GPS car navigation systems

Street navigation software coupled with a laptop and GPS receiver isn’t your only option to stay found while driving through the asphalt jungle. GPS car navigation systems are starting to become popular as factory-installed options and third-party add-ons for cars and trucks. These systems are streamlined versions of street navigation programs, offering basic navigation features such as real-time map display, address searches, and route planning.
Car navigation systems range from portable, handheld GPS receivers that are equally at home on the trail or the road to systems permanently installed in a vehicle. Some of the more sophisticated products use gyroscopes, connections to the Vehicle Speed Sensor (car-speak for a speedometer), and three-axis accelerometers to provide speed and distance information when a GPS signal is temporarily lost; such as in tunnels or urban areas with tall buildings. I have to admit I’m not a true road warrior and don’t spend lots of time in my car. However, I did have a chance to try out a Magellan RoadMate GPS navigation system (www.magellangps.com) for a while and was pretty impressed.
RoadMate mounts on your dashboard (as shown here) and is portable so you can easily transfer it from one car to another. The version I tested had an internal hard drive that was preloaded with street maps of the entire U.S., so you can just plug it into your cigarette lighter and go. This is perfect for a business traveler who just flew into a city he’s never been to before and has to spend the next couple of days in a rental car trying to find his way around. Routes are calculated in a matter of seconds, and a large, high-resolution map screen keeps your progress updated. And with a touch screen, voice prompts, and a simple user interface, even my nontechnical friends and family members were able to figure out how to use it in no time.
Granted, the RoadMate is a single purpose device, costs about as much as a low-end laptop, and doesn’t have all the features of a street navigation software package. However, if I were regularly spending a lot of time on the road or visiting cities I didn’t know very well, I’d give some serious consideration to it or a similar GPS navigation system. My crystal ball tells me it won’t be too many years into the future when in-car navigation systems start to become standard in most new cars and trucks.