Nothing says "I love you" like making sure you're loved one never gets lost again. With the GPS market more complex than ever, buying a GPS can be a daunting task. GPSmagazine has taken the time to do all the research and review the various GPS units so you don't have to! Check out the completely updated Buyer's Guide. You'll also want to check out the Quick Recommendations for a quick bottom-line summary of units we recommend. You should probably also check out the list of Units to Avoid, and make sure the GPS you're about to buy isn't a lemon.

Posted by Fletch at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On February 4th, 2007, Garmin will air a 30-second commercial during SuperBowl XLI, making Garmin the first ever GPS manufacturer to advertise during the SuperBowl. The spot will air midway through the Super Bowl's second quarter. According to Garmin’s press release, the commercial is filmed in a sixties-esque grainy 35-mm film style, and shows an regular Joe lost behind the wheel. The motorist decides to refer to his paper map, and so he begins unfolding the map. And unfolding it, and unfolding, and unfolding… The map just gets larger and larger as he continues unfolding it, until it finally morphs into “Maposaurus” and begins threatening the driver.

Continue reading "Garmin to air commercial during SuperBowl XLI" »

Posted by Fletch at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I frequently hear people say they wish the Garmin nuvi had a routing option for "Least use of freeway", the way Magellan's RoadMate units do. It turns out you can force the Garmin nuvi into calculating the route so that it avoids highways whenever possible -- Garmin just doesn't make it obvious. Here's how to do it:

Continue reading "How to force "Least Use of Highway" on A Garmin Nuvi" »

Posted by Fletch at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

TomTom has confirmed that a small number of GO 910 units produced between September and November 2006 are infected with a virus (yikes!). Units that shipped with software version 6.51 are at risk. Not surprisingly, TomTom is downplaying the issue, calling the virus “low risk”, and “easily removable” by using any of the popular antivirus scanning software packages.  TomTom is not saying which virus managed to find its way onto the Dutch vendor’s top-of-the-line GPS, but says if you see host.exe or copy.exe files present on the device, you’ve got the virus. 

Continue reading "TomTom’s 910 Ships With Virus" »

Posted by Fletch at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

You just knew this day was coming sooner or later... GTX Corp. will unveil their new Xplorer line of Smart GPS shoes on February 1st, at the World Shoe Association (huh?) in Las Vegas. According to their press release, GTXC has been in development on the Xplorer line for the past three years. Utilizing GTXC's internet user portal along with the Xplorer shoe, caretakers of children, the elderly, and crazys other's can easily customize their monitoring and text location alerting through a proprietary "set it and forget it" Dual GeoFencing™ feature.

Continue reading "Tracking Loved Ones with Smart GPS Shoes" »

Posted by Fletch at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you needed any more proof that EVERYONE wants a piece of the GPS pie, look no further than Nextar. Nextar is the consumer electronics division of recreational furniture company MAC, and it seems even the furniture makers of the world have realized the white hotness that is the personal navigation market today.

At any rate, Nextar announced two new GPS units at CES: the Nextar P7 and the Q3.

Continue reading "CES 2007 Coverage: GPS Du Jour - Nextar's Q3 and P7" »

Posted by Fletch at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Sure, CES may have ended over a week ago, but we’ve got enough GPS coverage from the show to last all month! Clarion announced its new GPS navigation lineup at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. First up, Clarion's N.I.C.E. (NAVIGATION IN-CAR ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM). Clarion is emphasizing the entertainment features of the N.I.C.E., like it's 20GB internal hard disk (10GB available to use for mp3's or photos), it's video input for use with a backup camera or other video output (translation, DVD player or video game console), it's huge 7-inch wide screen display, or built-in SIRIUS satellite radio receiver. Here's the full specs:

Continue reading "CES 2007 Coverage: Clarion’s N.I.C.E. GPS Systems" »

Posted by Fletch at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

No one said a life of crime would be easy... A father & son team in Lindenhurst, NY made off with 14 GPS devices. Upon returning home, the GPS bandits looked more closely at their booty, and found out that they had not stolen cell phones, as they had originally thought, but instead had absconded with 14 GPS devices.

The men didn’t know what the devices were, and out of curiosity powering up one of the units. Shortly thereafter, Suffolk County police quickly zeroed in on the missing units using GPS tracking, which lead the police right to the man’s front door. The cops arrested the man, his 13-yar old son, and their 20-year old culprit on burglary and grand larceny charges. According to the Associated Press, the GPS devices were stolen from a local garage that installs GPS in snow plows, dump trucks, street sweepers, and other such vehicles.

Posted by Fletch at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Cobra, whose name is virtually synonymous with CB radios, is expanding its GPS line-up with the NAV ONE 2100 (huh? Shouldn’t it be called the NAV twenty-one hundred?). The NAV ONE 2100 is geared towards the budget consumer and focuses on ease of use. Here’s the specs:

Continue reading "CES 2007 Coverage: Cobra Does GPS" »

Posted by Fletch at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arguably the most important element of any Personal Navigation Device is the GPS receiver. You might already be familiar with market-leader SiRF, and their ground breaking StarIII 20-channel indoor GPS receiver, but you might not have heard of San Jose based Global Locate, whose Hammerhead GPS receiver was recently chosen to replace SiRF's GPS receiver on the TomTom ONE (TomTom's best selling GPS). I sat down with Global Locate's execs at CES, and got the skinny on the deal:

Continue reading "CES 2007 Coverage: Global Locate replaces SiRF on TomTom ONE" »

Posted by Fletch at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)