Q4 GPS Navigation System With MP3 Player
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4.3″ touch screen display with text-to-speech (English)Pre-loaded with USA and Canada map on 2GB SD card1.6 million points of interestTurn by Turn voice prompts2D or 3D map viewing modes with built-in compassMP3 playing and Photo viewing modeBuilt-in stereo speakerHigh sensitive antenna/earphone outputIncludes AC/DC adapter suction-cup pouch and USB cradle
Features
- 4.3″ color touch screen display
- Pre-loaded maps of the 50 U.S. states and Canada map on 2GB SD? card
- Text-to-speech (TTS) English only
- 1.6 million points of interest
- Turn by Turn voice prompts
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 3 x 14 x 10 inches
- Weight: 3 pounds
Nextar Q4
This is a poor product. I used it less than a week and it stopped loading maps. The Navigator icon failed to work. When I attempted to register the product on line, their webpage failed to work. This company has a long way to go before it competes with Garmin or Tom Tom.
For one-shot trip, it’s fine, don’t count on long term use.
Received the Nextar Q4-04 as a Christmas gift last year, and it has performed well until now. The message came up that you need to update the maps, so I tried. It’s $70.00 per year, plus shipping, handling and sales tax, to maintain the unit. I have one Very expensive mp3 player, as that’s about the only thing it’s good for.
If it says Nextar – run away!
I bought this unit for my girlfriend for christmas. Within a week, it started shutting down intermittently. It would not run for 5 minutes straight no matter what we tried.
Sent for a warrenty replacement, came in a week or so. Charged it up, used it once. Put in the glove box then tried to use a week later and – nothing. Won’t start up, won’t charge, its a complete brick. Looks like another phone call to worthless Nextar.
Good GPS and Options
I always wanted a GPS for the car and my motorcycle. I wanted one under $125.00. I got a Garmin Etrex hand-held but it is really only good for hiking and camping.
The Nextar is a great unit. It took me 5 minutes to set it up (after charging. The receiver (built in antenna) is very sensitive and quickly picks up the GPS signals required to navigate. Entering your destination’s address is simplified by the units artificial intelligence, however, you do have to think the way the people who wrote the software think. I also plug the earphone out-put into the Aux. of my car stereo, making it easier to listen to the voice directions, and listen to MP3’s.
My only complaint is that the zoom in and out functions don’t work very easily and the music player only plays MP3 format.
others much better for money
My first and foremost complaint about this unit is that the battery doesn’t last for more than 20 minutes at a time and never did. Since the battery won’t last, I have to set the clock everytime I want to use it if I want to estimate time of arrival. But the clock settings are not in the navigation section. So, you have to get out of navigation (which shuts the navigation down–you can’t go right back) and go to settings. Then the navigation has to start all over again. Not fun while you’re driving. In addition, it frequently locks up and will not access the maps. So, the unit thought I was still three states away for about 2 weeks after a vacation. Although it “worked” during that time…had I been interested in navagating from Mississippi. This was the first, but not the last time the unit locked in a single location. It can take up to 10 minutes after I leave my house for the unit to locate where we are. Also takes a while to re-route if you don’t go the way it tells you. It will continue to tell you to U-turn. When an exact address is not available on the map, it would be nice to be able to map to a nearby location. It would also be nice if the unit would find an alternate route if you want to avoid a certain road. The closest it will come is in general directions “avoid highways, shortest, quickest, etc.” So if I know traffic is ahead, I can’t find an alternate route…the only real reason to have the unit on in a city I’m fairly familiar with. All in all…stay away. There are much better units for the price.
Item works well
This is the first GPS I’ve used, so I find it amazingly helpful. I cannot speak as to how it compares with others, but it’s simple to use, and gives easy-to-follow directions. I like it enough that my original (owned for 2 months) was stollen from my vehicle and I choose to replace it with the exact same unit. That said let me reference some short-falls.
The audio directions are hard to hear. If the radio is on (or even window down) it’s near impossible to hear the directions; however it’s very easy to follow by hearing “something” and then checking the screen. When first turned on it may take up to a minute to “find” itself, especially if turned on in a different location than when it was turned off. I’ve had it miss a specific address by an 1/8th mile or so in rural settings, 4 or 5 houses in the neighborhoods, but generally it’s a great help even to see approaching crossroads or turns approaching before visible in the headlights. I got this one for $135 on Amazon and consider it well spent. If your looking for a first GPS I recomend this unit.
Terrible product[..]
The speech was fuzzy and often difficult to understand. When it was understandable, there was so much information in the directions that it was difficult to follow. In addition, the display was difficult to read. To make a bad situation even worse, the voice prompts often gave directions after the decision point was past.
[..]
I would definitely not buy another Nextar product.
Everything you need for any trip
This is my first GPS, I liked because it was easy to use.
I did not read the instructions,and I was able to set it up. I didn’t have time to charge it inadvance so I did it in the car while driving. It shows crossing streets, nearby restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and important landmarks (name of lakes, museums, airports), it even shows if there are airplanes flying above you.
It will let you know in advance and in detail when is your next turn. It had very clear instructions when we encounter mergers of different highways that out of the sudden split up.
It also tells you the approximate arrival time to your destination, so you know if you will make it on time…
For a firsttimer, it had everything I needed… for local and out of state travel.
The only Con I had so far is the house number is 300 ft off. and battery life is a little short, but you can recharge while driving.
Great Little Unit
Just got this and took it on a test run today. It was great. User manual is easy to follow and it’s ready to go out of the box. I threw it a few curves on the trip and it recalculated the route in 3 to 5 seconds. The street announcements were clear, the mile markers accurate, and it was very easy to use. You can mount it on the windshield or the dash very easily. It comes with everything you need, except earphones for the MP3, which is not a big deal for me, since I’m electronically challenged and don’t like a lot of gadgets. If I can use this with no outside help, anyone can use it. It’s great for those of you just trying one out with not a lot of frills – just a good, accurate little system for a great price.
Good Starter GPS, nice size screen, street text understandable
We recently traveled from Michigan to New Jersey and then down to SW Virginia with a few stops included to see relatives. My wife decided to purchase the Nextar Q4 which she found on sale at a local department store the day before we left. As we were busy preparing for the trip, I did not have time to set up the unit, but I did get it charged so that I could work with it later, when we were in Pennsylvania with relatives.
Setup took 10-15 minutes, but I am the type who tends to read the manuals first before pressing all the buttons. Setting the date and time was a little tricky and it is not immediately intuitive how the selection process works, but with trial and error I got it right. Programming in destination addresses worked okay, however, the touch screen seemed slightly off for point of contact, but after getting used to it, I had no problem getting it to respond. There is a ‘point of contact’ adjustment utilty that can be adjusted and I may not have done that correctly the first time. The address selection function remembers previous selections and narrows down the search process quickly to a city, street or address number in just a few steps. Getting through the streets in an unfamilar city was really much better with the street announcements prior to, closer to and at the point of the turn. I found the voice announcements understandable. If you miss a turn, the unit will tell you to turnaround as soon as possible, however it you continue, the system will recalabrate the route using a different path. When I learned multiple paths to a destination, I just turned it off, since it can become annoying with the turnaround requests. Another issue for me was the screen backlighting. My close eyesight is not the best, and I use readers (or sunglasses with bifocals) to see close up text. When the unit was mounted on the dash in high light conditions, I had trouble reading the screen. I could not get a backlight setting that improved it enough in that position for me. I have not seen other units so it is hard to make comparisons, but having some better/improved lighting settings/options would be desirable for me.
I may review some of the other GPS offerings with this in mind.
All in all, it worked very well, but then we are not experienced users of GPS systems or who know the options available. We do not need cell phone or MP3 or picture viewing features, so that makes our requirements a lot less. One feature that I think is useful is the traffic information which this unit cannot provide. There were several instances where knowing about congestion or road construction would have been useful in selecting a route. If I were going on another long cross country trip, I might opt to upgrade to a system with this feature. Otherwise, this is a very good unit for the uninitiated and the first time user, and it saved some significant time finding some points of interest, restaurants, and hotels along the way. If you are used to reading a map to determine routes, trusting one of these systems to guide you safely through unfamiliar territory takes a little getting used to, but I am definitely hooked and will have some type of GPS system when we travel in the future. I complemented my wife for making a good purchase. She has better intuition that I do anyway!