Home > Consumer Reviews > Navman iCN 550 GPS Navigator

I borrowed this unit from a friend for an 1100 mile car trip from Florida through North Carolina. Here's what I found:
Pros:
1) You can look up Points of Interest without knowing the category. This may seem trivial, but let's say you want to find how to get to Kennedy Space Center. If you have to look up by category (like you have to do with the TomTom), you have to decide if it's a Monument, National Park, Tourist Attraction, or Govenment Building. It's much simpler to say "find Kennedy Space Center"
2) If you want to find the closest point of interest, it's nice to see the location relative to you first. You can even click an icon to get detailed address information. Sometimes the closest grocery store is 2 miles behind you, but you'll find another 13 miles on your current route ahead. That is VERY helpful.
3) While driving, you can see on the bottom of the screen your current address (e.g 860 Anywhere Street). It keeps updating as you pass new addresses. This is great for use in what I call "passive" mode. Where you basically know where you're going, but could use a bit of help reading the house addresses. This Navman tells you your current location by address!
4) Your next street turn for a route is displayed at the top of the screen. So when it says "turn left in 100 feet" you can see the street name that you should be turning onto. Since this system doesn't "speak" the street names, this is the next best thing.
5) Nearby street names are displayed on the grid. This can be very helpful for giving you some perspective of what's around. Especially helpful for using while walking around town (it has an internal battery).
6) You can easily do advance planning by changing states and then browsing points of interest nearby your hotel. I found this impossible to do with the TomTom. I was able to plot a route on the TomTom from the airport to my hotel, but had a hard time seeing what restaurants were near the hotel.

Cons:
1) I couldn't figure out how to upload more up-to-date POIs posted on the web to the navman. I didn't spend a lot of time on this, but unlike Garmin, Navman doesn't supply an application to do this for you.
2) Like all GPS systems, this is only "mostly" correct. We were on a new on-ramp and the GPS told us to turn left now. It was trying no doubt to get us back to the old freeway on-ramp. Another time we missed our exit and decided to turn around and enter the freeway the other direction (against the advice of the GPS which wanted us to take surface streets). No matter, it recomputed our exit, which we took. It then got very confused on the exit and told us to get back on the freeway. We ignored it and turned left like it was originally telling us and got "back on track". We were only .1 miles away! Common sense is needed with these devices.
3) Another point of confusion is when entering a parking lot for an "unplanned" stop. Depending on the configuration, it can start issuing wrong directions (it may think you're still on the road). More common sense needed.
4) The default voice is a bit hard to hear in a noisy car. The UK voices were much clearer.
5) I had trouble seeing the device with my sunglasses on. The polarization blocked out much of the LCD. I didn't have this problem with the same glasses with a TomTom.

All in all I highly recommend this device. I found the grid like nature (seeing current address), locations around you, along with the great POI navigation to be the best features.

I have used GPS's for eight years on a regular basis. I use two Garmins and Mircrosoft Streets and Trips. Streets and Trips is a excellent program and the receiver picks up signals quickly. The drawback is that I needed to have my laptop in my vehicle to use.
I purchased the NAVMAN 550 after extensive research. One requirement was the fast pick up. The manufactures I was most familar with Garmin and Magallen had this feature but only in their more expensive models. I purchsed the 550 about 3 months ago and am very satisified. I have used it driving from FL. to N.C. through heavy Alanta traffic and N.C. mountains. I also took it with me to Minneapolis and rural WI. using it in a rental car. In every instance it performed beyond my expectations. One of the features that it has which is an improvemnt over Streets and Trips is that if you drive past a turn it instantly reroutes rather than constantly repeating "off track". Like all GPS's you should review the route on the screen to make sure that the route is the one you wish to take. If not you can add waypoints to put you on the route or just drive to the route and the 550 will update itself to take you to your destination.

I have not had the Navman 550 love enough to use it often. I tried it on a trip of 100 miles to our daughter's home. I used my usual route which is the shortest that I have found and the Navman wanted me to go another way. As I got closer to my destination the Navman picked up on my route and gave good directions. There are a couple of things that I have been disappointed with. One is the on/off switch. It is on the back and one must use the stylus to operate it. It is impossible to get to the back to operate the switch when the Navman is mounted in the car. One must remove the Navman from the mount in order to operate the on/off switch. The other disappointment is that the instructions that came with it indicated that software downloads could be obtained at their U.R.L. When I tried to get downloads they were not available at their site. I am looking forward to using this GPS unit on an upcoming trip through six states.

The Navman 550 is an OK unit. The interface is pretty easy to use and its nice that it comes preloaded with US and Canada maps to save you the hassle of doing that on your own.

Positives:
-Pre-loaded with Maps
-Gets You There
-Affordable
-can run on a battery

Negatives:
-Does not work in cities (will not grab a signal in NYC or Toronto)
-Has trouble getting a GPS fix sometimes
Freezes
-Does not have any exit numbers for highways
-80% of the time does not tell you the next street you need to turn on to -will just say turn right in this many miles
-volume is way too low to the point where its barely worth it talking because you cant hear it

Overall the Navman 550 is an OK unit at best. If you can get a good deal on it (under $200) I say go for it but if not theres better GPS units on the market.

I bought the ICN 510 several years ago and continue to use it. I find it to be quite reliable and easy to use. Now that my daughter has gone to college and since I did not want her to get lost, I decided to buy her the newer version of the ICN 510 by Navman and thus I purchased the ICN 550. Her GPS is even better than mine and tells her where the nearest open gas stations are and other important information that makes me worry a little bit less about my daughter. The product is fantastic and what I do not understand is why people spend thousands of dollars for the built in GPS versions when the portable ones work so well. What a great bargain!