9. Finding The Cheapest Gas with Dash Express

Figure 57: Search (connected)

In addition to real-time traffic data, Dash Express can also leverage its Internet connectivity to display local gas prices. With gas prices on the rise, finding the least expensive gas by sorting nearby gas stations by price can really add up over the course of a year of driving.

How does Dash Express know the current price at the pump? Credit card companies anonymously collect transaction information from gas stations, and report the average price per-gallon at that location.

To demonstrate the connected gas pricing information, I'll search for nearby gas stations and then sort the results by price. From the Main Menu, tap "Search (connected)".

Figure 58: Dash Connected Search Screen

Tap "Browse" from the "Search (connected)" screen to choose a POI search category.

Figure 59: Browsing the POI Category List

In this example, I'm looking for nearby gas stations, so I'll tap "Gas".

Figure 60: Viewing Nearby Gas Stations

Notice the average price per gallon in displayed next to each gas station, as well as the direction, and distance.

Tap "Sort" from the search results screen.

Figure 61: Choosing A Sort Order

Search results can be sorted by relevance, distance, alphabetically, or by price.

Figure 62: Viewing more detailed gas pricing information on Dash Express

Dash also lets you view more detailed pricing information at each gas station.

10: Finding a Restaurant

Figure 63: Main Menu

In GPS speak, a "Point of Interest", or POI, is a business address saved on the GPS. You can think of the POI database as a yellow pages installed on the GPS. Most automotive GPS devices come pre-loaded with a Points of Interest database, allowing you to find nearby businesses, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and more.

When connected via Wi-Fi or GPRS, Dash Express has a virtually unlimited number of POIs. All searches are performed via Yahoo! Local Search, creating an unlimited POI database that's always current.

The bad news? Without an active monthly subscription, Dash Express has a paltry POI database of 2 million entries. Most other GPS units have between 4 and 8 million.

To begin searching for a restaurant (or any other Point of Interest), tap "Search (connected)" from the Main Menu.

Figure 64: Entering the Restaurant Name

Use the on-screen keyboard to spell the name of the restaurant, and tap "search".

If you'd rather browse through a list of nearby restaurants, tap "browse" and choose "Food" as the category.

Figure 65: POI Search Results Screen

Yahoo! search displays the restaurant name, address, average user rating.

Figure 66: Restaurant Details Screen

Tapping on a restaurant from the search results list (fig. 65) displays the screen shown above. From here you can perform the following tasks:

• Routes - Calculate a route to the restaurant and begin navigating
• Back - Return to the previous screen
• Favorite - Add this restaurant to the favorites
• Save - Save this restaurant to the saved address book
• Map it - show the destination address on the map