Review of Route 66 GPS – Chicago 8000

The unit itself is designed much like any other GPS that I’ve seen for cars but it’s pretty slimline and is nicely finished. It boasts a rather nice 4.3 inch screen that is easy to see even in relatively exposed conditions. Like most TFTs it does suffer when strong, direct sunlight is aimed at it but overall it does is best. All controls are on-screen so there are no chunky buttons to detract from the devices clean look, plus it makes it pretty simple to use. Route finding happens quickly enough although my one qualm would be the initial time taken to find a satelite can be a little on the lengthy side at times (e.g. more than 25 seconds).The 8000 charges via USB which most folk will immediately will think is great until you learn that there is no way to mains charge it (or at least out of the box anyhow). It comes with a car adapter too which is pretty handy because you can use that to charge your other USB devices. 🙂 Mains charging can be realised by purchasing a plug unit that accepts car charger connections – you’ll see them from time to time in electrical stores.The 8000 came preloaded with maps for the entire of Europe with many countries claiming near 100% coverage of main routes. It’s using Navtech map data from the last quarter of 2005 – don’t confuse this with roads that were built before this time, it doesn’t mean they were mapped at the time. One such omission is the outer ring road in Waterford that was completed mid 2005. I haven’t been on any really long journeys with the 8000 yet but so far it hasn’t led me astray. 🙂 The device also has a built-in MP3 player if you really want. However, you can’t use it at the same time that you are navigating and you don’t have much room left on the 2GB SD card after you have loaded the maps of Europe, to store your MP3 collection. All in all though, as a GPS for the first timer, it’s a good little unit. I purchased my 8000 from Komplett and received the 2GB card as standard, I have seen other sellers listing it with cards of a lesser capacity so look around before buying!