I thought this was some kind of joke when I saw the Magellan RoadMate 1700 on my desk waiting to be reviewed. What purpose does such a big screen serve on a GPS device? Standard size is three and half inch and even four inch screens are acceptable. But do you really need a seven inch display on a GPS device? I don’t think so either. Magellan RoadMate 1700 is similar to other car GPS devices I have tested in the past. Apart from being taller and wider, it is one of the thinnest GPS devices I have ever seen. A large surface of the device is covered by a color touch screen but there are also a few physical buttons. On the top, there is a switch which powering the gadget. The slider also has a ‘reset’ setting and when you power off the GPS, you get an ten second countdown to switch it  [...]

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There are tons of devices being made for the ever popular iPhone, most of them being portable speaker docks. Navigation applications are growing fast and people are now using the iPhone instead of getting a separate GPS device. However, the idea of using iPhone for GPS has its own set of drawbacks. The loudspeaker is really tinny, GPS usage might drain the battery quickly and location accuracy is questionable. Magellan Premium Car Kit is here for providing solutions to these problems. Magellan Premium Car Kit comes with a 12 volt charger, built in GPS receiver for better accuracy and noise canceling Bluetooth speakerphone. All this sounds a bit familiar and that’s because you have already seen this on TomTom Car Kit for iPhone. We chided TomTom for putting a high price tag on that device. Magellan  [...]

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Before this, we reviewed the MotoNav TN30 and we had lots of issues with it. Motorola, instead of redressing these issues, has given us an altogether new product in the form of Motorola MotoNav TN765t. The design is changed and so is the onscreen experience. The menu screens and maps are merged and you get a seamless and slick interface. But its predecessor, the TN30, also had sleek interface. This made us dig deeper in to the device to see if there were indeed any issues. Design: Motorola MotoNav TN765t has a 5.1 inch TFT LCD display which gives an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and it is wider than the standard 16:9 aspect ratio which we usually find on PNDs. Motorola exploits the presence of the big screen with more real estate of pixels but vertical profile is much lower. The screen  [...]

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TomTom’s latest offering, TomTom Ease is an entry level GPS device for people with shallow pockets. This is a step down version of TomTom One, and it looks quite similar to TomTom Start which went to European last year. We think this is the same device but loaded with US maps. We previously reviewed the TomTom One 140 S and both these devices look quite similar. Both feature a QVGA 3.5 inch touch screen display and both come with TomTom’s EasyPort mount. But a deeper look will reveal lots of differences in to the two models. Power key of the Ease is now located on the back rather than the usual position of top edge. On the bottom side there is a Mini-USB port which is deeply recessed and is used for syncing and charging the gadget. T TomTom Ease doesn’t have a microSD or SD memory card  [...]

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Before this, reviewed Navigon 5100 and we really liked this new player in the GPS market. We were impressed by its navigation features which included 3D “photorealistic” view for complicated intersections, lane assistant mode and built-in traffic receiver. Navigon 7100 costs $749 and this time it comes along with a bigger 4.3 inch touch screen and an integrated Bluetooth. All this looks quite promising but when we tested the GPS in our labs, the experience was disappointing. The interface of the system is confusing and definitely not as user friendly as other GPS products. The device was also a bit sluggish which frustrated us a lot. To make matters worse, capabilities of Bluetooth are limited, you cannot transfer your cell phones call history or contact list on to the GPS. All this add  [...]

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