Motorola Motonav TN30 - 4.3 in. Car GPS Receiver

Motorola, having finally decided to stray from the world of cell phones, decided to try their hand at making a GPS device.  The product they came up with is the TN30.  Coincidentally, I recently took a trip with a friend who also came up with the TN30.  Of course, in this case, he did not design the unit, but he did provide it for our trip so that we might be effortlessly guided to our destination.  Unfortunately, all did not go according to plan - I was impressed with what the TN30 attempted to do but I was certainly not too impressed with how well it performed.  Although a fairly good value for the price, this system, like many other first attempts, needs a little ironing before its ready for its big debut.

The design of this unit is fairly standard and almost without any flair.  The sole attempt at style is the Motorola logo at the center top of the unit.  Other than that this is a fairly staid item.  The body comprises a few shades of black with the pizzazz coming in the form of the choice between glossy and matte.  These do contrast fairly well and with the matte parts of the finish over the majority of the TN30, there shouldn't be too many fingerprints to distract you while you drive.  The top is graced only by the power button, the right side the SD slot and the micro-USB port, a reset button on the bottom, and the left side is left sans accoutrements.  While I am always a fan of minimalism, I do feel there are a few buttons that one cannot live without.  While the power button is certainly one of those, it is sort of a given that that particular button will be on most devices, but I always hope that somewhere in all that plastic I will find a dedicated volume button.  There has been so many times where the quickly-unpleasant voice of my focused car-buddy has gotten to the annoying point and I have fumbled for the volume menu.  While I don't expect to see that particular option on every GPS, I do wish that they would all have at least a mute button.  Sadly, the TN30 lacks either of these - and both are sorely missed.

The cradle on this device almost appears as if it was designed by someone else.  It is woefully old fashioned and overly simplistic.  The cradle does not lock into the TN30 in any sophisticated way and the arm does not grab the windshield with any fancy shock-absorbing mount.  It is simply a suction cup, an arm, and a mounting bracket.  The arm itself is barely pliable and had to be wrestled into a usable shape.  Once we got it there, and once we looked past its aesthetics, it did its job well and kept the unit in place and never once lost its grip on the windshield.

The screen is a robust 4.3".  While this is becoming standard fare, it is nice to see that you can get a GPS for under $200 with this size screen.  The screen itself is right in the middle of the pack in terms of the brightness and clarity.  I have seen others that are a bit brighter and seem to never wash out, I found that the Moto screen only did just that in the brightest of direct sun rays.  Other than that it was clearly visible and readable at all times during the day.  For night time viewing, the display has a very pleasing palate that soothes rather than distracting the eye.  The display shies away from the blue (high frequency) colors and tends more towards the lower end of the frequency spectrum.

As more devices become touch screen, the importance of their tactility and performance in that same area must and have improved.    This particular screen is no slouch in that area.  The screen is a far cry from the GPS of yesteryear where one might risk poking through the screen before registering a touch or when the unit was so slow to respond to a touch that three had been made and registered for want of only one.  The TN30 responds delightfully rapidly to the touch.  It is not so dainty that an accidental swipe in the direction of the screen alters the on-screen display, but once may press gently on the screen and expect an immediate response.  Also, to help in the tactility department, the engineers at Moto have shied away from placing the buttons in the far reaches of the screen.  Too many other units place their buttons there and require that the user press the screen while avoiding the bezel.  This, of course, means that the user must press harder to commence the same action sequence.  The TN30 has none of these buttons and each button requires the exact same amount of force as the next.

Once of the first things we did on our journey was to pair my phone with the device so that we could bask in the awesomeness of technology.  As is not always the case for this particular function, setup was very easy.  With a few simply menu clicks, and the dual input of a short password, my phone was linked via Bluetooth.  One of the nicer touches, and one that I haven't seen anywhere else, is that while dialing through the GPS, you can still use your voice dialing capabilities.  The GPS will actually retransmit what you say to the phone for interpretation by that secondary device.  Calls are easy to dial with the onscreen keypad, and, as will be discussed later, some clever engineer thought to put a phone-access button on each screen making sending and receiving very easy at any point in time.

 One of the most distressing things for me about this coming of age of the phone-GPS connection is that the idea is there but it is just not implemented well.  I have seen countless phones that pair easily, transfer phone books, have on-screen caller ID, but then fall short with the actual call because you can't hear what the caller is saying and they can't make out what you are saying.  Motorola, having already come from that side of the road, really put some effort into this part of their system.  This is the first GPS I have used where I could really hear the caller at highway speeds.  While I cannot be proud of the quality of the sound, having a speaker loud enough to overpower all the road noise is a huge step in the right direction.  And to take that huge step even farther, Moto has included some software to isolate your voice from that of the background noise.  While I can't begin to imagine how it works, the many people I called told me that they were able to hear my voice clearly and could not believe that I was moving 55mph while talking to them.

In terms of actual guidance, the TN30 is no great departure from the many other devices available out there.  It did seem to fall short in one area: location.  It often seemed to have trouble distinguishing exactly where we were.  Too many times it though we were on the highway 10-15 feet away and on the other side of a large barrier.  Too many times it thought we had exited the highway when that was not the case.  And far, far too many times it thought we had somehow suddenly turned onto a perpendicular road and were traveling 90° from our original heading.  While I can only assume that has to do with the accuracy of the GPS-receiving chip inside the unit, these devices are much too far along for any one of them to not know our position within 10-15 feet.  While there were far too many mistakes of this nature made during our journey, the unit was quick to notice its mistake and to place us correctly on the map.

One of the best things about this unit is that it keeps two important buttons on the screen at all times: the call button and the map button.  Both of these are on nearly every screen in a little icon in the corner to give you instant access to the two most important functions of this device.  I have found it so frustrating to be stuck in a screen I don't want to be in or to get mired in a menu tree I never wanted to enter in many other units.  The TN30 gives you a way out of all of these problems at all times.  The map can be easily accessed at any time and I experienced zero frustration in this department for the entirety of our trip - quite the blessing when I think back to some of the other devices I have used over the years.

The TN30 has all of the now-fairly-standard functionality of modern GPS devices.  It has text-to-speech, lane guidance, and all the points of interest you will ever need.  The device is able to lay all its information on the screen in an unobtrusive and yet informative layout.  The problem with all of this though is that a problem developed with extended use.  The display was not able to render well and perhaps due to a problem with the cache or clearing the RAM, the unit seemed to almost get stuck on certain parts of the screen.  After some time of driving and a significant buildup of this extraneous and ill-rendered data, we had to reset the device to clear the screen.  While  restarting the device wasn't a terrible burden in that we had to do it only twice over three days, it was certainly something that shouldn't need to be done and it was something of a let-down in a device from a company that normally does pretty well in the design and engineering departments.

The TN30 is a step in the right direction for the integration of other features aside from GPS in a high quality manner.  The phone integration is well wangled and makes this particular utility far more functional than that of many other similar devices.  Unfortunately, the entire device is marred by its poor on-screen rendering performance as well as its seeming inaccuracy in the position of the moving vehicle.  Motorola has some good starts and has made some real improvements to general GPS devices, but the TN30 needs some real polish before it shows itself to be a leader in the new generation of navigation.