Motorola GPS Review: MotoNav TN30

Motorola GPS Review: MotoNav TN30
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Overview

Moto TN30

Motorola has come out with two fresh GPS units, the first one being the MotoNav TN30 featuring a 4.3-inch wide touch screen and the second one being the little-brother MotoNav TN20. These GPS units are likely to hit the market by the year end.

The MotoNav TN20 GPS meets the standard GPS entry level demands, offering a 3.5-inch screen, text to speech conversion, and preloaded maps for forty-eight different states. Conversely, the MotoNav TN30 features even a larger 4.3-inch wide touch screen. Such a slew of such interesting features are not to be seen in all brand new products.

If you look at the current offerings on the market, there are various GPS units that are offering loads of amazing features and points of interest (POI) crossing the 1.3 million mark, but the TN30 doesn’t even live up to the expectation of the promised 1 million POIs.

Physical Dimensions and Highlights (4 out of 5)

As far as the specifications are concerned, the Motorola TN30 weighs about six ounces, and its width, depth, and height are 4.8 inches, 7 inches, and 3.2 inches respectively. It has the much needed Bluetooth function and accurate navigation with a great talk about the product in the streets. The additional noteworthy capabilities of this unit are the text to speech conversion option and the preloaded North American maps.

With a brag-worthy 4.3-inch touch screen display, which is larger than the TN20 model, the MotoNav TN30 also has the usual function of text-to-speech as well as preloaded maps of Puerto Rico and Canada in addition to all the United States, making it a great package. Guiding the lanes with strict accuracy is one of the major features amongst its noticeable features, not to mention the good touch response. Considering the price, you cannot expect a better voice recognition system either.

Highlights

The main highlights of the MotoNav TN130 include the hands-free Bluetooth operation, a nice color scheme, a 4.3-inch wide touch screen based operation (the widest screen size currently available on market), and text-to-speech conversion during navigation. This GPS unit has other preferred features like a responsive touch screen, accuracy of the maps, and hands free communications with emphatic street announcements.

Pricing (5 out of 5)

Price tags for Motorola TN30 and TN20 GPS units are in the range of $200 to$300, which is well within reasonable limits considering the features offered by both the units. The Motorola GPS TN30 unit bears a price tag in the range of $249-$269 (please check Amazon for today’s pricing), which is pretty decent by all means.

The MotoNav TN30 features clear illustrations with a highly intuitive menu structure, which makes navigation a snap. If you look at the other competitors like Garmin Nuvi 265WT, you’ll definitely find the Moto TN30 a lot cheaper, although you’ll have to compromise on few areas for paying less. You’d better keep that in mind!

The Downsides

Software of the TN30 was found to be a little sluggish with very poor response. Although the unit is extremely small and light, it needs frequent resetting every alternate day, which is a major setback. The level of popularity of this product rests on discussions in various circles with regard to its usability, despite highly reasonable pricing and several worthy features. Moreover, this product is not yet fully tested, but as per the preliminary results, the life longevity of the battery appears to be shorter in comparison to the other current offerings on the market.

In a Nutshell (2 out of 5)

The 4.3-inch PND is not a new offering on the market for sure, and the Motorola TN130 unit miserably fails in competition with the likes of the TomTom GO 730, the Garmin Nuvi 265WTm and comparable models of Magellan in almost all the aspects except for pricing.

Intuitive menu structure, a user-friendly interface, and a focused feature set are definitely worthy of praise, but the biggest bad news is that the software has loads of bugs and was found to be rather unstable. Above all, there’s no software support if you look for a firmware update.

Therefore, unless you’re running low on budget, the Moto TN130 is not worth your money in current scenario (keeping the superior options like Garmin Nuvi 265WT in mind), but if Motorola comes out with a solid firmware update, things might change gradually.