The form factor is really amazing. It is entirely self-contained in a package about the size of a tennis ball. It is only $240 so obviously there are some things missing that the $2,000 - $3,000 factory installed units have.
1. The screen is small at only 1.7" wide by 1.3" high. If you have ever driven with an automotive GPS you know that once you are going you rely mostly on the audible instructions. You glance at the screen once in a while for clarification on a turn, distance until next turn, and name of the street you need to turn on. The screen size is totally adequate for all of this.
2. The screen is black and white, not color. Color looks nice and pretty, but I think it only provides minimal, if any, extra functionality or usability over black and white.
3. It does not have a hard drive. It comes with a DVD with street level detail of the entire United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. You have to load map data from the DVD to the GPS using your computer. I uploaded all of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Missouri and that is all it can hold. If I was going to travel to another state I would have to delete a state and then add the new state. It took about 15 minutes to load all of that data to the GPS. If you were a salesman that covered more than five states regularly that might become inconvenient. For my purposes it is a totally acceptable tradeoff between functionality and price.
4. One of the biggest reasons for the huge price differences between this unit and other more expensive units is how it handles the temporary loss of the GPS signal when going under bridges, tunnels, heavy foliage, etc. On the factory installed units there are inputs to the GPS from the cars speedometer, a compass, and/or gyroscopes. Let's say you enter a long tunnel that has a fork about half way through. The expensive unit will keep making a guess on your location based on how far you have traveled based on your speedometer. At the fork the compass and/or gyroscopes will know if you veered left or right. This process is known as dead reckoning. When you exit the tunnel it will take a few seconds to pick up the GPS signal. To the user it should all be transparent and it will appear that the GPS knew exactly where you where the entire time. Our old portable unit was obviously not tied into our car's speedometer, but it did have a couple gyroscope-like sensors inside of the unit. When it lost the signal it would know if you veered one way or the other, and it could also sense acceleration and deceleration. If it didn't sense an increase or decrease in speed it assumed you maintained the speed you were traveling when the signal was lost. Our new GPS does not have any ancillary sensors like that. When it loses signal it will keep plotting your course for 30 seconds using the speed when the signal was lost. It won't know if you have accelerated, stopped, or if you took a turn. Again, the reduced functionality is totally offset for me by the huge price difference.
The lack of a larger screen, hard drive, and ancillary sensors is also what lets the unit be stuffed into a purse or laptop bag, and then used in any car you want.
You can search from over 6 million points of interest. (restaurants, hospitals, shopping centers, etc.) or you can enter an address or intersection.
There is software that lets you load your own points of interest data. There are lots of enthusiast sites where you can download POI files others have created. (mailboxes, speed traps, etc.)
The unit itself feels solidly built. The scroll wheel has a nice smooth feel. The buttons have a nice firm click.
We have not used it for any trips yet where we did not know where we were going, but from my experience with it so far I have no problems recommending it.
For an extra $60 (300 total) you can get the StreetPilot i3 which is the same unit except with a color display.
For an extra $140 ($380 total) you can get the StreetPilot i5 which has a color screen and all of the map data already loaded. You do not have to load map data from a DVD.
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