Getting into the crowded GPS navigation market is getting harder and harder. Just about every feature you can think of has been put into a GPS device already. Cobra has been making high quality car products like Radar Detectors and CB Radios for a long time. We now have the opportunity to see if they can also make good GPS navigation devices.

Features

• Over 7 Million Points-of-Interest
• Touchscreen-Large 5″ High Resolution
• Full North American (U.S. AND Canadian) Maps
• 3D and Terrain Maps

With so many different GPS navigation systems out there, it is hard to find new features that attract you to them. It seems that they all have the same options and features, so it takes something really fancy for a GPS to stand out.

First of all, the Nav One 4000 comes with maps of the USA and Canada. It would be helpful if they included other countries, but they don’t. I could not even find a place to buy additional maps. So right off the bat if you live anywhere except the U.S. or Canada, this GPS is useless. In addition, the Nav One only has 3 languages available and they are English, Spanish and French. The Nav One 4000’s 5″ screen is the largest of all the screens that I have seen on a GPS system.

Like I mentioned before, having great features is one of the best ways to stick out in the crowded GPS market. Several features that are in a lot of other GPS systems include an MP3 player, photo viewing capabilities, hands free phone calling and much more. The Nav One 4000 does not have any of these features. In fact the Nav One 4000 does not have any non GPS related features.

The Nav One 4000 does include voice prompting. The prompting consists of some street names, and all turns. You can customize it a bit in the settings by specifying more or less voice prompting. This option really only turns on and off the street name announcements.

The only power source that is available out of the box is an included 12 V Power Cord with a Cigarette Lighter Plug. You can purchase an AC Adapter for $18.95. The one feature that is missing from this GPS is a battery. All the other GPS navigation systems that I have tested have had batteries. Even if the battery only lasted for a few minutes, it makes setting up big routes and trips a lot easier.

The Nav One 4000 uses an internal SiRF chipset. There is a much newer SiRFIII chipset available so it is interesting that they chose the older version. I did not have any trouble with reception, but in case you do have problems you can purchase an external antenna for $129.95. There is also a traffic receiver that can be purchased for $199.95. This receiver is used to get real-time traffic information. Traffic information is transmitted over the FM band and is currently only available in select areas.

Design

With dimensions of 4.17″ x 6.45″ x 2.28″ and a weight of 1.3 lbs. the Cobra Nav One 4000 is the biggest and heaviest GPS device I have tested, but because it does not have a battery it is not intended to go anywhere but in your car. It mounts on your windshield with the included mount. If you want to mount it to the windshield then you simply suction the mount to the window. The screen is larger than other GPS devices that I have reviewed. This screen gives you plenty of space to see it from a greater distance and also interact with the touch screen. It is not just the screen that makes it easy to interact with. The software is also well done. The on screen buttons are kept to the right and they do not interfere with the map. The buttons for the menus are big and easy to press and they respond very well to touch.

The front of the Nav One 4000 has the 5″ screen which is touch sensitive so that you can interact with the device and five silver buttons on the right side. The buttons from the top to the bottom are power, volume up, repeat, volume down, and main menu. You don’t actually use the buttons very much. The Nav One 4000 turns on automatically as soon as it gets power. In my car the DC plug only gets power when the car is on, so I never needed to turn it off because it would turn off when I turned off my car. Some cars have DC plugs that do not turn off, so if you have a car like this you would use the power button. The volume buttons are good for the initial setup but you really don’t need them again because there is an option to automatically adjust the volume with the speed. That means as you go faster the volume gets louder to overcome the extra noise produced by your speed. The repeat button will repeat the last spoken instruction. The Main menu button, which has a picture of a cobra, will take you to the Main menu. The main menu button is probably the button I used the most because it is really the only way to get back to the main menu, which is where you select which kind of route you want to set.

On the back of the Nav One 4000 there is a speaker, mount, Power Plug, mini USB plug, external antenna, and external traffic receiver.

Performance

Navigating with the Nav One 4000 is not difficult at all. In fact, it is so easy and self explanatory that I never once used the user manual. When you first turn on the device you will need to answer some setup questions. These questions are about your location and help the Nav One 4000 be more accurate. Answering the questions is as easy as pressing the correct button on the screen. Once that is done you will be presented with the main menu screen. This menu will allow you to plan all your trips. You have several options at this point on how to proceed. The Location button will allow you to enter a location and navigate there. The Address Book button will take you to your address book where you can select from any number of previously saved locations. The Interest Points button shows a list of interest points, the Nav One comes with over 7 million interest points. No matter which method you choose, once all the information is in it will calculate your route and show the directions. If there is more than one possible route you will be able to choose the best one for you. You can have both of them displayed on the screen, so you can see which directions they go.

The first thing I noticed when I planned a route was that my neighborhood was not in any of the maps. This was a bit odd for me because I have lived in the same house for over six years. So either the maps are six years old or they just don’t have my neighborhood. They also did not have the neighborhoods in the immediate area, which are also between 4 and 6 years old. It makes me worry, because anyone looking for my house would not be able to find it. Because of that I could not recommend it to anyone in my family. I had a similar problem with the TomTom 910 when I reviewed it, I wonder if they use the same maps. Fortunately for customers it seems that Cobra offers free updates for the maps and they can be found here. Hopefully, they will update there maps with my house on them.

When you first turn on the Nav One 4000 it will try to connect to the GPS satellites. Normally this does not take very much time, but if you are moving it takes longer to make that connection and find your current location and calculate a route. It can take as long a 45 seconds if you are moving and as little as 8 second if you are stationary. You should be stopped when you first create a route. It may take even longer to find your location if you turn off your GPS in one location, and don’t turn it on again until you move away.

Once you have planned a route, there are several ways to view your path. If you want to see a map you can see that map in 2D or 3D. 3D is not really 3D, it is more like an over-the-shoulder view. If you don’t want to see the map you can switch to a list mode that will show only the turns in the order that you need to take them and how far away they are.

As you move along your route the Nav One 4000 will keep you informed about how far away you are away from your next turn. The notices come at different intervals depending on if you are on a freeway or on a street. The Nav One 4000 also can announce street names, but it only announces some of them. It seems to focus on interstate numbers, state road numbers, and highway exit numbers, but it would be much better if it announced them all. If you don’t like the names being spoken you can turn them off in the setting menu by selecting less voice prompts.

Sounds are not the only indicator that you get when you are approaching your turn. The screen also has information about your location and how far away you are from your turn and destination. In addition to the map, which has a big green line marking your route, there is also a lot more information above the map which indicates the direction of the next turn, distance to the next turn, the time to destination, and the distance you have gone. You can also choose to show your current speed or a compass. There is another option to display the street name in place of the time to destination and distance traveled.

If you happen to make a wrong turn, the Nav One 4000 will recalculate the route and tell you the best way to get to your destination. I am used to most GPS devices just telling me to turn around and go back to where I made my wrong turn. The Nav One 4000 never told me to turn around. Instead, the new route would have me go around the block or something. It is possible that you go so far off track that it will recalculate a completely new route. If you keep going the wrong way then it will continue to recalculate so that it can keep up with your current location.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get lost while I had the Nav One 4000 with me. Except for my neighborhood and the others around me, the Nav One 4000 had all the other destinations that I was looking for. The areas it didn’t have were just blank, and the Nav One 4000 did not recalculate until I approached a road it knew about.

Setting up a multi-destination route is not really difficult, but also not really intuitive. There may actually be a better way, but the way I did it was to first plot my final destination and then press the Cobra (menu) button and plot another destination, but instead of choosing to go to the details screen I selected the advanced options and chose Set as Via point. I could repeat this as many times as I needed, and as long as they were in order the end result was a great multi-destination route.

One feature that I did like, but had severe limitations, was the trail feature. This feature can be turned on at any time, but is most useful in areas where there are no maps, like my neighborhood. I turned on the trails so I could show you where my house really was compared to the maps on the devices. I also hoped that with the trails in place that the Nav One 4000 would route me to my house using the trails, but unfortunately it did not. If the trails could be used in routing, then that would add a lot more functionality and give the maps the ability to grow and learn new areas.

A feature that The Nav One 4000 offers, but I was unable to test, is a database of Traffic light cameras and real time traffic updates. The reason I was unable to test them was because they were not available in my town.

Now for two annoyances, the first one has to do with zooming on the map. There were several times while driving that I wanted to get a closer look at areas on the map so I would zoom in on them, but the Nav One 4000 would not let me keep my zoom level. After about 10 seconds it would go back to where it was before. The second annoyance is that the screen changes color when you get close to your turn. I really think this is more of a distraction than a help because you are wondering what is going on with the screen, and because the colors change it could throw you off course and make you miss your turn. If Cobra is just looking to highlight the turn or get rid of extra details on the map, then there are better ways of doing it.

Now for two annoyances, the first one has to do with zooming on the map. There were several times while driving that I wanted to get a closer look at areas on the map so I would zoom in on them, but the Nav One 4000 would not let me keep my zoom level. After about 10 seconds it would go back to where it was before. The second annoyance is that the screen changes color when you get close to your turn. I really think this is more of a distraction than a help because you are wondering what is going on with the screen, and because the colors change it could throw you off course and make you miss your turn. If Cobra is just looking to highlight the turn or get rid of extra details on the map, then there are better ways of doing it.

Cobra Nav One 4000 in action

Warranty and Support

The Nav One 4000 comes with a one year warranty. This is about average with other GPS devices and a very poor warranty by my standards. A GPS like this with no moving parts should last a lot longer and the warranty should reflect that.

Conclusion

I am really impressed with the interface on the Nav One 4000. It is up-to-date and very user friendly. My only real complaint is the maps. Because my neighborhood was not in the maps I can only assume that other neighborhoods will also not be in the maps. Because of this I cannot recommend this device. Maps are the most important part of the whole device. I can do without real-time traffic updates, and traffic camera databases, but without good maps I cannot find my destination. Having free updates is a plus and could make up for the fact that the maps are not complete, if they fix them in the next release. If you are not as concerned about maps as I am, then you should do just fine with this device. If you are concerned about maps, but not the interface then I recommend that you look at the Magellan line of GPS devices. These have had my neighborhood and the others around me since they were built. As always compare prices before purchasing.

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