Fine Digital FineDrive 350 - 3.5 in. Car GPS Receiver
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- Form Factor: Handheld
- Map capabilities: Map cartridges / Data cards, Download maps
- Receiver Type: 12 Channels
- Screen Size: 3.5 in.
- GPS Type: Automobile
- Input Method: Touch Screen
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Loaded on extras. Lacking fundamentals
Pros
Price, Sleek to fit in a pocket, MP3, Photo viewing, Touch-screen
Cons
Not reliable, user guide is useless, basic functions are in question
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
Not a reliable navigator. Spend few more dollars on a better one.
Add a satellite receiver to a PDA and disguise it as a GPS unit by hiding all other software applications except the navigation application. This is the strategy used behind making this unit. The result is quite obvious. Lot of flexibility, very little usability.
This review comes from experiences with the unit for about 6 months.
GPS segment of the marked is bombarded with several models from different manufacturers. With big players like Sony, Pioneer stepping into this segment lately, consumers looking out for GPS units have lot of digging to do to find a good one that suits their needs. The over dose of premium price that auto-mobile manufactures charge for a navigation option begun to make no sense with these tremendous after-market options.
Few ideas on what you need to look for, while buying a GPS unit?
1. Do you travel a lot or a just a daily commute with occasional travel?
2. How often do you miss directions and do you really need a navigator?
3. Where do you want to use the unit? In car vs. in pocket etc...
4. Do the extras in the unit make sense for you? If you mount the unit in a car, picture viewing or Mp3 playing may not add value.
The rest of the review concentrates on the Fine Digital 350 GPS unit.
Appearance
Being a PDA, this unit looks like a PDA that will comfortable fit in a Palm and the leather wallet(included with the unit) can be used to either slide it into a pocket or hang it to the belt. This is one aspect of unit that makes it better than the competing units. The screen is visible clearly under low to moderate light conditions, but fails to stand out in bright sun-light.
Price
I've got this unit at super bargain of $83 after MIR, my main reason to buy as a spare to my Garmin, even after reading all the bad reviews on the unit. The price I paid is definitely worth the hardware, but its usability as a GPS unit is definitely questionable.
User Manual
The user manual is very brief and it does not even cover the basic usage of the unit completely. You have to do lots of trails and errors before you learn how to use this unit.
Functionality
Being a PDA, there is an additional layer of OS between the navigation application and the hardware, making the unit very slow in response compared to my Garmin that just does navigation and is designed/built to do just navigation. You enter a part of address, like first few characters of a street/city, it takes forever to populate list of matching words. You touch a button on the screen, it takes forever to respond. Do you want to rely on this unit to drive somebody to a hospital on an emergency? Definitely a NO. Do you want to give this unit to your kid as an amusement/education toy? Probably yes. If you are using this unit in a car, I would seriously warn you against operating this while driving, as it distracts you from the road with it's longer response times.
Enter an address for navigation, and it takes considerably longer time than my Garmin to find the route. However, if I miss a turn, the re-routing in Fine Digital is faster than Garmin, which comes handy while driving in completely new areas.
The response times is very unreliable. Touch a button on the screen, or a press a function key on the unit, it sometime responds immediately, while it takes forever at other times. Product does not seem to have tested well before it is sold to consumers.
Has nice 3D view of the map on the screen. On-screen buttons appear to change the view type of the map.
Hangs on me every other day, and had to manually turn-off and turn-off the receiver whenever it hangs. One time, it hanged forever and made me hard reset the unit using the reset button the unit. It then got reset to a previous version of the software and I missed lots of features from the navigation application. It won't show me the map until I enter a destination now.
Extras
Load pictures in the SD card and run the picture viewer application from the main menu. It plays a slide show of the pictures. A neat addition, but I don't understand how this is relevant in a GPS receiver.
Load Mp3 songs in the SD card, and the unit can play the songs by running the audio player application. Sound quality is poor though. Seems to play mono. However only of the applications run at a time. So, while using navigation, pictures won't show or songs won't play.
The leather wallet, windshield mount hardware, car charger all come shipped with the unit making it a value for the money, but when it comes to the usability as a navigator, it is definitely money not spent well.
As a final word, I would recommend Fine Digital 350 GPS receiver as an Mp3/Picture toy with navigation capabilities, but NOT for serious navigation needs. Spend few more dollars and get a better one.
This review comes from experiences with the unit for about 6 months.
GPS segment of the marked is bombarded with several models from different manufacturers. With big players like Sony, Pioneer stepping into this segment lately, consumers looking out for GPS units have lot of digging to do to find a good one that suits their needs. The over dose of premium price that auto-mobile manufactures charge for a navigation option begun to make no sense with these tremendous after-market options.
Few ideas on what you need to look for, while buying a GPS unit?
1. Do you travel a lot or a just a daily commute with occasional travel?
2. How often do you miss directions and do you really need a navigator?
3. Where do you want to use the unit? In car vs. in pocket etc...
4. Do the extras in the unit make sense for you? If you mount the unit in a car, picture viewing or Mp3 playing may not add value.
The rest of the review concentrates on the Fine Digital 350 GPS unit.
Appearance
Being a PDA, this unit looks like a PDA that will comfortable fit in a Palm and the leather wallet(included with the unit) can be used to either slide it into a pocket or hang it to the belt. This is one aspect of unit that makes it better than the competing units. The screen is visible clearly under low to moderate light conditions, but fails to stand out in bright sun-light.
Price
I've got this unit at super bargain of $83 after MIR, my main reason to buy as a spare to my Garmin, even after reading all the bad reviews on the unit. The price I paid is definitely worth the hardware, but its usability as a GPS unit is definitely questionable.
User Manual
The user manual is very brief and it does not even cover the basic usage of the unit completely. You have to do lots of trails and errors before you learn how to use this unit.
Functionality
Being a PDA, there is an additional layer of OS between the navigation application and the hardware, making the unit very slow in response compared to my Garmin that just does navigation and is designed/built to do just navigation. You enter a part of address, like first few characters of a street/city, it takes forever to populate list of matching words. You touch a button on the screen, it takes forever to respond. Do you want to rely on this unit to drive somebody to a hospital on an emergency? Definitely a NO. Do you want to give this unit to your kid as an amusement/education toy? Probably yes. If you are using this unit in a car, I would seriously warn you against operating this while driving, as it distracts you from the road with it's longer response times.
Enter an address for navigation, and it takes considerably longer time than my Garmin to find the route. However, if I miss a turn, the re-routing in Fine Digital is faster than Garmin, which comes handy while driving in completely new areas.
The response times is very unreliable. Touch a button on the screen, or a press a function key on the unit, it sometime responds immediately, while it takes forever at other times. Product does not seem to have tested well before it is sold to consumers.
Has nice 3D view of the map on the screen. On-screen buttons appear to change the view type of the map.
Hangs on me every other day, and had to manually turn-off and turn-off the receiver whenever it hangs. One time, it hanged forever and made me hard reset the unit using the reset button the unit. It then got reset to a previous version of the software and I missed lots of features from the navigation application. It won't show me the map until I enter a destination now.
Extras
Load pictures in the SD card and run the picture viewer application from the main menu. It plays a slide show of the pictures. A neat addition, but I don't understand how this is relevant in a GPS receiver.
Load Mp3 songs in the SD card, and the unit can play the songs by running the audio player application. Sound quality is poor though. Seems to play mono. However only of the applications run at a time. So, while using navigation, pictures won't show or songs won't play.
The leather wallet, windshield mount hardware, car charger all come shipped with the unit making it a value for the money, but when it comes to the usability as a navigator, it is definitely money not spent well.
As a final word, I would recommend Fine Digital 350 GPS receiver as an Mp3/Picture toy with navigation capabilities, but NOT for serious navigation needs. Spend few more dollars and get a better one.
