Medion MD40600 impressions

[David_B]

I often see postings from people about to buy a PDA/Navigator and thought that my impressions of the Medion system may be of use.
The system I have is a MD40600 from Aldi in Holland. The system came with 2x256 SD cards and Navigator 2.0a software. Benelux and Germany maps were preinstalled and on the CD. Mapexport software was also bundled for loading other maps or own map selections.
The 40600 has a 400 Mhz processor incidently and the bundle cost Euro. 499 (about Pounds 330).

I find the system to be excellent as far as navigation is concerned, although the costruction of the PDA is alittle bit "willowy". One cannot use the case either, since putting the PDA in unlatches the battery cover and performs a soft reset !
Medion themselves are not very helpfull. I mailed a question about updating maps in January and received an immediate (automatic) acknowledgement apologising in advance for expected delays in replying. So far I am still waiting.
The question was about map updates and I have since found out that they don't exist. Medion say that maps are updated about once per year and if you want to avail yourself of them you need to pay Euro 99 per country. Not very good.

All-in-all however I am very pleased with the system and would be even more pleased if I could get the nice lady to speak to me in english instead of dutch. I have run the nav. system head-to-head with Tom-Tom in a car with that system and found the Navigon/Medion system to be more accurate and easier to use, although the latter may be personal preference. Route recalculation is very fast in comparison and the blocked route facility results in quick and accurate detour calculation - very handy.

I think that UK Aldi bundles may be different (slower processor, less memory etc.) so I don't know how competitive it may be in the UK market but if you can get a package similar to mine at the price then I would certainly recommend it.

[Darren]

Thanks for your commenst on the original Medion system. We have reviewed it but yourt post has reminded me that it may never have been published! It's been a busy period and this appears to have slipped through, I'll see where it is hiding!

The UK 40600 was the same as yours i.e. 2 x 256 MMC cards, 400MHz processor etc and too had the battery catch issue, I'd suggest a sliver of sellotape to cure that

Aldi UK released a new bundle recently with a different PPC which is 300MHZ but a different processsor type so can't be directly related to a 400MHz StrongARM. We do not have a review unit for this release but users have reported favourably.
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Darren Griffin

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