Hi All,

First of all, great resource. There is a lot of information already in these pages. The manuals that came with it are great too.. Although there are half a dozen examples of "engrish". Oh well. It's very thorough.

This is my first GPS, so I have nothing to refrence it too.. But this changes my life. It's like my insurance policy wherever I go. It feels like the first time I used mapquest and no longer had to unfold one.

There are quite a few settings and menus, but they appear well thoughtout. The screen is great. Very sharp, very bright. It's not an hd-display, but the lighting is fairly even. I'd say it's probably high end for a mobile unit.

Voice guide is nice. You can slightly mute your other sources for directions, which I have to have activated to hear clearly over music, etc. Some streets aren't named and some are. Some highways are called by their name, some are just "route 4" or "exit 4b". I'm not sure why..?

GPS is awesome. There are so many types of POIs.. And selectable subcategories of each. I can set a shortcut button not only for "banks" but also for "Washington Mutual" bank. Really slick.

Searching for things like all the returants within 30 miles, sorted by distance. Wow.

Map colors invert from day to night. Cool feature. Except that I drive with my lights on. Not pioneers fault. Oh well.

Assigning pictures and sounds to address in your address book is pretty trick. Although I wish the sounds were a tiny bit louder, they're hard to hear.

It's kinda funny, but I hate that I spent $1600 on a Z1, and I can never look at it! I could almost get by with a black box that talked at me with an LED single line readout. I figured out early on you really dont want to look at the screen much while in motion. It's just too distracting. There is normally 5+ POI icons on any screen. Then you wanna see what they are so you start clicking.

I'd give it a 9.5/10. Install was easy (I've installed 2 other head units, speakers, amp..). Great amount of features. Nickle and diming the add-ons kinda sucks, but so does Apple. Which makes expandability great. I'm trying to decide if I want Bluetooth, Xm traffic or the rear camera next. Menus and features are great. The only reason I wouldn't give it a 10 is because of a few nags..

nags:
-voice commands are a little slow
-not all street names announced
-no visual effects on audio (ipod, CD, radio, etc)
-cheezy clock time
-sounds not assignable to categories
-no detach face

pluses:
-great screen for GPS & DVDs
-great features
-state of the art GPS
-expandable


Hodge podge review, but I love my Z1. I can't wait to play with it more tomorrow..

-dp