Mobile Tech Digest review: Navman iCN 330 Refurbished

[andrea]

Verdict: Basic unit for the budget conscious — it does what it’s supposed to with no frills. Decent build quality; feels sturdy.

My first impression? Good build quality. It feels fairly sturdy, and its non-slip casing means even a total klutz like me is highly unlikely to drop it (much to the relief of the warehouse department, I’m sure). The antenna flips up, which could be a weak point, but once the windshield mount is clipped to the unit, it’s protected pretty well. The screen’s fairly small, but I’m not planning on spending all my time staring at the screen, so I would say it’s big enough for anyone.

You can navigate by address (street, town or postcode) or Point Of Interest. This is firmly a budget unit, so unless your definition of Point Of Interest is confined to transportation-related destinations (petrol stations, ferries, airports), you’ll need to know your destination’s proper address for decent navigation.

Once on, it’s useful to note that the integrated speaker’s maximum volume is incredibly loud, so those whose vehicles throw up a lot of road noise would definitely be able to hear the audio instructions. When the route I took contradicted the iCN 330’s recommendation, it re-calculated quickly. The buttons were responsive and I thought the graphics were clear. The audio instructions were also delivered in plenty of time (but not excessively so). It did lose the signal when I went into a tunnel and got a bit confused when I emerged, but it recovered and carried on like the workhorse it appears to be.

Read the full review.

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