Customer Reviews:
 beware the refurb units August 15, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
If you get one of the refurbs from Amazon (ie: warehouse deals), do be aware that you won't get the full 90 day trial of the wireless service. Instead, you'll get whatever was left when the last person returned it. In my case, it was 52 days, around 40 hours less than what would come with a new one ($12.99 value).
Here is what customer service said "Thanks for your reply. We currently do not have a policy on this as we do not sell used devices. As Amazon is selling open-boxed devices, these are treated as such, and do not include the 3-months of free service in which the new devices do. Whatever free service is left on the device from the previous user (if any) is carried over, but usually isn't more than a month or so."
Some other reasons this will be going back to Amazon:
This is for sure a 1.0 product.
- The white line on beige for your navigation is very hard to read, low visual contrast
- Parks and other natural features are not shown as you are driving, it just looks like thin lines on a background. Not as well done visually as the garmins. My guess is that this is to reserve the colors off the screen for the traffic updates, but this should be an option, especially if someone isn't using the traffic
- Road names are not very clear, instead of angling to match the roads, they are represented by a dot and then the name of the road. On a busy screen, it's very non-intuitive and hard to tell what roads are what
- No options to change what the "car" looks like. I don't have a blue sedan. That's the only choice. If you have a blue sedan then you are in luck!
- No options at all to set GPS resolution, number of roads visible, thickness of roads, font size for street names
- No signal strength indicators on main screen. You never know how strong your gps, wifi or cellular signals are. So you never know if you are connected (besides checking in the menu system) and getting or sending traffic updates.
- The voice isn't great. It says "stree" instead of "street". You'd think with the word most common to be said by this unit, that it would have been enhanced some.
- The "menu" button on the top of the unit is cumbersome. It would be better as a soft button
- This unit is MUCH SLOWER than a 4 year old garmin to recognize and draw turns in the road (ie: the car turning to a new road) and when you miss a turn
- Speaking of missing a turn, it doesn't tell you when you missed a turn. (my garmin says "recalculating" aloud. If you're not paying attention, you could keep driving in the wrong direction, especially if on a freeway
Granted many of these issues could be changed via a software update. Stay tuned!
And finally, here's a winning suggestion for the dash team. It seems like a lot of areas don't have coverage because people don't have dashes. A chicken and egg kind of problem. How about the first 3 people in a zip code (or group of zip codes) who buy this get a free year of service? You'd get amazing press, and people in areas would be falling over each other to be one of the first 3. You could even have a map on your website that showed what areas still were up for grabs. You need a bigger headstart on garmin, magellan and tomtom. Or do you plan to sell your tech to them??? ;-)
Good idea, bad GPS. August 12, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I had the product for roughly 2 weeks, and used it on a daily basis to get from point A to point B. This product was purchased with hopes of escaping the dreadful Los Angeles traffic. To test the product, I tried driving from Santa Monica to Los Angeles during peak period, and was appalled when the GPS showed no alternative route to LA, except through the 10E. I personally think, the GPS system could use some massive upgrades. In another occasion, the GPS got lost when I was driving under the highway... one minute it shows me as driving on a local street, the next I would have somehow miraculously appear to be driving on the freeway right above my head!
Overall, good idea.. but I would not get the product until it has been throughly tested!
 Going out of the GPS business? August 9, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Downgrade to no stars. News from Silicon Valley Business Journal: "Dash Navigation to cut 65% of staff, exit GPS device market."
 Unfinished but still a blast August 9, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought the Dash two months ago an I have to say that I love it. It is a bit of a pain to mount and I ended up making my own for my Mazda 6 but for commuters in large cities it looks to be promising in its expandability and innovation.
Pros
-Search Yahoo from your car
-Send addresses from your browser
-Both live traffic and historical traffic patterns
-Support issues submitted from unit and elaborated at home online
-ETA based on real speed not speed limits
-Map updates included in monthly fee
-Traveling your routes frequently and it will create maps of traffic and eventually begin to suggest new routes if it thinks another will be faster
-The more users, the more road speed data and historical traffic (speed) data the better routing will get
-Can add customized searches from GeoRSS feeds and search nearby, near destination, along your route, or in another location.
Cons
-Routing not great but errors are usually glaring and by taking what you think is right will cause a recalculation and is then correct. Happens when road speed data is wrong or when map data is old, for me about 4 or 5 times.
-Volume level 8 is too soft and 9 too loud, wish there was an 8.5...
-$13/month after the first 3 months for connectivity.
-Screen needs better choices for road colors and route overlays, turns in 2d mode not highlighted.
-Traffic routing not perfect BUT it beats nothing and can save you in the chance you have road sensor data or another dash user ahead of you report in
For the price and features it's extremely hard to beat. It's more for a gadget person that wants to see it evolve over time with updates and features, not for the set it and forget it crowd.
Better than TomTom with More Potential August 9, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I have had the Dash Express now for about a month. I returned a TomTom Go720 after about nine months. I also have a TomTom Go300. I've been using GPS since I connected an external GPS to an old Palm Pilot more than 10 years ago. The Dash Express is the best of the bunch. While it's HUGE and clunky, it's worth the space and weight. It's also a little slow. It needs to offer weigh points and some other features but, overall, it's a great product. I use it in NJ, PA and DE most often. I make a regular NJ to DE run once a week. My trip has been shortened in both distance and time because I can take Rt. 95 and know if there is traffic or not. It had offered to re-route when new traffic data has arrived while en route. Dash seems to be interested in adding features users want not those manufacturers want. What an idea! Since it's a mesh-network type device with cellular and WiFi, the more of us there are using a Dash, the better the data becomes. So, my good review will help me if more people buy one. I'll never go back to a TomTom. It's like TiVo, once you are a TiVo user, watching "real" TV stinks!
|
