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| Brand: Dash
Category: CE
List Price: $299.99
Buy New: $299.00
You Save: $0.99
New (2) Used (2) from $248.99
Rating:  155 reviews
Sales Rank: 1772
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Native Resolution: 480 x 272
Includes MP3 Player: 0
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 2.8 x 4.8 x 4.1
MPN: 99-1000-001
Model: 99-1000-001
UPC: 892437002012
EAN: 0892437002012
ASIN: B0014CIBWC
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 15
 Some good ideas but needs a better address searching September 13, 2008
Walter F. Kailey (Denver, Colorado USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I bought this at Amazon.com and have used it for several months. I like the fact that they can download software fixes/upgrades to your unit when they come available. The traffic feature gets better and better and is unique to this product so far as I know (other Dash users "phone home" with speed of roads they are traveling, and unit updates this every 15 minutes or so on your route). However, the address entry is rather primitive compared to other GPS units I've used. In particular, it is unacceptable that this unit requires an EXACT MATCH on the municipality (city) in its database, and if you are off by an adjacent city, it will simply refuse to find your address. The company is aware of this and apparently has no plans to fix it any time soon. Also, it does not allow synonyms for the street names, so good luck if you are trying to find First Avenue or US Highway 287, which might be entered any number of ways, and you must match it exactly, or your address will not be found. Also, the address entry forces you to enter a house number, even if you just want an intersection. Turns out you can enter a blank house number and then enter a cross street (somehow) I read online, but the entry screen does not make it at all obvious how to do this. A GREAT concept, but the software still is not ready for prime time as of this writing (September 2008).
 Great premise, but the company chose wrong for all major implementation details September 8, 2008
Zach White (California, United States)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
I've been using the dash express (DE) for the last 5 months, and while it has some high points, overall the company has chosen wrong for almost every choice they've had to make regarding this device.
The device is large. Too large for any pocket. Too large for many purses. Way too large for a laptop case. You better plan to keep it in the trunk or a backpack.
They used teleatlas map data. As a result many roads have incorrect information for details such as road speed, number of lanes and the road's "importance".
They wrote their own routing engine, and it's not very good. There are a lot of very good routing engines they could have licensed, to allow them to focus on the traffic and connectivity features instead.
The traffic data isn't actually that good. I can't count the number of times I've come to a stop on the freeway while the DE is showing a solid green line. Similarly, I've had many times where I changed my route based on the DE's information, only to check google maps or sigalert from my phone at a light to see the section I was trying to avoid is green (and the DE still lists it as orange/red.)
They have a release due soon that they won't tell us anything about, but was promised "in 3 months" at the end of June when they released their last update (I'm writing this in early september.) It's supposed to address the many issues with this device, but I'm not holding my breath.
If you write to them with a specific bug or problem, don't expect to get a response. Especially if you plan to report problems with the yahoo listings. They'll simply tell you to do their job for them by reporting it to yahoo.
It's too chatty. On a trip from Oakland, CA to Portland, OR, I was being told that I should "Continue On I5 in XX miles" every 3-5 miles. I was between 90 and 100 miles away from this "turn".
There's a dearth of information. No way to get the device to tell you what road you're on, or even what city or zip code you're in. It won't even tell you how fast you're going unless you're currently on a route, and you tap the icon of your car, then tap another button.
Forget about the possibility of bluetooth integration, voice recognition, media playing, or any other feature that hasn't been available in a GPS for at least 10 years. Also forget about some of the lesser used but still important features like selecting the measurement units or waypoints based on latitude/longitude.
These are only the major issues I have with the device. There are many other minor issues and annoyances, but they all add up to a product that I currently strongly discourage people from buying.
There are some good points for the device, and soon one of the major players will add these features. These include:
* Internet connectivity. It's nice to be able to search for a product, (say, toner cartridge) from your GPS, and have a list of likely places that carry it pop up.
* Send2Car. This is easily my favorite part of the dash. Until you experience how nice it is to send an address to car, get in and have it show up, you probably won't get it. Trust me, this is fantastic.
However, these don't at all make up for the shortcomings of the device.
lots of potential, but not there yet September 4, 2008
C. Solie (washington, dc)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Let me start by saying i REALLY wanted this product to succeed. They are ahead of the curve and ahead of the major GPS makers (but not for long in the 'live' traffic department from what i read) but as a whole this GPS device didn't measure up.
I gave this device 3 weeks to live up to my expectations, but it never did. I have a 2-3 year old garmin with updated 2007 maps, and it can do some bone-headed navigation, but at least it always seems to try to find the shortest route. The DASH regularly routed me 'the long way' when there were obvious and pretty big roads to take to shorten the route.
An example, driving home from the office, it gives me 3 choices, none of which are my tried-and-true routes, i choose one that is close to a normal route, it estimates 44 minutes to get home, this number seems high, so i disobey DASH amd take my normal turn (Connecticut Ave into NW Washington DC), it recalculates quickly and knocks off 12 minutes from my drive time. Later in the drive I override it again and another 4 minutes driving time goes away. A difference between 44 minutes and 28 minutes is pretty significant.
On another drive there was a accident on the highway ahead of me blocking 3 of 4 lanes (reported via XM radio traffic), it even showed up on the DASH as 'red' road, but it drove me straight into it. I tried having it recalculate the route (as i sat stopped in traffic), but it wouldn't route me off the highway. I dug out my garmin fired it up punched in the destination, and then hit 'detour' and it told me to get off at the next exit. By the time i got to the top of the exit ramp the DASH had recalculated a route getting me back on the HWY just past the backup (a better route than the garmin came up with, as garmin attempts to completely avoid getting back on the hwy). There doesn't appear to be anyway to force it to detour around a mess in traffic.
Custom MyRoutes: Great idea, but it appears to only be able to store 1 MyRoute for each route. From work to home there are 3 good ways to get home for me depending on traffic, none of which DASH finds on its own. So if i go one way, then another the next day, it forgets the first and doesn't place it in the list of possible routes.
minor gripes:
i left the car power adapter at home on a trip and although the unit has a USB port, it wont charge the battery off it, or run from an iGo with USB tip.
speaker volume does not go high enough if you like to drive with windows open.
Sorry to say i returned my DASH. Hopefully they will make improvements and maybe i'll buy the next version.
 Interesting but not ready for primetime August 31, 2008
E. Lee (Gilbert, AZ United States)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought the device as a gift for my wife--she drives around Phoenix all day, every day. I had hoped that this would save some of the time she spends sitting in traffic. The bottom line is this-DON'T BUY THIS UNIT.
The basic premise of the device is that by sharing traffic data, the device can calculate a more rapid way to get from point A to point B. The sharing of traffic data is truly amazing, and it's great to see green/yellow/orange/red superimposed over the roads in front of you. For a knowledgeable commuter, this information is invaluable since you may be able to take backroads or surface streets rather than highways during rush hours.
My gripes with the unit are as follows:
1. The database of streets and locations and addresses is incorrect. Several of the major streets in the area of Phoenix in which I live are misrepresented in the database/map, and therefore routing in my neighborhood is simply WRONG. But that's OK--I know my own neighborhood. But I am leery about the database in general because I used the unit this weekend in Tucson and several of the routing suggestions took us to wrong locations. Including, when we were trying to go to Kartchner Caverns State Park, the Dash took us someplace about 20 minutes away! The GPS atlas in use (at least for Arizona) stinks--and it's something that our Garmin unit has right. The Hertz Neverlost works well too, so it's not that the data doesn't exist--it's that Dash isn't using it.
2. The routing suggestions are frequently ridiculous. I refer to this routing scheme as the FBI scheme: the way you would drive if you were trying to lose someone who was trying to follow you! Imagine a route that is basically a straight line two miles long in real life; the Dash will suggest (sometimes) a straight line between the two, and then the alternates will be 4 or 6 miles long including circular tips around the block or U-turns after the device has guided you past the destination. On one instance we missed a freeway exit in the center of Tucson because the exit was closed for construction--the Dash unit suggested that we continue 47 miles (!) and then exit; instead, we exited at the next exit (1 mile ahead) and then the unit routed us to the correct destination. Sometimes the device will route you through little streets in neighborhoods ("shortcuts") rather than big, well-known streets with traffic signals.
3. There is no way to save a route you like and see how the traffic is on that route. There is also no way to avoid a specific street or stretch of highway. There is no way to plan a trip with several stops.
4. In light of the above, I simply don't trust the unit. I just don't trust that the unit is taking me to the right destination. It may just be taking me the fastest way to the wrong destination. A device like this is too unreliable for now. Once they get a decent base map in place, and the routing engine offers alternatives that a knowledgeable cabbie might make to get from point A to point B, and once it become possible to make some of the advanced routing options I proposed above, the product will be great. Until then, it is just cool.
I'll be sending mine back.
Some good, some bad August 31, 2008
Mario R. Dibenedetto (N Caldwell, NJ USA)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'll summarize my review as follows: This product has some good features and some bad ones.
I bought this product specifically to reduce the amount of time I spend in traffic during my daily commute (in NJ near NYC). The good news is that it has helped. While I do not yet get as much "real-time" traffic feedback as I would have hoped, I expect that once the Summer ends, this should get better. After a couple of months of use, I have only gotten stuck in 2 traffic jams that the Dash did not forewarn me of and neither of them was very bad.
The bad news is that as a regular GPS, the Dash stinks. The way directions are provided and the way they are displayed are inferior my Garmin...they are even inferior to the mediocre nav system in my GM truck! You really should not plan on using the Dash for anything other than commuter help until they get better on this.
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