Is a portable just a portable? There are so many choices now that consumers may be wondering how much to research this segment of the market before buying a product. JVC has made it a little tougher with its KV-PX9B eAViNU. It has some great upsides: It's ultra compact, battery powered and, for its small screen, has a bold and easy to read map. This portable is also a multimedia unit that plays MP3s and video (as well as displaying pictures). All together in a small 2.8" x 2.8" x 1.8" package, it packs quite a punch.
The entire list of readable files on the eAViNU is as follows: WMA, MP3, WAV, JPEG, WMV, ASF and AVI. You can use the included USB cable or access files from SD memory cards. The built-in 20GB hard drive saves 13GB of space for the navigation maps, so you have 7GB of space to work with when uploading files. Sealed inside the casing with shockproof gel, the 1" hard drive features low access times and a g-sensor to deactivate the drive if the eAViNU senses itself being dropped. The sound for the audio and movie files are played back via the built-in speaker, and although the quality is clear, the eAViNU left us wishing it had some sort of built-in FM transmitter or dedicated output cable for in-car use. When relying on the lithium ion battery for portable use, the built-in headphone jack provided better playback of music.
The eAViNU has a 320 x 240 resolution touchscreen that works quite well. In terms of viewing - even under direct sunlight we had no trouble seeing map info. Pressing the correct buttons in order to input an address was never a problem with this unit. However, you do have to go through quite a few windows to get a full address inputted. The eAViNU allows you to select a final destination by address, point of interest, phone number, coordinates or through a vicinity search. For city driving we had some difficulties getting to certain destinations. And as is common with more than a few portable nav units, the eAViNU took some time for satellite acquistion. On occasion driving under overhead passes would cause the signal to be lost.
On a long six-hour road trip away from big urban areas (from Cypress to Davis, CA) we had no problems, however. Once linked up to a satellite, we punched in an address and within a few seconds were on our way. The eAViNU never skipped a beat, staying in constant contact with a satellite on the open road. One strange quirk of the eAViNU though: while on the highway the system would inform you of the distance to the next connection on the road. You may have 150 miles total to go on I5, but the eAViNU will tell you that you have a 70-mile segment on I5, and then 80 miles more (because the I5 connects to the 258N in 70 miles). The estimated arrival time always proved to be spot on, but we would have preferred to know how many total miles we had left on a given freeway. That being said, all in all, this is a well-conceived device with just a couple of minor drawbacks.
Lowrance iWay 350c A Truly Portable Navigation All-in-One
After their last portable navigaton unit which we reviewed in Car Audio last year, we had high hopes for Lowrance's iWay 350c. It has some obvious improvements such as the more compact size (4.5"H x 3.5"W x 2.5"D) and up-to-date styling. It also has a long list of features. Like many combination nav units out now, the 350c has a rechargeable lithium ion battery with built-in charger for true portability for when you want to use the 350c as an MP3 player and picture viewer. Upload files via the USB cable or a MMC/SD memory card and you're set. A full-featured multimedia player, the 350c allows MP3 playback through headphones, internal speaker or wireless FM transmitter and you can browse photos while your music plays in the background.
As for navigaton: The 350c processes very quickly for route calculation. In this respect it's one of the best portables around. The mounting device is very long and it's easy to pop the unit on and off of it. Prompts are well timed and we definitely like the battery life. But the unit has some problems: The GPS acquisition takes too long. It's a disappointment after the last Lowrance portable we used, which performed much better in this category.
The 350c has a 4GB internal map database that we were able to access with ease. A few presses of the 3.5-inch diagonal 16-bit color TFT screen (320 x 240 resolution), and we were able to select all options, such as avoiding toll roads and interstates, and inputing an address. The touchscreen is responsive and accurate, something that has carried over from the previous Lowrance product.
Once under way, the iWay 350c will track your position in real time and update the on-screen map accordingly, keeping you updated of the distance to the next turn, the name of the turn and the distance to your final destination. We had a couple of problems getting to city destinations in timely manners because the routing was circuitous. Even with the default settings we wound up taking some unpredictable routes. However, on the positive side, when we went off course, re-routing took place very rapidly.
Voice guidance through the 350c's built-in speaker was sufficient, but we were glad for the option of hearing prompts through our stereo via the FM transmitter. The 350c also packs an impressive list of other options, including safety mode lock, trip calculator, address book, nearby point-of-interest lookup and gauge page.
Due to the fact that we had some trouble with GPS acquisitioning, we were disappointed that the 350c doesn't have an input for an external antenna. But considering the low price for the 350c, you couldn't reasonably ask the company to provide much more. But unfortunately that may leave consumers to ask for it from another nav maker.