Asus R300 GPS Navigation Device Review

May 5 2008, 12:00am CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Today we are going to take a look at a portable GPs device from Asus called the R300. This small GPS device is attractive and can be used in our out of the car. If you don’t have a GPS device you should get one and rid yourself of paper maps on road trips. Read on for all the details on the Asus R300.

Gallery

4 images

Benchmarks

Features & Specifications
The Asus R300 runs on Windows CE 5.0 and has a 400MHz Samsung processor. The screen is a 3.5-inch 65k color TFT LCD with a 320 x 240 resolution. Memory for the Asus R300 is 64MB built-in and a 128MB Flash ROM. The GPS antenna is built-in and uses the latest SiRF StarIII chip. Memory expansion is available via a microSD card slot that can read cards up to 4GB in capacity.

Connectivity options include Bluetooth 2.0 for hands free and USB 1.1, Overall dimensions of the Asus R300 are 110mm L x 81.5mm W x 13.8mm H. The battery is swappable and has 1300mAh of power. Other features include a built-in FM transmitter and an auto light sensor.

Setup & Use
Setting the Asus R300 was easy to do and only required it to be charged or plugged into the included DC adapter for the car. The device comes with a suction cup mount that articulates well to get the best view while driving. The suction cup holds well, even on rough roads and over pot holes.

The GPS maps appear to be about 3 or 4 years out of date. My neighborhood has been here for four years and the street I live on isn’t listed in the map database. Routing for address that are in the database is very good and it even found a couple faster routes using smaller back roads that some systems might not have found.

Pairing the Asus R300 with my iPhone was as easy as Bluetooth pairing gets. Just be sure your phonies discoverable and the R300 does the rest. It even prompts you on screen and gives you the pin number to enter into your phone for pairing. Once paired the Asus R300 could dial my phone, answer and end calls with ease. It also copied my address book over for calling my contact list as well.

Volume levels for the spoken directions are very good making them easy to hear over road noise and loud kids or music. The built-in FM tuner can also send the directions to your cars speaker systems and allows you to listen to music and hear audio tracks with video over the car stereo system.

The auto light sensor is a nice touch that automatically changes the brightness of the display depending on the light conditions. When used in the car connected to the DC power adapter the Asus R300 also turns itself on and off with the car power.

I noticed a few quirks in my testing. First when driving fast over rougher roads the Asus R300 would start making the noise you hear when navigating menus, even thought I wasn’t using the menu functions. This was odd and rather irritating to listen too. The second problem is that on more than one occasion while driving the touchscreen would lose its calibration.

When this happened I was unable to operate the device with anything resembling accuracy. I could actually touch the screen on the letter I wanted to input in an address and see a letter a row up from where I was touching activate.

Verdict

Conclusion

Pros

Good volume
Built-in FM transmitter
Portable size

Cons

Maps out of date
Weird menu nav sounds
Wonky touchscreen

Verdict
In the end the Asus R300 is a decent navigation device that will suffer if your area has lots of new construction. Operation of the device is easy and it has some nice features as well. If Asus address the map issue and the odd screen and menu issues I saw the device will be nearly perfect.

7.0

where to buy

Buy from Amazon

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Shane McGlaun
Leading our review center, Shane knows technology inside out. His extensive experience in testing computer hardware and consumer electronics enable him to effectively qualify new products and trends. If you want us review your product, please contact Shane.
Shane can be contacted directly at shane@i4u.com.