positive feature for me, and my review assumes use of all these services.

TomTom GO 740 4.3-Inch Live Connected GPS Navigator

GPS Experience:

- Smartphone: TomTom Navigator 6 (in-use), Garmin XT, Copilot Live 6, Telenav (in-use)

- Dedicated: Garmin Nuvi 885T (in-use)

I had resisted buying dedicated GPS units while the phone apps (while buggy) generally had better traffic and online search capability for what I wanted to use. So I was quite excited when the TomTom Live units were announced.

Unfortunately the first impression is not that great. After having used TomTom Navigator6 with the traffic subscription for the last year or so, I’ve found their traffic data to be generally reliable (Telenav and Navigator6 seem to agree quite often on the amount of congestion and how to avoid). Not so the 740 Live. For example, in the San Jose CA area where I live there’s a stretch of Hwy85 that *always* backs up one way in the morning and the other way in the afternoon for several miles. You can quite clearly see this on MSN, Google, Sigalert, Navigator6, Telenav, … but as far as the 740Live is concerned there’s no traffic. While there are some traffic incidents in the area reported, I’d say I’m generally missing around 1/2 of the incidents on the surrounding freeways. I’ve taken simultaneous pictures of my phone and the 740Live and sent these to TomTom for comment.

I completed a 4hr drive and ran both the 740Live and Navigator6 on auto-avoidance. Luckily I was driving in the car pool lane, so I didn’t have to take the detours offered, however Navigator6 seemed to have the more reasonable suggestions for when to leave the freeway and take surface streets. Again, this seems to be related to the Navigator6 software generally reporting more traffic from what I could tell.

Also while driving tonight (first trip of more than 15mins), the machine all of a sudden rebooted itself. While potentially somewhat of an annoyance, this was downright dangerous the way it happened as it was dark outside and I was in night driving mode - during reboot the device flashed to full brightness for at least 15secs pretty much blinding me.

Anyway, I still find the TomTom UI the best thought out and the 740Live doesn’t disappoint here. I’m sure the problems I’m having are teething issues - however, if you want a rock solid experience and want to rely on the traffic service … I’d wait.

GPS’s owned: Garmin StreetPilot III, Garmin 760, Dash Express, Navigon 7200T, TomTom GO 730, TomTom GO 740.

Summary first: Now if I could only cross-breed my Navigon 7200T with the TomTom GO 740.

My early and as yet incomplete impression is the TomTom GO 740 connected services are about on par with the original connected GPS, the Dash Express, which came out a year ago and withered on the vine 8-months later. TomTom does not offer the ability to integrate 3rd-party applications, which was a fantastic selling point for the Dash. The 3rd-party apps were better than the embedded ones. Anyway, enough about Dash, but I’m not going to be able to get away from the Navigon 7200T.

TomTom’s connected search uses Google, and comes out of the box with all the standard TomTom GO series features. I like the way they’ve implemented the gas price display as it doesn’t force you to look through an entire list, but just shows the cheapest along your route. You can still get a list if you want it. It’s one of those, “less-is-more” things. It is a tad slow when downloading the data, so if you’re in a hurried situation, it might be frustrating.

TomTom’s autozoom (it was this way in my TomTom GO 730, too), bugs me to no end. Even at 70mph, it zooms too close to be useful, displaying only about a minute’s worth of the road ahead, and little detail (e.g. upcoming roads) while in a route. Disabling autozoom and zooming out just a little completed eliminates all detail: It is blank, except for the road you’re traveling. The Navigon displays up to 3 minutes of road ahead at that speed, and provides a reasonable amount of detail without being cluttered.

As of this early writing, I’ve yet to test the traffic services as I do not live near a major city, even though heavy traffic is not limited to those areas!

Unless you must have a connected GPS, go with the Navigon 7200T. Besides being $150 cheaper at this writing, it has free traffic for life and the autozoom is better. TT’s IQ Routing is better than Navigon’s routing, but not by much. Lane-assist is better on the Navigon, offering lane advice in complex interstate interchanges even if you’re staying on the same interstate; the TomTom offers lane assist only if you’re changing interstates.

There were no issues with brightness of the GO 740’s display, from cloudless day to moonless night, and the adjustment range should be enough for any driving condition.

I really wish I could just build my own GPS, or that Navigon would come out with a connected GPS built on the 7200T.

Lastly, if you think this word picture doesn’t match a 4-star rating, realize that I am leaving out much of what made TomTom a threat to Garmin. TomTom has a lot of things right and I’d only be regurgitating all the positive things you could read on the GO730 and GO720 reviews.

Product: Hewlett-Packard CB534AR#ABA List Price: $509.00 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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The copy and scan functions are outstanding — quick, quiet, and easy to use. Scanning to Adobe files is remarkably simple. Faxing, though, is another story. The fax wizard will not install on Vista 64 bit systems, so fax send functions are limited to what you can do manually. More frustrating, it is impossible to receive faxes with an answering machine connected. I have spent many hours speaking with technicians in India to solve the problem. They diagnose the problem being the answering machine, but changing the answering machine did not help. This was not an issue with my five year old HP Office Jet. And the 1522 is not covered by HP on-line help. So my advice is to think about your needs before buying. If you have Vista 64 bit or use this on anything other than a dedicated fax line, beware.

Please note: In order to post this review, I HAD to give this printer one star. This printer deserves NO STARS.

The HP1522nf had everything I was looking for–Fax, Scan, laser printing, feeder, PPM requirements–and what I thought was HP quality. Although we purchased it from Amazon.com on 4/17, the printer was not placed into use until 5/1 because we were still in construction mode on our business. On May 1, I spent several hours on the phone with HP tech support…in India…and I couldn’t understand most of what they said. Worse, they couldn’t understand *me.* And I speak very clearly.

I was told that the printer could not be plugged into a surge protector–has to be plugged straight into the wall, and they eventually decided that I needed to download the printer software from HP’s website to cure the fact that the printer simply would not operate after printing one page.

I uninstalled the software that I’d installed from HP’s disc. The problem here is that the uninstall doesn’t remove all of the software it’s installed. It leaves tons of junk on the computer. I reinstalled with the fresh download and the printer worked for about a week. The scan and FAX functions refused to work, but I had a business to open and didn’t have time to sit on the phone with HP tech support for hour after hour.

On May 20th, I called HP tech support and the first question I asked was why they had never checked back with me as they said they’d do. The response was that they’d closed the file as “successfully handled” because (they claimed) when tech support tried to call me back, they found my number disconnected. My number was NOT disconnected, but the number they were calling had absolutely not one digit in common with my number.

I spent two days on the phone with tech support, uninstalling and reinstalling the software over and over, coaxing the printer to please do something right, trying to understand what the HP tech support people were saying… It was MEGA-frustrating.

The problems? The printer would print once, and then turn itself off. HP absurdly placed the switch in the back (lower left side), so in order to power cycle the printer, it’s really handy if you know how to do yoga. However, power cycling it would do nothing after awhile. The printer turned itself off and stayed off.

HP tech support asked me to FAX them the receipt, which I did (before the printer finally decided to stay dead), and HP’s tech support had the gall to complain that it was too blurry to read. Having been sent with one of their printers and received on their equipment, the quality of the FAX would be HP’s problem–not mine.

The machine would not scan. Trying to run the scan software resulted in a pop-up window telling me that the scan had failed, did I want to try again. It never scanned.

The computer I installed the software on unfortunately runs Vista. I asked if this could be the problem. HP tech support thought not. However, when trying to input data into the FAX feature on the computer, I ran into a series of annoying problems. For example, inputting the business name required that I input one letter and then the HP software would spit up a yellow caution sign window with the letter and a question mark. I’d click “OK,” and then enter another letter, at which point HP software would spit up the same yellow caution sign with the new letter and a question mark. I’d click “OK”…and this is how the entire business name had to be entered! One letter at a time and no spaces. Hitting the space bar would bounce the cursor back to the beginning. I kludged that problem by inserting an underscore between words. It’s insane!

Finally HP tech support decided it was a bad printer and that they needed to replace my brand new straigh-out-of-the-box printer with a used refurbished one! That’s when I blew up. And that’s when HP lost me as a customer.

I complained vociferously. They said they’d review the issues, but replacing with a used refurbished unit was all HP policy allows.

I wrote scathing emails to HP tech support and to HP’s CEO (whose email address is on the HP website if you’re patient enough to search for it). I decided to cc Amazon.com as well.

Next morning, I received a wonderful email from Amazon telling me that due to the extenuating circumstances, they’d already shipped me a new printer and sent a label for the return of the non-functional unit. Amazon ROCKS!

Then I received a call from HP tech support telling me in pidgin English that they’d reviewed the situation and would send me a used refurbished unit. It was great fun to tell them to go pound sand.

My new printer arrived as scheduled. I spent hours on my computer–weeding through folders, uninstalling every particle of HP software I could find–looking in hidden folders (they’re in there too), as well as taking ownership of items and changing permissions in order to dump eons of the nasty buggers. I plugged the printer INTO THE WALL RECEPTICLE. I installed the software from a fresh download.

It works. It FAXes. (The first two FAXes failed, but after that it worked. I still had to enter the business name header one letter at a time, each letter followed by the annoying sign and clicking “OK.”) It scans. It prints. It doesn’t turn itself off. BUT–after reading these reviews, I have to wonder how long this “success” will hold.

I wish I’d bought any other brand printer. Brother printers seem to be garnering good reviews, but based on past experience with having to kick those suckers to print, I decided against Brother. Epson seems to be having success. Really, ANYTHING has to be better than an HP printer.

Until HP gets its act together with technically-correct software and printers that work, and more importantly–MOVES THEIR TECH SUPPORT BACK TO THE UNITED STATES–I refuse to do business with them. I’ve bought probably 10 HP printers over the past few years. Maybe more. I don’t mind spending a little time on the phone with tech support for minor issues. But in the past two years–it’s happened with every single printer with every single set-up, and it’s gotten old. So long, HP. Your printers don’t work. Your software doesn’t work. And your tech support is atrocious.

This machine is on sale for a reason: It’s an incredibly bad product from an equally bad company.

The fax from the computer feature doesn’t always dial until the dial tone switches to the “if you’d like to make a call” message. So at least half the faxes have to be reloaded.

Unfortunately the English-challenged “support” in India has no idea what that message is, so it was not until I asked for a “supervisor” did anyone understand the problem.

The suggestion was to update the firmware and drivers. I did and now I can’t install the fax functions at all.

In the middle of this, the printer flashed a “replace black toner” message and won’t print until I fork over another $79.00 for a new cartridge. The existing one is not showing any signs of needing replacement. HP has rigged the sensor to their advantage.

I have purchased mostly HP printers in the past. Of course, this will be my last.

Product: Nokia 02702Z1 List Price: $499.95 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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UPDATES:

I’ve updated the review dealing with the FM transmitter’s signal quality as well as the clock being reset when using the bottom power switch and dialing from the unit when using BT speakerphone.

I recently purchased mine from another online vendor. This will be a long and fairly detailed review and in it I will clarify some issues that some people are having.

Powering up from standby works both under battery power mode or charging mode. All you need to do is hold down the top power button for about 2-3 seconds and let it go. To put it back into standby hold the top power button for the same amount of time. For everyday use, the top power button is very convenient and allows faster boot ups than using the bottom power switch which requires a pointed device to switch it on/off. Make note that if/when you use the BOTTOM power switch make sure you do not power off when the unit is in standby as it will reset the clock. Only power off when the unit is on and out of standby. This is only an issue with the BOTTOM power switch.

BT pairing only works on some phones not all phones…duh. There are different versions of BT as well as different BT profiles support so don’t expect every phone to work with this Nokia 500. My LG CU500 pairs fine and the speaker phone works great, loud and clear. My contacts however would not upload since my phone does not support Phone Book Access Profile (PBAP) so I have to initiate calls using my handset’s phonebook. You could direct dial calls using the touchpad if you already know the phone number. You could also save 9 speedial numbers into the “favorites”. When receiving calls I can answer using the Nokia via the touchscreen. The BT speaker phone can use the built-in speaker or your car stereo via the FM transmitter. It works great with my car stereo, reception is loud and clear. There is some static every now and then but that’s common with all FM transmitters. The FM transmitter works well while in the cradle or held in your hand using battery power, however, when using the car adapter it is very sensitive to the orientation of the WIRE so you’ll have to move the wire around to get the best reception. I suspect this is the reason why some owners have little success with getting good reception since they do not realize this.

The FM transmitter works with music and videos stored on your SD card as well as the navigation voices. I did have a problem with the FM transmitter turning itself off after 1 min of inactivity during voice navigation usage, but I found an easy solution and that is to have an audio track play in the background in repeat mode which keeps the FM transmitter continuously on. If you prefer not to hear music play in the background during voice navigation then just turn down the volume using the front hard volume buttons. You could actually turn down the music volume all the way and the FM transmitter will still stay on. You do not have to go through the trouble of making a silent audio track that I’d suggested prior to finding this out. The voice navigation volume is independent of the music volume so it doesn’t get turned down along with the music.

Keep in mind the Nokia does have a built-in speaker so the voices can playback through that instead of the car stereo if you don’t want to fiddle around with the FM transmitter. Also note that if you have music playing in the background, the music volume automatically gets reduced so you could hear the voice navigation instructions when it kicks in.

The Nokia only comes with a car charger, but it can also be charged while connected to your computer’s USB port. That means any USB charger will work. USB standard output voltage is 5V. At home I use an old Motorola USB cellphone charger, it’s rated 5V and 550mA. The Nokia car adapter is rated 5V and 1A. It takes longer to charge with my Motorola charger because the current is about half of Nokia’s car charger. Slow charging is better anyway since there’s little risk of overcharging if you forget to unplug the charger after the battery has been fully charged.

The memory card that came with my unit is an official Nokia brand 2GB SD card NOT microSD or miniSD. The card is made by Sandisk. It comes with folders already created for MP3, VIDEOS, and PICTURES as well as CITIES for the maps. I copied all the files and folders from the 2GB card onto my 16GB card and it works without a problem. Music and videos play as expected, however it seems the videos have to be below a certain resolution and framerate. If the video’s resolution is too high the playback will be choppy. I have to play around with encoding different videos to see what the optimum resolution/framerate is, however I did notice the 4 product demo videos that are included on the Nokia SD card are of the following specs.

Audio - AAC, Stereo, 44.1 kHz
Video - MPEG4 480×276 15 FPS
Bitrate - 768 kbps

I will try and see if I can make a video that runs at 25 FPS since 15 FPS is not very good IMO. The unit is capable of playing WMV at 30 FPS but that depends on the resolution. If I can get videos to play at 25 FPS at the screen’s native resolution of 480×276 then it would be perfect. This Nokia is running Window CE Core 5.0 OS.

Finally if you want your battery to last longer just turn down the brightness or leave it in energy save mode where the screen dims after 30 secs. Doing that will allow the unit to last a couple of hours without needing to be plugged in.

The windshield mount is very high quality/sturdy and made in Germany. The suction cup is not your standard mill. You have to operate the lever when mounting/dismounting which is a good thing because it creates a very strong and reliable suction.

As far as the navigation is concerned, from my own usage it seems to work well. This is my first PND and I’m very happy with its performance. The Text To Speech voice navigation feature works great announcing street names etc. The user interface might be kinda confusing at first but once you memorize where everything is and have everything setup it does the job pretty effectively. Yes there are probably better user interfaces from other products but when you consider what you’re getting overall at this low price, there’s not much here to complain about.

For the little money that I paid for my unit, it’s a great deal. It does what it’s supposed to do with a nice big bright 4.3″ widescreen and includes BT speaker phone capability and FM transmitter. The unit also supports many different audio and video formats. It also plays uncompressed lossless WAV files even though it doesn’t list that file format in the official specs. The unit is very high quality and feels solid. The built-in nonreplaceable battery isn’t a big deal because this will be mainly used in the car not carried around in my pocket. Regardless the battery will likely last a few years when used strictly as a portable which is the same as any iPod or iPhone. In a few years PNDs with the same features as this Nokia will be dirt cheap anyway so when my battery dies I could just buy a newer better unit and still be able to use the old unit in the car plugged into the cigarette lighter socket if I so choose.
Skip it.
I bought a Garmin, a mio 310, and a TOMTOM 720.
Try this. Map out IKEA or Department of Motor Vehicles.
Only the Garmin or Mio have them listed.
I bought a nokia because I thought the POI database was updated. They are not. There is no way to update the POI database. I’m going back to Garmin. Mio has such a bad algorythm. and TOMTOM has the same issue with the POI database. I have an old Alpine navigation unit in my car and it still has more poi locations then ANY of these 3 units I have purchased. Too bad the new gps they have had such bad reviews.
The Nokia doesn’t even have a qwerty keyboard. They bought Navteq and they didn’t even get all the poi’s? Thats bad.

I purchased this gps from another vendor for $99.99. Great price for the features, which include 4.3″ screen, Text to speech, Blue Tooth, and FM transmitter. For the price, you just can’t beat this. There are two short falls for this. One, is the way in which you enter the address. If comparing to a garmin, this gps requires more information. Here’s the thing. If you’re entering an address for a rural area. You have the option of entering a zip code. You dont’ need to. But you may find out that it cannot find the street name for the give city you’v entered. So, you have the option of going back and entering a zip code. But really, how many people will know the zip code of an area other than their own home address. But, once you enter the zip code for a rural area, it then breaks down the zip into a smaller area per zip. So in my case, when looking for my home address, I needed to konw the township of the zip code that I was interested in. Now really, who would know that? This is the biggest flaw for this device. I don’t see this as an issue for a city zip, but the rural areas, yes. Once it’s found the address, no problem this thing works great. One last issue. There is the ability to zoom out on the map. But there is a bug in the firmware in that if you hit the zoom button too fast, it will zoom all the way out to the world view of the map. Then you cannot get back to your local view unless you end your navigation, and then start over. This is not a problem, you just end the current navigation, then start again and you can choose recently found and then you’re done. But it it an annoyance. For those that found the FM to be a problem, I think the issue is that it uses the dc power cord for part of the antenna. I noticed that if I used the FM just from battery power, there was static and not a very good connection. But if I had the GPS plugged into the power, it was great. No problem. And for those that could not get the gps to download contacts from their phone, you must konw that it will only download contacts that are stored in the phones internal memory. If you have your contacts saved to the sim card, they will not down load. So bottom line, I would give this a 5 star, if it were not for the address entery, which is really the basic funtion that a gps should be able to do, and do well. Hope this review has helped some people decide on their purchase of this gps. One last note. In all honesty, it would appear that Nokia has entered this gps into the North American market as an afterthought. The reason I say this is that the bugs that I have listed, are a very easy and quick firmware update. If Nokia was serious about this product in the US, then the bugs I’ve listed in this review, would be a simple firware update. But I don’t get the feelling that Nokia is concerned about us in the US.

Product: Beltronics GX65 List Price: $499.95 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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The Beltronics GX65 is the best radar detector that I have ever owned. I have had many over the years including the Valentine V1. Although this is a good detector, the GX65 gives me more warning on the signals that matter as well as not having to worry about listening to it go off for the wrong reason (You tell it what you want to not listen to). The other thing that is great about this detector is the pre-warning it gives when you are approaching a red-light camera. It tells you exactly where these are before it is too late.
Very well built, you can immediately tell you are not buying a product that skimps on material. The GX65 also comes with a very well written owners manual that is easy to understand.
Recommend very highly!!
I’ve driven with the GX65 for several months now and it is without a doubt my favorite dectector and I’ve owned many! The GPS feature allows me to lock out annoying false alerts, plus the built-in database is preloaded with all the red light and speed camera locations popping up everywhere. These annoying camera locations alert in plenty of time to check things out in advance. $29.95 extra for the 3 year update subscription, which I haven’t purchased as yet. Once I’ve marked all the false alerts on my drive to work, the GX65 is quiet and alerts to just true police radar. I’ve never driven with such a quiet detector. The unit comes with a very nice case and “Smart” power cord that works like a miniture control panel right on the dash. Highly reccommended!
First the detector - I recently bought from another retailer (see ’second’ point below). It is tremendous. Great functionality, options, design, gives good warning, the GPS tells you your speed when an alert goes off (so you only have to look at the detector to know what you’re dealing with and how fast you’re going). I primarily bought for the red light camera detection, but it turns out there are none in my area (when I traveled out of state, I found quite a bit), but if you don’t have many of the red light cameras in your area, you may want to save a few bucks and get the RX65 (also from Bell). It will save you a couple hundred bucks and (except for the GPS), it’s the same detector.

Second - I was looking to buy this detector and it was $469 everywhere. About 2-3 months ago, Amazon changed the price to $429 but said they didn’t have any in stock so they’d ship later. I put it in my cart. The price then dropped another $5 over the next few days, but I got caught up and didn’t finish the order. I went in a few days later and it was over $470. I wrote customer service who told me what the policy was but never answered the question about how something that’s not in stock can have a price change almost daily. Anyway, I didn’t order it. A few weeks later they moved the price to $425, so I ordered it. A week or two after that, they said that they wouldn’t be able to get it and they cancelled my order and took it down off the site for about 2 or 3 weeks. Now I see it’s back. It makes me wonder why my order was cancelled a few short weeks ago.

If you want my 2 cents, it’s selling for the same price on the Beltronics site (also with free shipping). Pick it up there and order a couple of accessories (visor clip, extra suction cups for another car, a USB plug which you’ll need to update the database, etc.) You’ll get more stuff (that you need anyway) bundled in with your free shipping.

Product: Super HR732Tan List Price: $769.00 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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The DVD players are sturdy and offer dozens of functions not found on OEM systems. The guts of the DVD players are clearly marked Sony. The tan head rests are well constructed and they match the leather in our Navigator. They play DVD-Rs and Video CDs with no issues. Movies can also be watched from a thumb drive or an SD card in several different digital formats. Some MP4s will play, others won’t. The head phones have two channels and work perfectly with either DVD player. Video quality is surprisingly good, especially after changing the default setting of PAL to NTSC. Basic functions are on the front of the DVD player, but advanced functions require you use the remote control. The 32 BIT games are for children over 10. The 8 BIT games (optional) are old 1970-1980s arcade favorites and the younger kids love them.

Installation was easy taking about 90 minutes to do a professional level job. The pre-installed Power and Video/Audio-Out line runs down one post of the head rest while the Video/Audio-In line runs down the other post. The cables dropped through the back of the seat and were easily routed down the side of the seat and beneath the center console (comepletely out of sight). I removed the back panel of the center console where I connected the Video/Audio cables and tapped off of a cigarette lighter power cable for the 12VDC. The cables are very long giving you all kinds of cable routing options. End result was an OEM style DVD system that costs $1000 less.
The headrests arrived about 3 days after I had placed the order. They were brand new in original packaging with no brand name of any kind on the factory box. They are well-made, sturdy and attractive. The metal posts have adjustable widths so that they would fit in a variety of seats. The instructions are very vague, but we installed them ourselves after finding out that a local car audio shop would charge $200 for professional installation. It only took us about 2 hours to install and that includes unhooking the car battery, and tucking all of the extra wires under the seats.

We removed the plastic backing off of the backs of our front seats in our Chrysler Town/Country minivan. We fed the long wires down through the seat backs and under the seat so that they came out from under the front of each seat. We removed the plastic cover off of the front console and wired both headrests into one of the power outlets in the console. Before touching any wires, we disconnected the negative terminal of the car battery. We wired the blue wire from the power outlet to both red wires from the headrests. Then we wired the black wire from the power outlet to both black wires from the headrests. We reattached the car battery and both DVD players were fully operational. We also hooked the a/v out cables from one headrest into the a/v in cables from the other headrest so that both kids can watch the same DVD. Even though there is no brand name anywhere on the headrest or unit, there is a part inside the DVD player that reads “Sony”. We are very pleased with the high quality picture and overall product.
After searching for several months, we decided on this product based upon other reviews and price. The product arrived on time. While we did have a small issue with the game controller the seller was more than helpful in getting new controllers sent. The headrest were installed in a Ford Windstar and took about 3 hours. The wireless headphones work on the center seats and in the far rear seat also which is important when we need to seperate the kids.

The clarity of the 7″ screen is remarkable and the sound thru the vehicle system or the built in speakers is very clear. I would highly recommend this product to anyone looking to make the long road trips a little easier. Pictures coming soon.

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Very good for expanding your interior space especially for camping gear. Sturdy and easy to mount. Items need to be placed perfectly by weight to avoid distortion which makes it hard to close. Even when closed the nose or front of the unit was not sealed and if rain or too much air got in there it caused the top to lift and the gear to get wet. I tried everything I could to even the weight out and spread the heavy items to the middle but there was still a gap in the front and it lifted when going down the highway @ 70MPH. I fixed it by drilling a small 1/8 inch hole in the front lip between the top lid and the bottom and routed a bungee hook through it. This sealed the box and I had no more issues. This is very sturdy and well built! You will have it for years. The lock on it is great! Unique design allows you to open it from either side. I found it VERY difficult to lift heavy items into it and position them by standing in the doorway of the car. I recommend the wheel stand you can buy which is a platform that attaches to the tire and allows you to stand higher then you would loading in the doorway. If your 6ft you wont have a problem. Overall very nice product but pricey! So well built you will have it for years. Storing it is another thing!
Product worked very well on a recent family trip. Holds a lot and the hardcover keeps items away from the element.

Product: On The Edge 900108 List Price: $390.24 Average customer review: Amazon Price: Too low to display Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price Add to cart to see low price@ Availability: In Stock Usually ships in 24 Hours Free Shipping Available

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Ah, don’t you just love the sound of a two-stroke engine at sunset? I know I love it almost as much as I love the scent of two-stroke exhaust, perfumed by that faint whiff of Castrol Power RS TTS floating in the air. Combine that with Booze in the blender - And soon it will render - That frozen concoction that helps me hang on. Can it get any better than this?

The On The Edge 900108 2 Stroke Gas Powered Party Blender is a vindication of my Uncle Bubba’s inspired vision of a motorcycle-mounted blender. Even though he was a Real Man, he did love those strawberry-banana frozen daiquirís. He tried to rig a blender up to the fly-wheel assembly on his old Suzuki t500 Titan, only have it disintegrate when he hit freeway speed on the Nimitz Freeway. Darn flywheel exploded, and a huge ugly chunk of glass blender jar just clean sliced off one of his ears. Well, the genius of this product is that it eliminates 95% of the motorcycle, while still giving you that Bad Boy look. And sound. And smell. But without the blood and (thanks to the stainless steel pitcher!) the broken glass. Oh thank you, On The Edge!

As yes, Bubba was indeed a visionary. Too bad he was killed by his next invention, the two-stroke chainsaw cheese grater.