Navman iCN 650 Review

Overall Rating

Robust case, large screen.

Price. Company attitude.

I bought a Navman ICN650 for £600 in 2005 just as Tomtom were bringing out their GO series but the European version didn't become available in time for our vacation in June so I bought the Navman. I was a little bit wary of a company who had ditched their previous software and customers who bought the previous software (Navteq) for the better (so they said) Tele-Atlas software, but as I said the choice wasn't there so I bought the Navman. The ICN650 performed reasonably except it was a slow start on some mornings but we would just set off and let the unit wake up and find the satellites on the way this took about 10 minutes on a couple of occasions.
Returning to the UK the unit worked well but copper roofs seamed to have a sticking effect throwing the unit into confusion, on the whole I was pleased with the ICN650 so in the spring of 2006 I decided as the new SmartST2005 software was available I would upgrade to the new maps which I purchased for £75,00 and loaded into the unit. The new software that runs the mapping is quicker than the SmartSTV3 because it doesn't need to load all the maps only the specified countries but the background and the roads no longer line up correctly, so much of Morecombe for instance is in Morecambe bay and the docks at Calais are floating in the Channel etc. and the mapping was probably from 2003 because roads that were well established were still missing even though they appear correctly on the Tele-Atlas web maps.
I of course contacted Navman each time some thing was amiss so that they could correct things with the next up-date they had promised when I bought the ICN650, only I was to be totally ignored, I never received any acknowledgement and the updates didn't happen.
If you check their web site you will see that they no longer support the ICN650 and the new SmartST2006 or higher software is not compatible with the older units, again the wonderful people at Navman have dumped their customers and software what more can I say. I have spent nearly £700,00 and I would have paid more to keep the unit up to date but it looks like Navman want me to buy a new unit rather than pay for new software.
To sum up Navman make reasonable Satnav units but I cannot recommend a company that behaves like Navman had I been able to buy the Tomtom (I was 2 months too early) it is still supported so it would have been a better buy in the long run, all I can tell you is if I buy another unit it won't be a Navman.