Having had my hands on a number of GPS units over the past couple of years I was very curious when the folks at GoodYear came out with a GPS. Not exactly a product you would expect them to come out with.
I tested the device here in Hawaii and while some will say why test a GPS in Hawaii, I had a specific mission in mind when I tested this unit. First of all the traffic is really bad at times so I waited till it was one of those days in gridlock when I employed my strategy.
This GPS comes with the ability for it to look ahead and give you some alternate routes. So I followed the alternate routes that the GPS gave me in my time of need and found some back streets the locals knew well but not having been born and raised here I did not know about.
Much to my surprise more often than not I was able to get ahead of the traffic by using back streets it routed me to which was good considering the price of gas here.
Second thing was I wanted to test usability and I found that the device was easy to navigate with one exception. The map zoom features really drove me crazy. Two small icons in the touch screen caused zoom in and zoom out. Often the zoom feature would only hold a few minutes and resort back to a wider view which I did not care for.
The GPS Unit seemed forever to pick up a GPS signal even in clear skies and the unit had a tendency to reset itself whenever I restarted the car which was annoying. Overall my impression on the route around feature was good but sadly I cannot recommend this unit as a product to purchase largely because of the zoom feature controlled on screen. The folks at Goodyear need to go back to the drawing table on this one.
Note: I was provided a unit to test and tested this unit in real world conditions for 7 days.
I recently purchased the Goodyear GPS model number GY145C. I would NOT recommend this unit to consumers in comparison to other units, specifically the Garmin brands. My unit often has trouble picking up a signal, so it has to route from the last known location. A previous critic complained about the zoom features being on screen, which in my opinion, is the least of Goodyear’s troubles with this unit. The Points of Interest function is EXTREMELY limited compared to a comparable Garmin model. With the Goodyear unit, it could not find “Best Buy”. Garmin found all Best Buy locations easily. Also, when you search for the nearest shopping, many, many destinations are not recognized. I tested the maps function by typing in an address which I knew the directions to, and during my drive, it led me down a dead-end street. If I was depending upon this unit to find an unfamiliar address, or search for nearby destinations in unfamiliar places, I am doubtful that the Goodyear GPS unit would do the job. The Goodyear units are manufactured by NCC (www.thencc.com). Plus, it took NCC 14 days to ship the unit to me, then failed to communicate the delay until I call their customer service. Then they gave me the runaround when I called asking about their refund policy. They told me that they did not have a return policy, but changed their minds after I pushed on the subject.
I have good reasons for buying the Goodyear brand, but sadly, will be returning mine for a refund, then buying a Garmin which I have used in the past, and have much more confidence in.