Why review a pre-production Navigon 7100?

scwtlover

The review of the Navigon 7100 certainly diminished my interest in buying a Navigon unit, at least unless and until the interface issues identified in the review are fixed.

As the Navigon has been commercially available for several weeks, however, and retail units appear to have been the subject of intense discussion at, e.g., GpsPasSion, I have to wonder why Tim reviewed a pre-production unit.

I'm also curious about the review's lack of attention to the quality of Navigon routing and the effects of tweaking the routing programming, again both topics of intense discussion at GpsPasSion.

Tim

I reviewed a pre-production unit because that was all that was available over a month ago. I like to spend several hundred miles using the device before I review it, in this case over 500 miles, and the retail versions came out after I started using the pre-production model. I was assured by NAVIGON that there was no difference between my pre-production model and the retail shipping model, other than mine didn't have a mount in the box.

I didn't experience any significant routing issues with the NAVIGON.

AngelArs

retail units appear to have been the subject of intense discussion at, e.g., GpsPasSion

No offense but that would be the last site that we'd go to if we were looking for credible information. They are known for being biased toward/against certain brands. If you really want to learn credible information about a product (any product) then trust your search engine and a hands on review. Regarding pre-production reviews, I understand what you're saying but sometimes it can't be avoided. All things being equal though I find that Tim tested the unit FAR MORE extensively than any other site. Most sites don't even test a unit for 50 miles before they review it, let alone 500 :wink: