Home > Consumer Reviews > Navman iCN 750 In-Car Portable Navigation with NavPix

A major factor in my decision of which GPS receiver to purchase was the screen size. I wanted to be able to see the details, as I do not have the greatest eyesight. This unit has a four-inch diagonal screen. It is one of the largest in portables. Another factor is that my car, a 2006 Nissan 350Z has an opening in the dash for an in-dash GPS unit. When I purchased the vehicle, I could not see paying $1800 and did not ask whether it could be added at that time. I also must say that the Navman ICN750 fits perfectly in the opening at the very rear, which helps shade it from direct sunlight. This is good since the sun tends to wash out the screen a little bit. Still, it can be read in direct sunlight. I am not using the supplied mounting device, as it must be mounted on the dash, which would obscure the gauges and is not removable to be remounted elsewhere such as a second vehicle. I have emailed the company asking whether the suction mount was supposed to be supplied along with the sticky pad I received. I may not have received it because I live in southern California and it is illegal to mount anything to the windshield. Still, that should be my decision to make. I am uncertain as to how I will mount it in my vehicle. It sits well in the opening and has only fallen face down once. The opening is well lined and cannot damage anything.
Since I have only owned it for 5 days I have not used the unit very many times. I first used it to go to work which is about a 20-25 minute drive. The device took about three minutes to find my location with the satellites. If you power the unit off and later power it on in the same vicinity, it takes only seconds to find your location. The unit wanted me to take the freeway but since I much rather drive the coastal route; I ignored the third direction which was a right turn. I opted to go straight which would lead me to my normal route. After telling me to turn right for a second time, which I also ignored, it announced to continue straight. While continuing straight, I knew I would have to turn left as the street would end and I would have no choice but to turn. This might confuse someone who is not familiar with the area. The trip gets boring from this point until the roundabout, as I just have to continue on Pacific Coast Highway until I get to that location. Upon approaching the roundabout, the unit announces to take the third exit, which is correct. After the exit, the next announcement is to turn right. Now the announced right is a very rough road, very short but not one I like to drive on since there are so many pot holes so I ignored the direction. No problem, the unit simply announces the next right to turn on. It seems as though the unit calculates the first opportunity to make a turn, which is not always the best decision as I have stated previously. Now, I have to say that I had photographed my place of business so that I could see if the GPS could actually find it. Unfortunately, it sees the destination as the street I last drive on before the parking lot I need to turn into before parking. If I was not familiar with the area and there were many businesses as could be the case, I would be a bit confused. At least it got me to within 100 feet of my intended destination.
I find that the buttons on the touch screen to be not very intuitive however, they are not beyond comprehension as you can see with some poking around. The screen is very prone to fingerprints although not so annoying when the unit is on as when powered off. The prints wipe off easily. A PDA or other type of screen protector would help prevent this minor inconvenience.
The software would not load for me initially. I do not know why, although I suspect that there must be something that my firewall, antivirus, or other software must be trying to prevent its access to the internet. I just rebooted my laptop and the software came up with options of which aspects I wanted to load.
I like this GPS unit very much, although I have not had much experience with this type of item. It does not seem very difficult to use, the options are many, the screen is large enough for me and the price was reasonable. I would make this purchase again. If I can, I will update after some time and possibly, after I take my trip to Hawaii in November. Yes, it has maps that cover Hawaii.
Since my last writing, I have contacted Navman about the suction mount device and have received no response. I am very disappointed. Customer service is very important to me. Still, I am pleased with the gps unit.

The Navman iCN750 is a full feature, large screen, easy to use GPS. However, it has a few features that make it less than perfect. In 3D mode the display rotates when it cannot "lock" onto a mapped item. As a result, in a large parking lot or any open space, the display rotates sickeningly. Since the satellite acquisition time seemed so long, I purchased an external antenna and still have not found out how it is supposed to connect positively to the iCN. Trying to get technical support from Navman is more than frustrating, it is a disgusting and inadequate process. Their technical help seems to have never seen an iCN750, so cannot relate to anything reported. The juvenile answers could be expected from an ice-cream vendor but not from a high tech product producer. The 4 star rating is given for the quality of the map display, but I am really disappointed in this product and Navman support.

Really disappointing.

I believe this unit was a prototype, and was rushed into production way too early.

You buy it, and you are on your own. Hard to use. Missing expected features, for the price. Lots of bugs. No software updates.

When you enter an address location, it gives you a really close up, tiny map of the area, but what it displays is so "close up" you can't tell if it found the correct area or even city city. You need to be able to zoom out when finding an address to make sure it is the right place. So you have to select it, say OK, save it, look at the place only to find it's not what you wanted, and then delete it, and then try the next city area.

I looked for a specific address in Harahan, LA by street address. It found SOMETHING, but since I could not zoom out, the address it found was in another city altogether! I found another match in New Orleans, but what it found was not in New Orleans at all, but a different city. The map was wrong.

The scroll up/down "thumb wheel" basically doesn't work. So scrolling up and down a list is like trial and error, jumpy, unreliable, and really frustrating.

There is NO customer support for the unit. The support web site is almost non-existent or useless. There is no email support. If you have a problem, unless it is in warranty, and it is warranty related, you are out of luck. If you need assistance, none is available.

For instance, the software update area says they routinely updates the software. After 1.5 years, it did not have an update. So they don't update the software. There is no way to tell what version of the software you have versus on the update page. The update page says like "SP1", but no version numbers. The iCN-750 shows only version numbers. So you can't even tell if you have the latest software version. But since the unit software hasn't been updated in 1.5 years, whatever bugs it has will likely stay that way.

If you look at the FAQ and and typical questions on the support Web site, there are about 12 entries total, and and a good amount are about how to buy more from the company. Useless, not solve problems

There is no convenient way to preview the route it selected graphically. The manual says you can put it in "Demo Mode" do play what routes it will take you. But it is SO SLOW, after 5 minutes I just gave up.

The power off switch is is really hard to access. It's sort of hidden. You need a very strong paper clip to reach it. A ball point pen won't work, because the lever to push is too small and the pen point is too large. Even then, it's hard to determine if the switch is on or off.

Periodically it goes "mute" by itself. We'll notice it hasn't spoken to us in a while, only to find it put it self on "mute" for some reason. So we've missed turns, sometimes missing the turn by 20 miles! You can't have a GPS that just stops talking to you.

Some cities are broken down by "north area, south area, west area, east area, etc." So if you are looking for an address, you first have to know where in the city it is to start with so you select the correct region first. If you select the wrong region, it may find a street match, but since you can't zoom out to check basically where it is, you may well drive to the wrong part of town.

This unit is SO disappointing. And it cost so much. And without support, I would recommend BUY ANOTHER BRAND of GPS.

I'd actually give this unit 5 stars, except that the promised upgraded maps were not made available in the US. When I bought the unit last year, I searched for my own home address, which is nearly 10 years old, and the subdivision road was not even on the map. Tech Support promised the maps first in October, then December, and now it's May and the maps are finally out there, but only on the UK site, and you must pay in Euros. There's no option for US$. Do the Europeans need our street maps more than we do? I was put off twice and now they won't even answer an email.

I actually have no practical use for the NavPix, and am thinking that it would be cheaper to just buy a new F20.

This is a Great unit, the navigation is on point very accurate, the camera is cool too, easy to operate. My only gripe is that the battery does NOT last like navman describes, I get about a little over an hour at best(lowering the brightness can help), also even when I store the unit with a Full charge and then power it up it again the battery charge is slightly used up!!????..how can this be when the unit is turned off?...So make sure you have the power cable at ALL TIMES. Also the screen is NOT anti-glare, so you will have a hard time seeing screen in the day time, night time is best.
Well,in conclusion other than the Cons listed above this unit is recommended.