Sony NAV-U

The NAV-U is a series of car GPS models manufactured by the Sony Corporation. It is an extremely popular series due to the readily available update maps including the European continent. Some of the most popular models were the following.

• NV-U92tw
• NV-U93tw
• NV-U94t
• NV-U82
• NV-U82g
• NV-U83t
• NV-U70
• NV-U73t
• NV-U50
• NV-U53
• NV-U51g
• NV-U44
• NV-U35

Review

The Sony NAV-U NV-U73T is a classic model and if I remember correctly, it received mixed reviews, but generally was an excellent design. After having a look at one of these, I would say that it is well made, and the fact that many people still use it even today is a testament to its reliability. They are reliable, and as long as you can get the map and firmware updates, then there is every chance that people will continue to use it.

eBay

Broken NAV-U GPS units are often for sale on eBay for just a few pounds, and for electronic engineers and hackers they are an ideal source of components, which are not available at ordinary electronics outlets. I managed to get the NV-U73T for a fiver because it had a cracked digitizer screen. Just for fun, I decided to modify the firmware and turn it into a picture frame displaying some garden snapshots of my cats.

If you are buying a used one on eBay then the thing to look out for is the battery charge because you will find that many of these older units will have a worn-out battery that will not be able to hold much charge. Usually, when the battery cannot hold any charge, the unit will not switch ON. However, this is easily repairable as replacement batteries are cheap and readily available.

Apart from a cracked digitizer screen, these units exhibit very few bugs and continue to operate even today under harsh temperature conditions within a car.

Repair

If you have a broken NAV-U, then many online car GPS repair companies can repair it for you at a reasonable cost. I would highly recommend them and some of the best ones are listed at the top on Google.

Replacing the battery or the digitizer is extremely simple and if you are like me, and you do not mind destroying your old NAV-U, then you could have a go at fixing it. This article might help as it shows the inside construction of one of these units.

This Article Continues...