Best GPS System

Motorola Motonav TN565T 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

User Reviews about Motorola Motonav TN565T 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

This is my third GPS, and I must say I like this GPS the best. The Motorola has several strengths, that were quite frankly lacking in the TOM TOM I owned previous to purchasing the Motorola. First of all, if you are familiar with the Garmin/Tom Tom style interfaces there is a bit of relearning to be done. In my opinion that is a good thing. I was never impressed with the standard GPS interfaces. Most of the menu items do not require much drill down, and the fact that the map stays visible while you look at most menu operations is in fact one of this GPS' best features! Other strengths include very fast route recalculation, fast satellite, pick up, pretty good traffic information (though there were two times when I was give false traffic information), and some very neat features that work in conjunction with your Bluetooth enabled cell phone.

However, the Motorola TN565T does have a couple of weaknesses. First of all, the fact that you only get one free map update within the first 90 days of ownership is not adequate. I "updated" my maps this month, August 2010 (my free update window runs out in September) with the latest Motorola had posted, 4th quarter 2009. These maps are almost a year old! A minimum of one year seems more appropriate. Also, if you are addicted to the limitless customization options common on some of the Tom Tom/ Garmin GPS' them you will be disappointed. There is only one map color scheme (which has three levels of color intensity to choose), and there are only two voices available, male and female.

In sum, if you want a GPS that works well, and offers traffic as well as lot of convenience features, for not much money. This is a great choice. -- Very nice GPS

First off, props to Motorola for this unit. I really like the functionality of it and the features surprised me. Previously i had owned a TomTom One 3rd edition and there is no comparison at all. The complaints that I have are about the software offered on the motorola website. I can't get it to connect to get updates but that might just be windows vista. Another complaint is charging it. When driving you have to have it plugged into the dock that connects to the arm which they don't mention in the description. The arm that sticks on the window actually has a cradle that goes on the end of it that the car charger plugs into and the gps sits in the cradle and charges through the contacts on the bottom of the unit. It also comes with a usb cable to charge/update from a computer but when it's charging via computer you can't operate the gps. charge time is about an hour from a computer with the gps off so don't plan on using it or setting it up right out of the box. Before you purchase it I recommend visiting [...] and reading the downloadable manual. Also, the features like bing search and fuel prices and such make a call through your bluetooth linked phone and use up talk minutes and the text to voice is only available on a few phones that they list on motorola's website. Other than that this is a great gps and I highly recommend it. -- Great gps for the money!

We have a fairly new Prius which has a blue tooth GPS in it. But we also have a 1995 Mazda with 250,000 miles on it that runs as good as new but of course it does not have any of the new technology. This product works. We do not use it very often for the GPS aspect but more for the cell phone. We live in Washington State and in Washington it is illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving unless it's hands free. I hate the blue tooth earpieces so this getting this product was a God send in that it comes with a speaker phone & microphone which work sufficiently well to make and receive clear calls while driving and most importantly keeping your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel (to quote Jim Morrison).

The touch screen is intuitive and easy to use. It does not compare to a factory installed GPS/ blue tooth but one would not expect it to.

I cannot compare it to other products such as Garmin's or Magellan's because I've not tried those. I can only say this product has not given us any problems, set up is fairly easy, and the blue tooth phone feature works well. -- Great addition for our old beater

So I did quite a bit of research before I bought this GPS. It had decent reviews (4 stars at the time) and the main complaints were that the customer service was horrible and the lack of directions. Since I am somewhat "technologically advanced" I thought it would be no problem. Boy was I mistaken. But I'll get to that later. For now, I'll start with the pros.

The general GPS usage is a cinch and works great. After the first load up it starts quick and easy. The rerouting works fast. Really fast. Sometimes I would miss a turn on purpose just to hear it get cut off from saying "rerouting" because it already rerouted the trip. The traffic is so-so, most of the live traffic is correct, but every once in a while it will be a little off. But just as a warning, it does use your phone to make a call for traffic. Since I do not have a data package on my phone it works out for me, but I know people complained about how long it took to get information via phone call vs 3G.

The physical screen is gorgeous, and the 3D mapping looks great (although I wish you didn't have to pay for the 3D buildings). The touch sensitivity works great. Plus the Bluetooth sounds pretty decent for coming out of a GPS. The voice recognition works great with no adaptation to your voice. The left panel is also awesome, so you can see ahead without actually loosing the map.

Now for the cons. I didn't initially want to bring it up, but I had to send my GPS back to Amazon due to it not functioning correctly. It initially had a GPS signal, but it would loose it and wouldn't find the signal again for hours or sometimes the next day. I don't think that it was a problem due to the GPS, but the packaging. The GPS sits in a little slot in the front of the box and can fall into the back where all the pieces are and be thrown around (and get minor scratches). The first GPS I recieved was found like that. So Amazon being awesome (like usual) they sent me a new one and it worked normally.

The first thing I did when I received it was I updated it. You have to download some weird program and have it sync and download the updates. The odd thing was that it didn't have enough "space" for the newest update. I know other people had that problem too, but I ended up deleting some of the languages that I don't speak and it made room no problem.

I also was a little upset when I realized that I couldn't use the text feature with my phone. It says that it works with most phones, so I was somewhat confused when I couldn't sync my texts.

The MAJOR problem I had was that the instruction manual and the online help is HORRIBLE. The online manual is, for the most part, the same as the physical manual. And the physical manual only goes over the very simple things. It almost looks more like a media pamphlet for the GPS than a manual. They don't even show how to delete folders you make in your favorites. I still haven't figured that one out.

My last gripe with the GPS is the charging set up. It is very unusual that you need the cradle in order to plug in the GPS to the car outlet. You can't just plug it directly in. The USB cord does, but not the car plug.

For just the GPS portion, it is great. For the extra features and manual, it is eh. All in all, it is an OK GPS. I wouldn't rave about it, but there are way worse things out there.
-- It is a GPS and does just that