NaviGadget

Alpine quietly made a new GPS navigation system available at Crutchfield called PMD-B200 Blackbird II, without even announcing it on their own website first.

The new BlackBird II has a 4″ display with 480 x 272 pixels resolution, touch screen controls, and maps that cover the United States including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and Canada. PMD-B200 also has an extensive POI database that contains everything from a gas station to a small museum. Alpine Blackbird II also doubles as a media player handling file formats such as MP3 and WMA which can be brought on board using an SD card.

What’s different about PMD-B200 is that it has a 10GB hard disk drive but on the website there’s no mention of how much space is available for your media files. Maybe none? Good thing it supports SD cards upto 4GB - which is still a lot of music and videos.

Alpine Blackbird II is listed at $700 but is currently out of stock.

Nokia made official that they will be introducing a WiMAX-enabled version of their N800 internet tablet early next year. Intel is also in this with their Baxter Peak WiMax chip, making use of the WiMax service Sprint will make available in select cities.

These next-generation N series will also contain an integrated GPS chip unlike earlier models which were navigation capable but did not integrated its own GPS. There are also rumors that Nokia will also introduce N800’s without WiMAX but only GPS. Will keep an eye on this and keep you updated… via

Mio just announced a new GPS navigation called C720t - first from Mio to be equipped with a digital camera. Other features include live traffic updates (that’s what the ‘t’ is for), bluetooth hands free calling, text-to-speech for pronouncing street names, and a wide 4.3″ screen.

Mio C720t has a 2MP digital camera - that lets you embed GPS coordinates into an image, and navigate back to it as if it were an address. Other features of image capturing lens is the ability to recognize business cards and store them in your lists of contacts.

Real time traffic information is provided by ClearChannel’s network of affiliates, and can be viewed on C720t’s split-screen interface. 12 million POI’s is way more than what others offer and the device also lets you upload your photoPOI’s onto an SD card.

More features and specs:

• 20-channel SiRFstar III GPS receiver
• 2 GB flash memory, 64 MB RAM
• 4.3″ TFT with Touch Screen and 65k Colors, WQVGA – 480 x 272 pixels
• Built-in speaker and 2.5 mm headphone jack
• Two-megapixel camera, digital zoom, 320 x 240 to 1600 x 1200, multi-shot, 5/10 second timer
• SD/MMC Memory Expansion Module
• 1300 mAH rechargeable Li-ion battery

Mio DigiWalker C720t costs $600 and is already available at your electronics super stores.

GPS integrated Samsung i550 which we first talked about at the end of July is just officially announced.

As expected i550 will run S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 and have Flash Lite 2.0 support, and an integrated GPS receiver even though what kind of applications will be available is still unknown.

Other features include 3.2MP digital camera, USB 2.0, bluetooth, and microSD card support as well as SDHC support.

Samsung i550 measures 115 ×53 x 13.8 mm making slightly taller but slimmer than N95. i550 will come with a 1200mAh which should last about 24 hours if you don’t play with it too much.

Rumors suggest it will be available in November and cost about 400€… via

Nextar X4B is the most advanced model Nextar has to offer when it comes to GPS navigation systems.

It features a 4.3″ touch screen with US & Canada maps from Navteq which sits on a 1GB built in memory, and has bluetooth connectivity for taking hands free phone calls. Also included in its memory is close 2 million points of interests to help you locate the closest farmers market, phone booth, etc…

Nextar X4B also supports TTS (Text to Speech), a feature you’d like if you can’t take your eyes off the road not even for a second.

As far as hardware we know the processor is from Intel and the GPS receiver is SiRF Star III. It sells for about $400 on Amazon.

GPS Information did a side by side comparison of Garmin USA Topo and the new Topo 2008, again from Garmin.

The most obvious difference is that you can now use shading to give your map a 3D look, making it easier for your eyes to comprehend the landscape. The new maps are constructed from DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data instead of a digitized version of the USGS Topo maps which was used for the older USA Topo maps.

Other differences include street names, less vectors, and contour intervals. Check out the source for more details which by the way also has comparisons with maps from other companies such as Lowrance, Magellan, DeLorme, etc…

Sanyo has added a new model to their Gorilla series. The two new models will be NV-SD580DT and NV-SB260DT which will not only allow the user to watch digitally broadcast channels but also record them.

The series is dubbed Gorilla for a good reason; offering a sharp display measuring 5.8 inches and a durable battery to last at least couple of hours.

More specs:

• VGA
• FM transmitter
• 1Seg TV tuner
• SD card (2GB max)
• VISC
• MP3 player
• SD-Video card reader (plz leave comment if you know what this is…)
• 100.5×177x33 mm
• 570 g

Gorilla series also come in HDD versions such as the NV-HD830DT… via

European sat nav device maker Medion today announced the arrival of GoPal P4425, a GPS navigation system with 4.3″ touch screen and fingerprint recognition for extra security.

Come to think of it this extra feature may come in very handy in case a serial killer steals your vehicle. You don’t want to lead him to your house when you are stranded in a remote parking lot with your garage door opener and cell phone left in the vehicle.

On more pleasant topics; the extra slim GoPal P4425 measuring only 17mm thick also supports bluetooth hands free calling with voice recognition for certain commands, RDS-TMC antenna for live traffic updates, and an FM transmitter to hear voice guidance through your cars speakers.

It will be available in the UK for £300 in November.

After i550 which we featured here before, now we get the news that Samsung i560 will also include an integrated GPS receiver chip. The new Samsung SGH-i560 will only be exclusively manufactured for Vodafone of Europe so do not get your hopes up just yet if you live in the U.S.

Very little detail is known at this point but we know i560 will feature 3rd edition of Symbian S60 and come with QVGA screen measuring 2.4 inches. i560 will be compatible with 3G/3G+ networks. and come with a 3.2MP digital camera and have the ’slider’ form factor.

Acer launched a new range of GPS navigation systems called P700. These will supplement the current models Acer P600 and the Acer V200 that we had already mentioned on Navigadget.

The new P700 will have the largest screen of all of the above measuring at 4.3 inches. New on the P700 series is the new version 7 of ALK CoPilot navigation software.

CoPilot 7 has a new interface which is more pleasant and easier to read. A new functionality called Pin-Lock will allow the users to lock the device just like you can do on your phone with a PIN number.

The maps for the P700 series will be provided by Navteq and are from the fourth quarter of 2006. Currently the P700 series will have two models: Acer P710 which will come with a 512MB SD card for regional maps and Acer P730 that has a 2GB SD card for maps of the whole Europe.

The difference between P710 and P730 is that latter also supports RDS-TMC traffic information.

Main features:

• Integrated SiRF III GPS receiver
• 4.3″ LCD display at 16/9 and 480×272 resolution supporting upto 16.7 million colors
• 64 MB of ROM and 64 MB of RAM
• SD/MMC port
• 1100mAh Li-Ion battery - lasts upto 3 hours
• 1.5 Watt internal speaker
• Windows CE.net 5.0
• ALK CoPilot 7 navigation software with maps provided by Navteq; radars preloaded
• RDS/TMC Premium traffic Information (only on P730)
• Image viewer

Acer P710 will come with regional maps and cost 199€ and the same P710 with maps of Europe will cost 249€ - both available in October… via