Asus R600 - razor of the ents

The heart of the R600 is an S3C2443 Samsung processor, which is ticking at 400 MHz. This is a relatively new CPU; it kept running the machine with a very good efficiency. The operating system is Windows CE Net 5.0 Core, this might be familiar from lots of other navis; there were no particular problems with it. There is a 20 channel SirfStar III receiver working in the navi, it provides a suitable reception quickly and precisely – it didn’t lose connection even in downtown, between tall buildings. Regarding the most important function there is an iGO clone running on the R600 and the customization is a real success, I didn’t find any serious anomalies but one: the navigation voice volume reset itself to 100% every time I turned on the navi, so there is no need to greet the neighbor with a loud "Good morning!", turning on the device does the job.

The menu draws nice big icons and "buttons" everywhere, so handling won’t give a hard time for anyone, not even for those with sausage-fingers. General speed is perfect and there can be no complaints for display precision either. The R600 is not capable of only navigation, but it can also function as a Bluetooth speaker; for this we first have to pair our phone with the Asus, after that they automatically connect with each other upon turning them on. Voice quality was suitable, I didn’t experience echoes, or negative side effects of noise reduction at the other end of the “line”, sound was not stuttering at all. Of course a built-in car kit provides slightly better quality, but its fixed place and higher cost doesn’t necessarily worth it if there is a simpler solution.

Above all these, the R600 is capable of displaying pictures, playing back music and videos, but due to the constraints of the internal memory (64 MB) it is advised to store these materials on a memory card. On the card included in the package there is about 70 MB of free space, so it is advisable to obtain another card for multimedia and to change the cards when needed.