Mobility Digest Review: Nextar Q4 4.3" Touchscreen Portable GPS Review

Today for review I’ve got a portable GPS for review that was provided to me by Geeks.com. It’s the Nextar Q4 touch screen portable GPS which also can be used as an MP3 player and you can view photos with it. It comes with maps for the United States and in my time with it I’ve found that it works very well, I like it almost as much as my TomTom really. it works just as well as the TomTom, and it’s great substitute for it, the main difference is configurability, there really isn’t any like you would find on a TomTom. Navigating with the Nextar is fine, it  gets the GPS signal very quickly and it updates the route as you travel in real time. So it works great really, and I like, so read on to learn more..

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Vendor: Geeks.com

Price: $74.99

Overall Rating: 4/5

Nextar Q4 4.3″ Touchscreen Portable GPS Navigation System w/USA Maps, MP3 Player, Photo Viewer & Text to Speech

With Text to Speech you get clearly pronounced instructions, including street names in English. Plus, the included 2 GB SD card comes pre-loaded with the entire USA map! You can also use the SD card slot to add more memory. The Q4 features a large 4.3-inch touchscreen display for easy navigation, day or night!

Locate the essentials no matter where you end up! This Nextar Q4 GPS features 1.6 million Points of Interest including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and more so you won’t have to suffer!  The Q4 also plays MP3 music and allows you to view JPEG images for your entertainment on the road!

Price: $74.99

General Features:
-Black color
-Portable Navigation System
-4.3-inch touchscreen TFT display
-Includes stylus
-Maps of the entire USA loaded on the included 2 GB SD card
-Text to Speech
-Turn to turn voice prompts
-1.6 million Points of Interest (POI)
-Menu in 8 languages including English, French and Spanish
-Intuitive, easy to use interface
-SD card slot for added memory
-MP3 playing and JPEG photo viewing mode
-Instant automatically route recalculation
-2D or 3D map viewing modes with built-in compass
-Stores up to 30 addresses
-Day and Night modes (Night mode features additional light on the screen for easier viewing)
-Built-in antenna
-Speed alert
-Built-in 3.7V, 3800mAh Rechargeable Li-ion Battery
-Up to 2 hours battery life between charges

Connectors:
-3.5 mm headphone in jack
-Mini 5-pin USB port
-SD card slot
-On/off reset switch
-Power button

Unit Dimensions:
-3.19 x 4.6 x 0.79-inches (H x W x D, approximate)

What’s in the Box?

Let’s start with the video unboxing:

So there’s plenty of stuff that comes with GPS including manuals, window mount, solid mount, car charger, USB cable, AC adapter, mounting bracket and a case.

The windows mount is nicely made, it’s very sturdy.

It’s also nice to see a carrying case, it’s a nice padded case actually with a little pocket inside.

The GPS comes with a protective screen cover on it that looks like the GPS is in use.

On the top is a power buttons while on the right side you’ll find USB and audio connection along with an SD card slot.

Inside the GPS is an SD card containing maps for the United States.

On the back is a sliding switch and a speaker, near the bottom you’ll find the stylus:

Impressions / Review:

Here’s the GPS in my car, I took these pictures actually with the Motorola Backflip:

The main screen is simple, just four options for navigation, music, photo and settings.

Music and photos don’t quite work as there’s really no room on the card to add anything to use the apps.

Under settings you’ll find options for brightness, language, time, calibration, battery, and volume.

The main use of this is of course for navigation.

Once you’re in the navigation system then you can get started.

If you press Menu you’ll be taken to a single screen with six options for destination, history, nearest POI, Go Home, save to favorite and settings.

Here’s the choices and navigation:

Clicking settings give you a few more options for map settings, language, GPS status, set origin, route settings, demo, about, exit and map selection.

Using it for actual GPS it does work very well.

It got a GPS fix within second of turning it on and it did work well even on cloudy, or overcast days.

I found that it was rather fast at recalculating your route, but it does remind you annoying that you should take a U-Turn or other turns to get back on the original route.

I used it on the highway and it interestingly said that I should stay on this road ‘for a while’, yes it said ‘for a while’ and not like miles or anything along those lines.
It did seems very accurate and it was quick to let you know where you needed to go.

The voice I chose was female and it sounds good, but it would be nice if it was like TomTom and have the ability to change voices, icons etc.

I found the touchscreen to be very responsive, with and without using the stylus, so you don’t have to use it if you don’t want.

The battery life seems decent, but i found that if you don’t use it for a few days and come back to it the battery will be dead. Luckily though it comes with a car charger so you can just use that for power.

I did run across some issues…

The first one is that there’s not much storage space left on the SD card, only about 7mb actually and that’s out of 2gig.

The next issue is with the navigation, a few times I tried to find places it didn’t know where they were. What I mean is that it’s this predictive interface that when you’re typing will have the letters appear, but as you’re typing only some of the letters are selectable. It’s odd, and hard to describe but you’ve got to be creative when trying to find addresses if it doesn’t show up first.

I’m using Windows 7 and it kept erroring for me when I tried to access it, specifically Windows Media Player, but it did work with Windows Mobile Sync fine.

Conclusion:

The Nexar Q4 is actually a really nice GPS unit, it’s small and portable so you can take it with you if need be.

It includes a nice carrying case that offers good protection for the unit when traveling.

The battery is fine, for the most part, if you charge it you‘ll get the rated battery life, but if you leave the unit sit for a few days you’ll find the battery is dead.

Pros:

+Simple and easy to use

+Includes carrying case and dual power

+Works well

+Decent sound

Cons:

-Not much room left on card

-Doesn’t exactly work with Windows 7

-Not configurable

-Sometimes it doesn’t do what you want it to