Customer Reviews
Worth It's Weight In GOLD! Great Product! 
2007-02-07
The Cobra Nav One has got everything that I could want in a Car Navigation System! It has a big, beautiful screen that doesn't ever block my vision, and it is by far the easiest electronic device I have ever used. Right out of the package, just plug it in and about three button presses later you are ready to go wherever you want. Some people knock it for not having an internal battery, but who really needs to carry their bulky navigation system around with them in their pocket (with their, wallet, cell phone, organizer, etc.) and have it barking out directions from their pants?!?!
The displays are so easy to read, and everything is customizable. There are a LOT of little preferences that you can play with to make it just right for you. Probably the best feature about this nav system is the 7.6 MILLION POINTS OF INTEREST! It may seem excessive for some, but trust me you will love it and need it, especially if you have to be in a small town for a while. I moved to a small town in NC, and within the first two days my Cobra found a Wal-Mart, dry-cleaners, mechanics, elementary schools, malls, banks, churches, and much more. I don't even make my own decisions anymore. I just ask "Cobra" what restaurants are nearby, and I have my pick from about 50 in a 10 mile radius. Plus there are SO MANY CATEGORIES! It's not just where are all the restaurants nearby. It gives you options for American, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, (the list goes on...) and then gives you the PHONE NUMBER of every single POI. I regularly call the place to see if they're open before I go, or to make a reservation. And there is a Go Home button that gets you back home from anywhere with the touch of a button.
I haven't even started on the sturdy (yet easily removable) mounting hardware, traffic receiver, multiple routes, or 3D and Terrain maps yet, but trust me it's got all that and more. The only negative point that I can make is that sometimes it tells me that my destination is on the left side of the street when it is actually on the right. Also, I left it in my car outside on a frosty night in January and when I came out in the morning it told me that its temperature was too low to operate, but it started as soon as I got the car warm. I still think that it is the best nav system on the market and not too expensive either. BOTTOM LINE: Get the COBRA NAV ONE 4500!!! You won't be disappointed!
Very pleased. 2007-02-07
My husband is using The cobra Nav one,he is a truck driver and it is working real well for him.He is very pleased with it..It is giving him information he needs.Very Happy with this product.
Cobra Nav One 4500 Mobile GPS 2007-02-03
This is my second GPS unit - and my last for awhile! I love the screen size - easy navigation - easy to stop navigation, etc. I highly recommend this product!
4 hr trip takes 6 1/2hrs with cobra 4500 ???????? 
2007-01-20
just just received my cobra nav one on the jan.22 love the device but its flawed i took a trip to sanford fl from miami it told me to get off major highway to take US1 , i didn't take its advice and keep going. got there in record time.. but...... on the way back it took my through residental areas when i could visibly see I-4 & 417 the trip home took me home on the back roads and 6hrs later i made it home
Unreliable and HUGE 2007-01-04
I got this unit after upgrading from a Garmin c320. On first impression, the unit is large, and heavy. I takes up a good bit of real estate on the windshield, and has included a foam pad to rest on the dash so as not to scratch the dash. The unit does not have an internal battery, nor does it come with a house adapter, so all programing etc. needs to be done in the car. This is a huge drawback as the unit has so many options, it would be nice to sit in the comfort of your home to play with and customize it. The manual is very vague, but the interface is pretty easy to get around without the manual.
The spoken instructions are clear and in a pleasant voice. The unit annouces numbered highways, but not street names. Another nice touch is that the unit anounces when you cross a state border, whether or not you are in guidance mode. It says "You are now entering New York" etc.
The screen is large, clear and bright. Easily read in direct sun. The screen also automatically dims in three different modes. Full brightness and daylight colors for daytime, half brightness and daylight colors for twilight, and 25% brightness and night colors for night time. Each of these are customizeable to the brightness level and color you prefer. There is also a 3D mode, which I found poor. Compared to the Garmin, the graphics rendering was horrible. I kept it in the track up mode. With the large screen, you get to see a lot. Cobra claims that this unit locates sattelites quiker than any other unit. Yawn. On some occasions, I was actually driving for ten minuted before it locked into a sattelite.
This unit came with a traffic antenna with free traffic for 90 days. I live in the New York Metro Area, 1 hour North of NYC. The reports did not come into the unit until about 1/2 hour out of the city, sometimes while already in the traffic. The reporting was pretty good in northern and central NJ, so if you live in those areas, as well as the city itself it will work for you.
The unit offered two sets of directions to chose from, which was nice. However, it takes way too long to calculate a route. The longer the route, the longer the time it takes to calculate. It took 1 minute and 45 seconds to calculate a 70 mile trip. It also takes forever to recalculate a route if you miss a turn. I was driving along a highway and could not get off of the directed exit because of a truck. I kept going and after I passed the next exit two miles down the road, it told me to get off that exit. It took another two miles of driving to recalculate, and told me to get off the next exit after I passed it. Eventually I had to pull over on the shoulder to let the thing have time to recalculate.
This unit works with a hard drive, versus a flash drive, so it works a little slower. This I expected, but the wait time is unbearable. Also, because it has a hard drive, the thing kept freezing. The unit froze up three seperate times, and lost ALL of the data I entered. Luckily, it happened in areas that I knew where I was. The unit also buzzes and you can hear the hard drive crunching. Very annoying if you are driving a pretty quiet car with the radio off.
The maps are very outdated! The unit was telling me to turn on streets that no longer existed, and did not have some srteets that have been existance for years. There are two streets in my neighborhood that have been closed off for over 30 years, but the unit kept directing me to use these streets. The routing is also very whacky. Many times it would tell you to pass your destination and make a uturn. I was on a divided highway once, and my destination was on left. I approached an intersection with a left turn light, where I could have made a left turn directly into the destination. Instead, the unit directed me to continue 1/2 mile up the road and make a uturn at a point where there was no where to turn. It also on very many occasions would tell me the destination was on left when it was on right and vice versa.
The mounting of the unit is cumbersome, difficult to get on and off, and due to the size, it is very difficult to hide this monster away. I unexpectedly had to valet park once, and did not want to leave the unit in the car. I had to lug this monster with me, which was very inconvenient with the size.
This unit has lots of bells and whistles. But in the long run, the unit is bought primarily for guidance. And it fails miserably here. I was so nervouse that the unit would crash or send me to hell instead of where I wanted to go in an unknown area, that I would take along my Garmin as backup. I eventually returned the item, and after testing four other brands of GPS, I returned to Garmin and bought a Nuvi 350. A beautiful small unit, that gives great directions, anoounces street names, has a choice of voices, many of the features of the Cobra, as well as a MP3 player, audio book player and tons of other useful items. And the garmin literally fits in a shirt pocket AND comes with it's own case. I seriously would not recommend this Cobra unit to anyone. It's great for the first week with all the bells and the screen, but in the field, it does not perform.
Cobra 2007-10-06
It is fun to use, has great versitility, and is easy to program. I can't ask for much more.
A product with a lot of flaws 
2007-08-24
This is my first GPS system so I did a lot of research online before I went ahead purchase it in March 2007. I wanted a large screen one and traffic system. 4500 seems to be the perfect match.
Pro: large screen, real-time traffic system saved me many times, and reasonable routing suggestions. I don't have the rerouting adaptation problem as the other reviewers and if I get into a side road, it'll recalculate immediately. Maybe they fixed it in the most current software batch. Their customer service is superb.
Cons: I had this unit for 5 months and have to return it now. As many reviewers said, this unit has slower routing calculation and I didn't realize it would be a problem until I was driving on a highway waiting for the exit.
Even though I have the most current database batch, I would see some not-so-new highways disappeared suddenly during the drive. It would come back eventually but it doesn't feel good to see yourself driving on a blank space for several miles, especially if you travel to a unknown place at night.
Road side of a destination seems to be wrong 80% of the time. We all know after 1 month of usage to ignore the final destination instruction.
After 2 months, the address book, all travel location information, and user settings were wiped out automatically and I have to reset everything. After it happened so many times, I called Cobra and they gave me another software patch. It seemed to fix the problem.
When used in big cities with a lot of traffics, its routing instruction can be so wrong. It usually gives me the worst routing suggestion, i.e. chose the busiest road, or a longer route, or use local highways with a lot of construction going on instead of an interstate highways that are much less congested, etc. This unit's routing logic seems to work better with mid-size to small-size towns.
The mounting is cumbersome. After taking it off and putting it back on whenever I have to park somewhere, the V12 cord connected to the car broke. I had to call the customer service and they sent me another cord immediately. Did I mention that their customer service is very good?
The final flaw which makes me wanted to return it is, one day the beautiful female voice was gone. Never come back again.
I feel sorry to have to put a bad review on a product. I hope it would help others to avoid the frustrations I have gone through.
nice if it works 
2007-06-20
I got the unit for Christmas, attracted to the good display, but leery of the reliability, both due to other's reviews. I have no serious references to other GPS units, aside from one in an ACRUA MDX that was built into the console, and was very impressive. My 4500 is away to be repaired now, they say for about 3 weeks, with very little use when it worked. I was careful with it as was possible and used it only on major highway trips.
I don't understand how, say an Acura, can have GPS that can sit out in cold and extreme heat, and survives daily driving, and the 4500 Nav One breaks while being treated like delicate china. I also bought every accessory that SHOULD have come with it for the price.
I hate to give bad reviews, but I have to say, if you need a GPS you can count on, this model is high risk. I would want to know this if I was considering buying it. The software can be a little bugged. I got stuck in some loop (it refused to lock in one zoom level) while on the road and eventually had to shut it down and reset to defaults. No idea why. It's sometimes not very precise and a little sluggish in real time rerouting, which can be frequent, as the unit gets lost for no apparent reason while cruising down an Interstate.
It does look nice, and has many great features when it works. That said, I had higher hopes for a portable GPS that really isn't portable, unless you have a portable power source. It was missed on my last road trip when it quit working, and will be missed while in the shop. For me the unit is more a toy than a tool fortunately, because as a needed tool, I would not highly recommend it.
update: Only took about ten days and got a new replacement for the crashed one. The new Nav ONE seems to perform better than the defective one did, meaning it doesn't get "lost" and recalculate for no clear reason, as before.
Cobra 4500 2007-05-12
The unit is very large and bulky. It does have a very large viewable map which is nice. The unit I had worked about 1 week then would not power up. I am completely dissapointed with this brand and unit and am trying another one.
Cobra Nav One 2007-02-19
I am very pleased with this GPS unit. I was alittle worried after reading some of the reviews, but am very happy that I still ordered it.
The graphics are by far one of the best. It has very detailed graphics, unlike many of the other brands that have a more cartoon look to them. The graphics are compariable to what you would find in a in-dash unit. It is very user friendly, and easy to navigate. The unit does weigh a bit, but have not had any problems with the suction cup as I read about. As long as the window is clean it works great. I have even drove over some really bumpy roads and the unit has not come loose.
For the money and what you get this is a terrific unit, and would highly recommend it.
