NaviGadget

six GPS navigation systems no longer with us

Apr 11, 2009 gps navigation 6 Comments

GPS navigation system market is very dynamic and fast moving. New features come out monthly, prices keep going down. Small brand names can’t just compete or the big ones (HP, Sony) just take a quick stab at the market and realize people just won’t give up their Garmin’s :)

Here are a few names that are either out of the GPS navigation market or about to be gone.

• Magellan


Magellan was one of the big shots here in the U.S. but recently was bought by Mitac Mio. Even though Mio said they’d keep the brand going we think it is a matter of time until the Magellan name completely disappears.

• HP


HP had a decent looking device called iPAQ 310 for a while but it turns out they’ll be discontinuing their stand alone GPS navigation systems and a few others such as iPAQ 312, 314, 316, and 318.

• Dash


These were the guys to first come out with a decent two way connected system. We really loved it. But they didn’t last long. When they quit they promised they’d keep their awesome user collected traffic information platform alive.

• Harman/Kardon


Harman did come out with a few models that really looked promising such as the GPS-810. But due to continued price cutting they’re out as well.

• Sony


Sony never really got traction in the PND market. They officially quit the European market. Even though SonyStyle for U.S. still offers the NVU series the fact that they haven’t offered anything new makes us wonder…

• Panasonic


Panasonic is also out but only for standalone GPS navigation systems like the Strada CN-GP50N, and CN-GP50U. They’re keeping their in-dash systems.

UPDATE (May 6th):

• Navigon


We’re sorry to now add Navigon to this list. They really had some decent devices but the aggressive pricing was too aggressive for them. They’ll continue business in Europe.

new HP iPAQ 914 shots and specs

Jun 12, 2008 gps navigation, phones 2 Comments

HP iPAQ 914, the 3G, GPS enabled, QWERTY keyboard PDAphone was recently delayed but it looks like the consumer will benefit from this delay as the specs have slightly changed.

We have a few real life shots of the device which will be marketed in Europe in July for about 500 €.

The US version of iPAQ 914 will now come with Windows Mobile 6.1 and a more powerful battery (1940 mAh instead of the 1590 mAh). The design was also enhanced, a little thinner body, and the chrome contoured joystick.

Let’s review the specs:

• A-GPS compatible GPS receiver
• 2.5″ touchscreen with 320×240 pixels resolution QVGA
• Marvell PXA270 processor at 520 MHz
• Quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), EDGE, 3G and triband HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps
• 3MP camera with autofocus on the back of the device – so no video conferincing
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
• USB 2.0
• 256 MB ROM
• 128 MB RAM
• microSD port
• 1940 mAh replaceable lithiuom-ion battery
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Google Maps Mobile

via

NavGate 500 now official in Europe

Feb 1, 2008 CES 2008, gps navigation 7 Comments

Pioneer AVIC-F500BT – now known as NavGate 500 was just made official yesterday.

One of the main innovations with NavGate 500 is the size of the screen measuring 5.8″ – which we believe is a record as far as portable nav systems go. NavGate will have 800×480 pixel (WVGA) resolution, just like HP iPAQ 310, and Garmin nüvi 5000.

NavGate 500 integrates a hands free Bluetooth kit from Parrot, an RDS/TMC module for traffic information, voice commands, a processor running at 600 MHz and of the course the SiRF StarIII GPS chip.

It will ship with maps from TeleAtlas covering 30 European countries including Greece, Poland, the Czech republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania and Turkey.

Another feature with NavGate 500 will be the ability to connect to your car stereo through Mosfet 50 amplifier which should provide a very good sound quality. Also AV, USB port, iPod connection, and an SD card slot are standard with NavGate 500 allowing you to connect various external audio and video devices.

Pioneer NavGate 500 will hit the market in May and will sell for 699 €. Read More …

HP iPAQ 310; best display, bad software

Jan 30, 2008 gps navigation, reviews 9 Comments

HP iPAQ 310 also got a review recently. As we expected the iPAQ 310 has the best screen out there for a GPS navigation device which is super bright and has 800×480 pixel resolution. It is also very impressive in terms processor power – how about a 600MHz dual-core CPU?

But the software… It seems to be lacking in every department. Here is a small excerpt:

We also had an issue with not being able to cancel navigation. Typically when you are navigating to a destination, and you navigate away from the screen giving you directions it’ll ask you if you want to cancel the route planning, but that is not the case with the 310; it keeps navigating, no matter what. In fact, if you choose a route and then decided to just cancel, it won’t, even if you go back to the home page. From there, pressing the “map” button takes you back to the route you were previously navigating. One time we even turned it off because we were tired of hearing it tell us to turn here and go there, and it magically turned itself back on a few minutes later to tell us to make a turn. It’s literally like the Terminator as far as navigation goes.

And there is more like this in the review. It seems like it would be wise to wait for a second generation iPAQ 310 which hopefully will be more user friendly. Currently iPAQ 310 sells for $320 on Amazon.

HP iPAQ Navigate

Jan 5, 2008 gps navigation, software 2 Comments

HP announced a new website called HP iPAQ Navigate which lets you plan your trips, search for POIs from your computer and then transfer them to your device. Even though iPAQ 310 features bluetooth we believe the transfer part can only be done via the mini USB port.

The website is a nice add-on for iPAQ 310 user. And it is free of course… Read More …

HP iPAQ 310 now available

Dec 3, 2007 gps navigation 6 Comments

HP’s new dedicated GPS navigation from the new iPAQ 300 series is now for sale in the U.S. as HP iPAQ 310. We thought it would be called iPAQ 314 but I guess we were wrong. Possibly that may be the Euro version with a different set of maps.

HP iPAQ 310 sells for $400 on Amazon and NewEgg and both have it in stock ready to ship.

This navigation system has a good set of features but it also has some good components inside that slim body. First off it has one of the fastest processor we’ve come across as far as sat nav systems are concerned – buzzing at 600Mhz with its SiRF Titan dual core processor. It comes with 128MB of SDRAM and 2GB ROM for maps and POI’s. It has a long lasting removable and rechargeable 1700 mAh Lithium-ion battery too.

iPAQ 310 has a very nice screen measuring 4.3″ offering 800×480 resolution, speaker, an integrated microphone with echo cancellation, and a headphone jack. It has a mini USB port and microSD slot for sync and expansion and has bluetooth connectivity.

It will come with a few HP sofware installed such as the HP navigation software with text to speech guidance and web based trip planning, digital video player, digital music player, picture viewer, games, bluetooth hands free, calculator, world clock, contacts with Outlook sync.

You should read an HP iPAQ 310 review before you buy it:

The most interesting feature on the GPS navigator is the 3-D mapping software. For certain, select cities, maps don’t simply appear as lines in a 2-D space (not even a tilted, almost 3-D space). Instead, you get actual 3-D models of buildings filling the city space. We can’t imagine populating an entire globe’s worth of buildings, but in our hands-on experience mapping trips through London, we were quite impressed at the range of buildings represented, and the graphical prowess of the small navigator.

Deluo bluetooth GPS now with Live search

Oct 4, 2007 bluetooth, gps navigation, software 1 Comment

DeluoGPS just launched a new product that brings Live Search for Windows Mobile and their wireless GPS device together. With Live Search users can access real-time ratings on nearby restaurants, movie show times, local weather and real-time traffic information. Combined with Deluo’s bluetooth GPS receiver your door-to-door driving directions are more ‘location aware’ and thus more useful.

There’s nothing else special about the hardware though, it includes a rechargeable Li-Ion battery which lasts about 6 hours, updates your position every second and measures 70 x 44 x 22.5 mm, and uses a SiRF Star III GPS receiver.

It is compatible with the following devices:

HTC

• Excalibur/Dash/S620/S720
• Magician/MDA Compact/XDA II mini/JAM
• Mogul/XV6800/P4000/Titan
• TyTN/8525/JasJam/Hermes
• Wing/Gerald/P4350
• Wizard/8125/8100/MDA/K-JAM/P4300
• P4550 Kaiser/ P6300 Panda

Palm

• Treo 700w/700wx
• Treo 750

HP

• iPAQ hw6920
• iPAQ hw6925
• iPAQ hw6915
• iPAQ hw6945

Samsung

• BlackJack/SGH-i607
• SCH-i830/IP-830w
• SGH-i718/SGH-i710

Motorola

• i930/i920
• Q/Q9h

Siemens

• SC66

We’re not sure how much it is going to cost yet but we expect it won’t be more than $100.

HP iPAQ 914 has built-in Google Maps

Sep 6, 2007 gps navigation, phones 2 Comments

HP just announced the iPAQ 900 series also known as the HP Business Messenger. iPAQ 914 is the first expected model but the last two digits (9xx) is likely to change depending on your service provider. HP iPAQ 914 is a serious smartphone with a really strong feature set, specially in wireless connectivity. It is a quad band phone featuring GSM/GPRS/EDGE and Tri Band HSDPA networks, does 802.11 b/g with WPA2 Wi-Fi, as well as bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, and of course integrated GPS navigation (Assisted GPS).

HP was also smart enough to integrate Google Maps into the 914 package, which has an interface that everyone is used to and probably smarter than most other navigation software out there. HP iPAQ 914 comes with Office Mobile, Office Outlook Mobile, and IE Mobile, and more specialized software from HP such as iPAQ Data Connect, VoiceReply, and Voice Commander.

HP iPAQ 914 features a 1840mAh Li-Ion battery and has I/O options such as the microSD card slot and the USB 2.0 port. We’ll be sure to keep an eye on the 914 and let you know when it becomes available.

HP iPAQ 614

Sep 6, 2007 gps navigation, phones 1 Comment

HP iPAQ 614 is the first addition to iPAQ’s 600 series. Depending on which network provider you go with expect to see minor changes and other model names, such as 615, 624, and so on. Also known as iPAQ Business Navigator, 614 comes with integrated A-GPS (A-GPS provides faster satellite fix than just GPS) technology, and in select countries it comes with navigation software pre-installed. The device is 3G capable, but if 3G download speed is not fast enough, you can always rely on the integrated Wi-Fi. The phone is quad-band so it is almost guaranteed to work in every country.

Other features include 3MP camera, bluetooth 2.0 and a numeric keypad with smart touch wheel. HP iPAQ 614 runs MS Windows Pro 6 on a Marvell PXA270 processor buzzing at 520MHz. And thanks to the media player on board you can watch videos, read ebooks and listen to your tunes through the speaker or with an optional Bluetooth stereo headset.

We’ll update price and availability as soon as we can.

HP iPAQ 314

Sep 6, 2007 gps navigation 1 Comment

HP introduced bunch of new mobile devices from the iPAQ line yesterday, one of them being the HP iPAQ 314.

HP iPAQ 314 is a standalone GPS navigation system with a 4.3″ touch screen that has a 800×480 pixel resolution. It supports various types of media files and thanks to its bluetooth function it can synchronize your Outlook to give you access to your contacts.

iPAQ 314 will come with maps of Western Europe countries already installed. We’re not sure what the release date or price range is just yet… via