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| Hewlett-Packard iPAQ 310 Bluetooth 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator | 
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| Brand: Hewlett-Packard
Category: CE
List Price: $449.00
Buy New: $215.25
You Save: $233.75 (52%)
New (22) Used (2) Refurbished (2) from $199.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  93 reviews
Sales Rank: 1650
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: 800 x 480
Display Size: 4.3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 3.4 x 4.3 x 0.7
MPN: 310
Model: 310
UPC: 883585309559
EAN: 0883585309559
ASIN: B000VRYLU2
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Sealed. Shipped from Sunnyvale, CA, 94085
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| Customer Reviews:
 Numerous Flaws December 13, 2007
37 out of 43 found this review helpful
Pros:
Nice big wide bright screen
Looks great
Great features (Bluetooth, Text to Speech, 3D Maps, Elevation, Games)
Menus are actually not bad and not convoluted.
Removable battery
Audio out, USB, and Antenna connectors are all in one spot (right)
One button
Rubberized back side
Includes stylus
Scroll wheel + clicky
Comes with a leather case
Cons:
Froze repeatedly. Freeze upon freeze.
Stutters a lot when Text to Speech was working
The street name on top does not show the whole name and always scrolls
Rerouting and recalculations were bad at best (slow & inaccurate)
Processing was slow. Showed my position one block away after a reroute.
3D landmarks are very sparse. Maybe 1% of many large cities.
3D landmarks are inaccurate and not as seen as most photos.
Power button easily hit unintentionally: Short press=on Long press=off
Map refreshes vary slowly because of 3D
Voice constantly speaks.
Rerouting is persistent to stick to original route despite settings.
Audio output=low
Proprietary USB charging (can't use other 5v USB chargers)
No camera warnings
No speed warnings
Does not tell you if destination is on the left or right of you.
Major points:
PERFORMANCE:I can't recommend this. I have three other devices. The Garmin Nuvi 350, Mio C310x, and a built-in by Bose. I would have to say, when compared to these three, these three work much better. This device froze so many times when I was driving that I think it might be defective. Other than that, it freezes in other places too like if you search for movies or music if you do not have an SD card inserted. In general, the device is slow to respond. Load time after a hard reset is slow and starting the navigation software is slow too. Acquiring a signal is somewhat quick, half a minute quicker than other handhelds, but not as quick as the built-in Bose.
THE 3D: The 3D maps are much different that what you see in the pictures on Amazon or their website. For example, the Transamerica Building in San Francisco does not look like what you see in the photo, it is some rectangular tall structure. Although it might be insignificant, I believe it is false advertising. Not getting what they show. Yet, it is different and new compared to other devices, but this is not good enough.
VOICE & RECALCULATION: Text to Speech is very rough. 80% of the time it mispronounces and I can't even guess what it is saying. San Jose sounds like "San Jos Eh" and Junipero Serra sounds like "Jnprlsra" or something like that. Insignificant, yes but if I did not know the area, I would be frustrated. Rerouting is terrible. With the other three devices running at the same time, all except the iPAQ insisted to stick to the original route. I tried changing the settings, yet it still did the same thing. It was not until 3 blocks later, it gave up, but was lagging, miscalculating my position, pin pointing me a block back, even after I had made a right turn. There was one instance I was heading to work. It was about a mile away. I went straight after exiting the highway instead of taking a right and a left to a parallel street. The iPAQ then insisted EVERY block for the next MILE to take the next right then left to take the street parallel to the one I was on. It was really not necessary since I did so right before the destination. It really should have known to give up and reroute me correctly.
ACCURACY: I was driving on Highway 280 at night. For about 2 miles, it kept telling me to take left and right turns for no reason. It sounded like it thought I was on local streets instead of the highway. On the map, it showed me off and on the highway, so I think it was not sure where exactly where I was. Going through short tunnels and even some large overpasses, iPAQ would loose GPS signal. It would clearly say "GPS SIGNAL LOST".
Bottom Line:
If you don't need the 3D, wait for HP to fix the software or look for another device. Bluetooth, Text-to-speech, and more accurate maps are available in other devices for more or less, without the hassles.
This navigation device is a buck fifty from perfect. It has a long way to go. Software needs fixing mainly. My device froze repeatedly for some reason. Maybe it was an isolated case. Everything else is just annoyances to me, but was still usable if the device was not frozen or rebooted itself. I like many things like the scroll wheel and the wide screen. The 3D landmarks were a nice touch, but it was marginal at best. Buildings are not even close and does not 3D the whole city. The map refreshes very slowly and easily over-pans when you are viewing the map. I can go on and on but this thing freezes too much so I ditched it.
This iPAQ uses a modified iGO 8 software. More devices will be released that uses this software, one of which will be Mio in the C620 in the near future.
 HP iPAQ 310 December 12, 2007
11 out of 20 found this review helpful
Have had this product for two days and so far am very happy with it. Little trouble linking to my Moto Razr, but today it decided it was OK, and linked up with no problem. Love the graphics. Some of the screens are not intuitive, but I have never seen a device with this many features that was. One little quirk reported by a reviewer, it route me off the freeway on an exit ramp and right back on to the on ramp. Beings I had read this, I only found it amusing and not irritating. The map features are outstanding. Features versus price make this a good value in my opinion. I highly recommend it if you don't want to spend the extra money for the high end Garmin. After reading the reviews on Tom Tom and Navigon, I decided against them.
Disappointing December 6, 2007
25 out of 34 found this review helpful
Let me start by saying that I really wanted to like this device. The screen is great and the graphics are very crisp. However, like other reviewers have stated, that it is more about the routing than the graphics and this is where the unit performs very poorly. There were many cases where the route it created would have me going miles in the opposite direction of my destination before heading back in the correct direction.
The menu layout is poor and the unit is not user friendly in general. Couple that with a manual that is not very detailed (and not available in hard copy form except for a Getting Started guide) and you will have many hours of frustration gettin ghtis thing to work. The map shows many Points of Interest (POIs) but you cannot click on the map to get information on that POI. You have to click on the map, then go to a "cursor" menu where it will show you all of the POIs near where you clicked. This is not helpful if you are looking for a POI located in a highrise with dozens or hundreds of other POIs at the same address.
The speaker volume does not go very high which makes the TTS function almost useless at times when outside noise gets high (usually when you are going over 50mph). The TTS also stutters at times which also makes it difficult to understand. The screen does not allow you to see the whole route for your trip and the "next turn" space at the top of the screen is too small to give full information. For example, when you are merging on a highway it frequently doesn't tell you which direction to go. It will say something like Exit 33 --> Highway 270. You don't know if it's Highway 270 West or Highway 270 East until the last second.
The screen lets you adjust the tilt of the map and the distance, but most views do not allow you to see your turns as well. I also don't believe it shows you which side of the street your destination is on and it definitely does not tell you with the TTS.
The bluetooth feature allows the unit to import address book information from many cell phones. My phone would not allow the import, but I was able to make calls with the unit. To make it easier to dial out, I manually entered address and phone information (the address allows yoou to make a route to your contacts). The problem is that it has a problem with most addresses entered. I had to type the city name in twice in the city field of the address for many of the contacts for it to be accepted and usable by the unit. There are more issues with the device, but I think I have listed enough to get my point across.
Unfortunately, with all of these issues I had to return the unit. It is dissappointing as the specs on this device looked really good on paper, but the interface, routing and user-friendliness made it too frustrating for me.
A totally submersive experience December 4, 2007
17 out of 28 found this review helpful
I've had my 310 for a week and have enjoyed every aspect of it. The interface is simple to use, and the graphics are sharp and very easy to see - even in direct sunlight. The screen is huge for a GPS device - larger than I expected from the online pictures.
One great experience compared to my last GPS is that the 310 picked up on my location as soon as I turned it on - I didn't have to wait for a minute or two for it to pick up the satellite signal. Also, it calculates the route (and re-calculates) in what seems like less than a second. It's definitely the next-generation in portable GPS.
Just to test it out for a flight I'm taking with the family next week, I loaded an .mp4 movie onto an SD card - and the experience was like watching a DVD... flawless.
I haven't loaded any of my contacts into it yet, but I can just imagine how much easier it's going to be to make phone calls from my car (hands free) using the huge touch-screen... I'll figure that out over the Christmas break.
All-in-all I have no complaints, and am excited to push the limits on what this new toy can do. View pictures from my digital camera (uses the same memory card type), load movies for air-travel, and blue-tooth with my cell phone... yay !!
 THIS DEVICE IS A HAZARD ! December 1, 2007
96 out of 133 found this review helpful
I work for HP and own other HP technology I'm quite happy with, but I am appalled by the quality of this product. Yes, it has a very nice high-res screen (not very useful IMHO). But the main functions of this device, namely- GPS and navigation, don't deserve even a single star. Route calculation is whacked and a straight line ride cross-town turned into a zigzag back and forth route for no apparent reason. What's worse is that after 20m the unit generated a very familiar Windows Application Error and I had to cycle the power. 10 minutes later the device hung on "Please wait" screen forever and could only be remedied by resetting the device. Driving at 80 miles/h and trying to fix it is not just a nuisance- it is a hazard. I realize the Mickeysoft OS has some blame to take here- it's not all HP, but overall this Ipaq GPS is terrible. I've had a garmin nuvi 350 unit for over a year, which I "upgraded" to the Ipaq 310. My garmin never hung once or needed to be reset. It did exactly what a GPS unit should do with no failures.
Other cons-
Ipaq 3D maps had only a handful of buildings in New York city, where I'd expect it to have at least most, if not all
The unit does not show a complete route with step by step turns- all you get is the very next turn, so you can't even tell what route it's chosing.
To make things worse, the unit doesn't show the whole route on the map even when zoomed all the way out. It's blind leading a blind !
Voices on the GPS are "computer" like, not human can be very irritating
This is truly a half-baked product and I'm returning it tomorrow.
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