Dash Express Review

I got to spend some time with the Dash Express, launched a week ago, so here is a more in-depth review of the device itself, as well as its many functions:

Inside the box

The Dash Express is rather big (4.8"W x 4.1"H x 2.8"D) compared to other GPS devices on the market, but that's due to a large battery, and three antennas inside that support Wi-Fi, GPRS, and GPS. The touchscreen display is a decent 4.3-inches, with a 480 x 272 resolution. There's a speaker on top of the device along with a touch-sensitive volume button on the left and a menu button on the right. The power button is located on the right side of the device, and USB connection on the left. The complete unit includes a mounting arm and cradle, a mounting arm extension, car power adapter, wall charger, and USB interface cable. What's nice about the device is that it can be mounted on the window or the dash.

The GPS Interface

The Dash Express has a very basic interface. When you tap the menu button, you're taken to a main screen that displays four options: favorites, search (connected), choose destination, and settings. Favorites has a list of all locations you've chosen as your favorites, search (connected) allows you use Yahoo! Local search to find a specific point of interest, choose a destination lets you enter or choose an address already in the system, and settings lets you control how you want things displayed on the screen.

Once you've entered an address, the device will find up to three alternate routes for you based on traffic conditions (more on that later). These routes are displayed on the right side of the screen along with time and distance, which is nice when you're running late and want to skip traffic. After mapping the route, the screen displays a few icons such as a plus or minus zoom button, a compass icon that switches between 2d and 3d map views, and car icon to center the car on the map. The estimated time of arrival and distance are also displayed on the bottom right of the screen to give you an idea of how much time you can expect to spend on the road. When you're on the road it's easy to ignore voice prompts, so I'm glad the Dash Express shows an icon with the direction of your next turn on the top left corner, along with the distance and the name of the street. You can also touch the top banner to see a turn-by-turn directions list.

Having live traffic updates is important for commuters, so those who sign up for the Dash Service automatically become part of the Dash Driver Network. This means you get close to real-time traffic updates based on information gathered by other Dash units on the road, including yours. Dash is able to do this by collecting the speed and position of all Dash units on the road, which is done anonymously. Since the network is still small, Dash will sometimes rely on other sources and even display historical traffic flow data that might've been collected by someone who traveled that road around the same time. This information is usually displayed as a dotted line.

Unfortunately, as a GPS device the Dash Express wasn't all that impressive compared to my car's in-dash system. The voice prompts are very computerized, sometimes incomprehensible, so I relied on the direction icons most of the time. I also thought the system was slow to update when it starts mapping your route, and sometimes while its on the road, which can be frustrating.

The Connected Features

This is probably the most appealing part of the Dash Express, at least to me. Once you've got your Dash, you'll want to setup a MyDash account to access things like Send2Car features, and create Saved Searches.

With the Send2Car option, you're able to send addresses wirelessly using the website, or by downloading a browser plug-in. This is probably one of my favorite features right now because I was able to send multiple address to the car through my browser. I went house hunting with a friend last weekend, so this option was very useful in planning our various stops. I was surprised it wasn't able to sort all the Send2Car addresses by distance, since the option is offered with Saved Searches.

Saved Searches is cool feature on the website that allows you to create lists of places you like to frequent, or choose from lists developed by other Dash users. You can create three types of Saved Searches: Yahoo! Local, MyList, and Myfeed. These are great ways to create guides for yourself and others of the best places to shop, eat, play, and sleep in your area.

The library is full of user-generated Saved Searches that range from dog friendly parks to surf reports. Sites like Craigslist have RSS feeds of all its listings, so if you're ever house hunting or looking for garage sales in the area, you can grab the RSS URL and create a feed that's sent to your car. It's really a neat feature to have when you're new to the area.

You can also create a Saved Searches by using Yahoo! Local through the website. You simply enter a keyword, such as fast food, choose a category, and hit save. Now you'll have a list of all the fast food restaurants in your area, which will come in handy during your lunch hour. You can also do searches for movie listings along with times, and gas stations along with prices.

Overall, I really enjoyed the Dash Express experience. I like having that constant connection to the Internet, and being able to send RSS feeds, and address from my computer just makes you look at GPS systems differently. The Dash Express is currently available at Amazon for $399.99, which includes three months of free Dash Service. After that, you have to pay a monthly fee of $12.99 or $9.99 if you sign up for two years.

Disclosure: Yahoo! Local is an online service owned and offered by Yahoo!, Inc., which also owns and operates Yahoo! Tech.