Alpine Electronics Blackbird PMD-B100

• Reviewed by: baduhn

  Strengths: When it works, it's ok nothing more

  Weaknesses: Warning screen comes up and gets stuck on that screen. which makes it useless.

  Overall: I sent it back to Alpine to get fixed. they sent it back and a week later still froze on warning screen. I checked their website they wanted $70.00 for an update, I threw the junk away and got a TOM TOM.

• Reviewed by: dannyyo

  Strengths: Small, portable and plays MP3s.

  Weaknesses: When destination is in another US state, you have to change the State first.

  Overall: This definitely is more or less first generation. I updated it with v1.1 as soon as I bought this back in 2006. It came very handy when I was driving around a lot. But remember it's not 100% accurate, there are places of interest that are not in the database and addresses that it can't find. In my experienc, it's been about 95% accurate. Some times it'll get you there but may not necessarily be the shortest route as you selected. It was going for $700 when I got this, but you can find better Navis for a lot less now a days. I recommend you compare with a Garmin Navigation first.

• Reviewed by: lofar

  Strengths: Portable, easy to use interface

  Weaknesses: Original firmware is very poor, make sure to get most updated firmware.Short battery lifeSlow at calculating routes

  Overall: This is truely a first generation product. The original firmware that this shipped with was terrible, make sure your unit has the firmware from Sept. 06 or later. With the updated firmware the unit works fairly well, it will get you where you're going with few errors or mistakes. You'll find the POI database is missing a number of things you would expect it to have such as the location of the nearest wal-mart along with several other giant retailers that seem to be completely missing from the database.Overall the unit does what it's supposed to do and provides a nice interface and exterior design while doing it. However it's not without it's faults, mainly a lacking POI database and outdated maps.