Dash Express Unboxing

The FedEx man dropped off a new goodie early this AM. What makes the Dash Express auto GPS ($400, plus service) unique is the integrated Internet connectivity (WiFi and GPRS cellular), expanding point of interest (POI) search possibilities and enhancing real-time traffic data by feeding customer driving experiences back into the cloud. I haven’t done much testing yet, though appreciated sending the loaner GPS my home address via the web and successful routing the 2/10ths of a mile to my office (Starbucks).

13 thoughts on “Dash Express Unboxing”

  1. I’d be really interested in finding out if you think it’s worth the service charges, once you’ve gotten a chance to play around with it. Or comparisons with other GPS units, if you’ve used them…

  2. Oh yes, I plan to put the Dash through some rigorous testing. We currently own a Navigon (me) and TomTom (her). And I previously “fired” both Mio and Telenav within the last year. My early GPS experiences were actually with running watches… my how things (like my waste line) change.

  3. Too bad I don’t have a Gphone to send you ( yet! ) for a cage match.

    That Dash thing looks cool, but I cannot help but wonder why anyone would want a dedicated in-car device with internet access AND an iPhone or brand X equivalent.

    What does the Dash do than an iPhone can’t?

  4. The more I read up, the more interested in the Dash I get. One thing that concerns me is Cnet’s review said they never really got a good signal lock, so their position indicator was constantly lagging behind. No one else I’ve found mentioned that, so maybe it was just them, but still. Looking forward to the review!

  5. Yes, Im really looking forward to this review as well… I love the concept of the dash, but I cant see my self every paying a monthly fee for GPS, no matter how great the traffic data is. Unless i had a company that would expense it but I currently dont.

  6. Todd, I agree the space is getting crowded. But there’s always room for innovation. PS My iPhone doesn’t have a built-in GPS or offer voice guidance. ;) Though, I do wonder if anyone’s come across a car mount of some sort?

    I studied the customer Dash web site briefly yesterday. Not only can I type in addresses to send to the device over the net, there’s IE and Outlook plugins to clip addresses for beaming. Also, there’s some sort of community sharing I need to look into. Without understanding it, I added a Starbucks-only POI search and Airport-delay RSS feed (that other customers created?) to the Dash.

  7. I’ve found Google maps with WiFi or cell-triangulation most helpful when on foot. It’s come in handy on both my Treo 750 and iPhone when in NYC and trying to figure out where I am and where I need to be.

    Back to Dash, it’s larger than I had envisioned and it took me awhile to figure out that tapping the compass toggles 2d/3d views. I was going to drive to a remote Starbucks today where bloggers and work-from-home-types congregate to give it a real road test, but the NCTA blogger outreach conference call is later and I’d rather be in a more controlled environment for that.

  8. The feature list is nice. However, from the pictures, the size/shape the the device is too big. Most portable nav systems can be thrown in a shirt pocket. For people that travel in rental cars, this seems like it isn’t the best solution. Also, the interface doesn’t exactly look very modern for the price you have to pay.

  9. i have a go910 and a few weeks ago it told me to get off the mass pike via service road…(not the first time it has happened)

    i need to get a newer model w/ mapshare, maybe the go730 when its out

  10. Very interested in the review. Like others have said, they need to work on the size of the thing NOW. Unless this thing is a runaway hit, will the community traffic part of the thing even matter? I’m kinda more interested in Microsoft’s traffic modeling.

    Yes, obviously the next version of the iPhone needs to have GPS. And Google needs to develop a talking version of Google maps for devices like it.

    Now that will be a killer device, both for in your car (you have to take it with you to avoid getting it stolen anyway), and on the road. Unless the battery life is so awful that you can’t do a rental car trip from the airport to your hotel without plugging it in…

  11. Are people really going to be happy to have a dozen sim cards & accounts for all these different gadgets?

    My handphone can communicate with a bluetooth headset and a PC so the phone knows how to send & receive digital data. Why can’t the GPS unit just have bluetooth & get/send the traffic to the Internet via my handphone? That way I only need 1 sim card & 1 unlimited data package?

  12. Had a Dash, returned it after 3 weeks. It’s very buggy, very slow to route and draw maps, the UI is primitive compared to Garmin or TomTom and it is missing many, many features you expect from a GPS, like waypoints, avoidances (“don’t put me on freeways’) and even little things like show me the direction of the points of interest near me.

    On the plus, the traffic is accurate and getting better every day as the mesh network grows.

    Once they get it right, which may still be months away (they are going to do 3 software updates/year and the first will be in June) then may just buy it again. But for now, it’s a product which was released in late beta around 6-8 months too early.

Comments are closed.