Good value for money but can be very frustrating (Medion GoPal PNA 210)

Member Name: Sturt

Product:	Medion GoPal PNA 210
Date:	26/09/07 (326 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap

Disadvantages: difficult menus, some missing features

I do a fair amount of travelling around, and decided that a sat-nav would be a justified expense that I would get the good of, but at the same time I wanted the cheapest one I could possibly find. At £99 this was, to say the least, cheap!

It does however, look cheap. It has a relatively small screen and is quite heavy and bulky, which means it can take a while to find a good spot for it. The small screen makes it very difficult to navigate the menus unless you have small fingers, and with little documentation you'll have to work out how to use it yourself.

Having said that, once you do figure out how to use it, and get used to the menus (if you manage to find the stylus which is nicely hidden, I didnt find it till I had had the unit for months.) the unit is reasonably good value for money. In the box you'll get the unit, a cigarette lighter lead, 4 AA batteries, disks with software and a suction fitting. You can search for addresses either using postcodes or street names however it lacks the ability to "free roam". in other words, you cant just use it to find out where you are unless you put in a destination.

If you do stray from the route however, it will quickly find you a new route without having to turn around. I was particularly impressed with its ability to do this with speed in the centre of glasgow.

The main thing that really gets to me is the speed camera warning feature. The feature itself is really good, but getting it to accept taht you wawnt it on can take some patience. Occasionally I find myself going in circles while it asks me to confirm that I really do want it switched on. Slip lanes are also hard to follow and you need to pay attention to the distance to the slip it wants you to take, since it will sometimes say "take the slip road" but not necessarily intend you to take the NEXT slip road.

It has the ability to store your own locations, which can be handy if it is a place you are likely to visit often, such as a relatives house. Other features include a photo viewer and mp3 player (?why?) and a quick access petrol station finder, into which you can specify your favourite petrol providers.

When navigating, the unit will also tell you the time, ETA, distance to arrival, and time till arrival as well as a displayed compass.

In my opinion, although this unit is very cheap, and in all fairness its good for its price, there are just too many annoying little things that make it hard to use and put me off reccomending it to others.

Summary: Would reccommend spending a little more on a better unit.