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Sony NV-U94T gps — good deal

I’m a relative newcomer to GPS, but I’m learning quickly. I’ve tried out several, compared notes with friends and read dozens of reviews. The NV-U94T received uneven reviews - some liked it, and some (like CNET) were luke warm. My first reaction, however, when seeing it on display at Radio Shack was very positive, so I took a closer look.

Sony doesn’t have the same reputation for GPS that companies like Garmin and TomTom have. I believe that this factor, combined with the initially high price for this device ($399 list until recently), and slightly flakey routing with the first firmware release, all led to this being a somewhat ignored model this fall.

Although the NV-U94T was just released this fall (August 2008?) as the top of the line for Sony’s fall lineup, Sony decided to drop the list price from $399 to $199 just last week. While I was admiring the device when it was selling for $299 at Radio Shack before Christmas, when I went back there a few days ago and saw it at $199 (with a 30 day return option, and 90 day exchange option), I felt that I had to take a chance.

In short - it’s been great so far.

The display is spectacular. At 4.8″, this is the biggest, brightest, clearest display I’ve seen for anywhere near this price. The processor seems to be very fast: the user interface is crisp and responsive, route calculation is very fast, as is re-calculation when I drive off the recommended route. The unit boots up and acquires satellite signals in seconds.

The user interface is quite good, easy to navigate, and generally requires very few taps to get me to the desired function. Having dedicated menu buttons on the left of the screen, regardless of the display, means that I can always get to a top level menu with a single tap. The 94T supports a number of finger gestures (that got a laugh out of my teenage son!), such as swiping a large roof shape on screen with a finger to indicate that you want the device to navigate home, drawing a clockwise circle to zoom in or counter-clockwise to zoom out (both to presets that you select and set).

The feature set is pretty huge. Bluetooth can be used several ways: the device has a built in media player that can stream through your bluetooth equipped car audio system, and it can also act as a handsfree bluetooth speakerphone for your cell phone (works great). Text to speech is excellent, and you have a choice of voices and languages. There’s a built in 6-way accelerometer and some kind of pressure sensor that help to keep track of your position if you briefly lose contact with the GPS satellites. They call this “position plus”.

Sony’s “super suction cup” mount works incredibly well. It’s a fairly typical suction cup, but with some kind of gel disk on the bottom that’s a bit tacky to the touch. It’s not a true adhesive, so it leaves no residue. But it allows the mount to faster to a textured dashboard securely in seconds — and can be removed just as quickly without leaving a trace. I like the ability to quickly mount it on my dash and remove it as well: my current car is leased and I’ll be returning it in less than a year — no way I’d put a permanent mount on the car. Also, being able to mount it on my dash is excellent: it’s truly NOT obstructing my view out the windshield, and I’ve heard stories about the police in NJ ticketing people lately for having a GPS on the windshield blocking the view.

Not sure if this next point is common to all wide-screen GPS’s, but the 94T goes into a split-screen mode as you approach intersections, showing you a detailed close up of the intersection on the left side of the screen, and the normal map on the right. The close up shows you all the lanes that are available to you, and which ones to use or avoid. Works quite well so far.

The device doesn’t always pick the same route I would, but I imagine that no GPS will read your mind and always choose a route using the same logic that you would. However the routes it picks always seem to be within a mile of the same total trip length that I choose, with total trip time within about a minute or two of the routes I might choose in favor of the ones recommended by the GPS. It’s actually got me reevaluating the routes I’ve used for years — and it seems to be choosing well so far. Additionally, if you keep ignoring a recommended route in favor of your own, I read that it will start to apply a greater weight in its routing algorithm to your preferred routes, and eventually start using your preferred roads.

The unit I picked up this past week as recent 2008 NAVTEQ maps of the US, Canada and Puerto Rico installed with something over 5 million points of interest included. I’ve read that recent Garmin’s have something like 6 million POI’s — not sure what I’m missing, and so far, it’s found all my local restaurants, gas stations, etc.

The 94T also has a traffic receiver built in and a separate antenna you can string along the edge of your windshield. The 94T comes with a prepaid 3 month trial for the traffic service — I haven’t tried this yet, and don’t plan to subscribe anyway. Hopefully my only future expense with this will be a map update sometime in the next year or two.

I picked up a nice aftermarket case for the 94T at Radio Shack for $20 — it’s designed for GPS’s in the 4.5″ to 5″ range, and fits this one like a glove. The case looks and feels like a large generic horizontal cell phone case with a magnetic flap closure. I feel much safer carrying the 94T in this than having it bare.

Two things about this that I find a bit annoying:
1) I wish Sony didn’t force you to use their “memory stick” media for expanded storage. I’d prefer more industry standard mini- or micro-SD, as they can be found cheaper than Sony’s proprietary format. Not a big deal, but I prefer standards.

2) I’ve read that battery life on this device is only about 2.5 hours, while it appears that high end TomTom and Garmin units have double the battery life. I don’t know when I’d use this without having it plugged into the car power cable. But I imagine that if I ever needed it on battery, I’d prefer to have better battery life.

Although the built in lithion-ion battery is not supposed to be user serviceable, Sony provides directions for removing it for recycling in the event that you’re trashing the device. It looks exceedingly easy to open the device, and if the battery can be found for purchase (online somewhere I’d guess), it looks like it would be very easy to replace it if needed.

Anyway — aside from the two minor gripes above, I’m loving the NV-U94T. I’ll be trying it out on a few trips this weekend (a few hundred miles), and hope to give it a good workout. So far, I’m very happy with this, and at the new price of $199, I think it’s a steal. (I’m inserting a link below, and you can pick it up at Radio Shack for $199, or order it directly from SonyStyle for the same price)

- Jon

Sony NVU94T 4.8-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic and Text-to-Speech

UPDATE 1/19/09: I’ve lived with this, using it every day (although I generally don’t need it) to observe how it works, quirks, etc. As some others have posted, it occasionally comes up with a somewhat bizarre route — but most of the time, the recommended routes are perfectly valid, and sometimes faster than the “obvious” routes that I normally choose.

I’ve been using this long enough now to finally experience the “learning” feature that I read about. Every day after work I drive south on the NJ Turnpike from Exit 11 to Exit 8A, and then take various preferred routes over to Princeton Junction. The NV-U94T attempted to steer me OFF the NJ Turnpike at Exit 9 every day, taking me on Route 1 south instead. The route is “valid”, but doesn’t take into account the fact that Route 1 tends to be a parking lot in rush hour. Knowing how bad Route 1 is, I ignore the NV-U94T’s directions and continue south past Exit 9, at which point I hear, “Updating route!” and it figures out the new route from there.

Last week, the GPS stopped insisting on Exit 9, and actually guided me down my preferred route — and did so consistently for the last several days of the week. As I note at the top of this write-up, I had read that the device actually tracks the times you ignore recommended routes in favor of other roads (I believe it was a Sony engineer saying this — I’ll continue to look for the link and will post it back when I find it) and updates the relative “weight” of your preferred road so that their algorithm will eventually recommend roads increasingly in line with your preferences. I was skeptical at first, but the new behavior seems consistent, and is in line with the item I read about the system re-weighting the route.

Last night I friend stopped by with his family, and happened to bring along *his* latest gadget acquisition — a shiny new Garmin 4.3″ GPS (not sure which model — I think its a 760). We were taking both families out to dinner, and decided to try both GPS’s side-by-side to see how they compared.

They both booted up about as quickly. The Garmin acquired satellites almost immediately, and the Sony took about 10 seconds more — but then both held the signals for the rest of the night. Although the Sony calculates a new route quickly, the Garmin definitely seems to do this faster: about 3 or 4 seconds on the Sony, and almost instant on the Garmin. I’m guessing the Garmin has a faster processor. Note though: even though the Sony takes a few seconds to update a route, it’s still fast enough to do this before I get to the next intersection after missing a recommended turn.

The Garmin offers more options for customization it seems, with the ability to download numerous different voice files, while the Sony is limited to 2 choices in English (a male and female choice), and both a male and female voice for 2 other languages (French and Italian I believe). Garmin definitely offers more choices in this area.

While driving the few short trips we took last night, both devices chose identical routes. Both gave similar (though not identical) turn warnings. My friends pointed out that the Garmin simply tells you to “Turn right” (onto whatever the named street is) when you’re on top of the intersection, whereas the Sony will say, “NOW turn right onto” (whatever the street name is). I’m used to the NV-U94T saying “Now turn right…”, but they found it an improvement in having the GPS make it clear that you are actually AT the turn rather than still approaching it. Subtle usability point — not a big deal, but I agree — it’s nice having it made abundantly clear to you that you’re AT the turn.

The Garmin’s display seems a bit prettier: it shows your current road more realistically in 3D perspective than the Sony does, though the difference is subtle. I like the way the Sony displays street names on the map, though, and found them more readable. The Sony displays POI “logos”, which the Garmin did not do: my unit displays little logos for items like Wendy’s, Hess, etc — and will even show generic “Italian restaurant” logos (Italian flag), Chinese restaurants, etc.

I noticed last night that the Garmin displayed a railroad track that was under a bridge we were on — while the Sony didn’t.

The Sony has a couple of guidance features that I really like that I do *not* see on the Garmin. When approach a turn-off, the screen changes to a split view: on the right you see the standard nav map, while the left side changes to show a close-up of the intersection, with more detail, and arrows showing you the detail of turn navigation. Additionally, the split view is bisected by a half-inch (approx) wide vertical yellow bar that looks sort of like a tall narrow “VU meter” comprised of a stack of horizontal yellow lines, each representing about 30 feet. As you approach the turn, this gives you a very clear visual guide to your approach, and also summarizes your distance from the turn in feet at the top of the display. This seems to work very well, and when I slow down, the indicator actually seems to update every 10 to 20 feet approach the turn.

Since I first wrote the review, I tried part of the bluetooth capability. I paired my blackberry curve with the GPS, and used it as a speakerphone. It worked perfectly, allowing me to dial by voice command, and the sound was excellent — in the car. The people I called told me I sounded fuzzy by comparison to my normal “mobile sound” when using a Jawbone 2. That’s understandable I guess, since the unit (and it’s microphone) site about 2 feet away from me when it’s on the dash.

The Sony and Garmin each seem to offer some advantages of their own over the other unit, but in the end, the navigation and core features seem incredibly close. I’ve grown accustomed to the Sony, and although I still have the opportunity to return it and buy the Garmin instead, I don’t feel any urge to do so.

Update (5/17/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, Sony NVU94T 4.8-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic and Text-to-Speech Electronics, was written by Jonathan R. Strong.

The average rating for this item is 5 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.