Category — GPS Manufacturers

According to the Boy Genius Report, Wal-Mart will begin carrying the 3G iPhone in 2500 locations beginning December 28.  69 Sam’s Club locations will also commence iPhone-carrying the same day.  Unfortunately there hasn’t been a price leak yet, but I can just see iPhone price cuts immediately after Christmas!

via bgr (Image Credit: Crawfishpie)

Mio C728, seen earlier this year at IFA, has been hanging around Taiwan for a bit, but will finally be available for purchase in Europe come December.  It boasts a giant 7-inch 800 x 480 LCD touchscreen; great for the car, but definitely not suitable for the pocket.  It also has a DVB-T TV tuner for picking up local television and radio broadcasts, something that North American’s aren’t familiar with.  Other features include RDS-TMC real-time traffic, a database of speed camera locations, 2 GB of internal memory coupled with an SD card expansion slot, and all-you-can-sense multimedia playback.  When it hits Europe in December, it’ll retail for € 499.

via yournav

Boaters using Garmin’s BlueChart marine technology to navigate the high seas, lakes, and rivers will be getting an upgrade soon.  Starting in January 2009, Garmin will be replacing the current BlueChart’s with an enhanced version of BlueChart g2.  Says Garmin,

“revised mapping data will add increased dimension and standardized information to the Garmin marine chart offerings, and will allow the user to define colors to depth contour ranges. Users will also benefit from improved transition between zoom levels and seamless changes across chart boundaries with the redesigned product.”

BlueChart g2 will include basic charts, tidal stations, currents, perspective view and fishing charts, while keeping the products usability similar to the current version.

Additionally, Garmin will also be launching an upgraded BlueChart g2 Vision providing high-resolution satellite imagery, 3D views both above and under water, and auto guidance with compatible units.

via garmin

Skyhook Wireless has made a hugely important strategic move today, not only cementing their future in the mobile handset market, but ensuring that positioning in mobile handsets is a helluva lot more accurate.  The company has licensed Qualcomm their Wi-Fi Position System (WPS) for use in former’s gpsOne positioning system, used in over 400 million handsets globally.

So what does this mean? First off, it cements Skyhook Wireless as the world’s foremost Wi-Fi positioning technology provider and places them in an enviable position compared to the Garmin’s and TomTom’s of the world.  They’ll be around for awhile.  Second off, end consumers like you and me who own handsets with Qualcomm GPS chips will find ourselves on the end of faster positioning fixes, and fewer drop in urban canyons and tunnels.

It will also be a boon to location-based application developers who achieve greater usability for their products, thanks to an innovation completely unrelated to their own work.  I’m sure Qualcomm realizes this and I wonder if that’s why the company has released the brand new Brew Mobile Platform SDK today.

Suitable for use in both lower and higher-end handsets, and all 3G technologies, the Brew Mobile Platform SDK also integrates Adobe Flash bringing a whole new level of functionality to mobile apps.  Is it possible we could see the location-based YouTube for mobile in the near future.  Who knows, but wouldn’t it be cool?

And I think that just might be Qualcomm’s thinking.  A member of the Open Screen Project, Qualcomm is looking to bring such rich user experiences to all screens: the TV, computer, and mobile phone.

(Image Credit: Skyhook Wireless)

There’s been rumor that wireless carrier O2’s new XDA Zest, manufactured by Asus, is one and the same with the P565.  You’ll notice the specs differ slightly, but it’s definitely from the same family.

The XDA Zest, like the P565, runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 powered by a slower 624MHz Marvell TavorP processor, and makes room for 128 MB SDRAM and 256 MB Flash ROM.  Compatible with tri-band GPRS/EDGE networks, the XDA Zest can also run on HSDPA and features Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, MP3 playback, a 2.8-inch TFT VGA display and has a microSD slot.

Obviously it packs GPS, in the form of a SiRFStar III chipset, and comes with a trial version of the CoPilot Sat Nav app which provides maps of the UK and Ireland.  On sale starting today in bricks-and-mortar O2 stores and online, the XDA Zest is £249.99 with a Pay&Go plan, or free with select monthly contracts.

via gsmarena

The Asus P565 business PDA is official.  Powered by a lightning fast 800 MHz processor, the Asus P565 runs on HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks, and boasts an integrated SiRFStar III InstantFix GPS chipset.  The 2.8-inch touchscreen has 480 x 640 pixels and is able to display photos from the P565’s 3 megapixel autofocus camera, secondary VGA camera, as well as QVGA MPEG4/H.264 video at 24 frames per second.  Despite the high-end specs, which also include Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, and a microSD/SDHC card slot, the Asus P565 features WIndows Mobile 6.1 as an operating system.  But hey, every good GPS device has at least one weak point right?

via itechnews

QStarz has launched the GPS Sports Recorder-Explore 2000 today, a device geared toward sports such as cycling, jogging, and even sailing.  The device comes bundled with QSports software that allows you to statistically and graphically analyze all your critical exercise stats.

The sports recorder features a backlit LCD display that shows statistics such as your speed, moving time, average speed, elevation, and latitude and longitude.  It has 4 MB of memory, enough to store 260, 000 waypoints and has an excellent 20 hour operating time.  The QSports software is actually a dual package including QSports and Travel Recorder.

QSports, basically your sports management database, allows you to use your personal data for calculating the amount of calories you should consume, planning your training, and creating tracks and routes that you can share with your friends.

The Travel Recorder uses built-in Google Maps for its user interface, simplifying your ability to visualize imported data from the sports recorder.  In fact, it even has a QWizard to further simplify the importation/exportation process.  Furthermore, routes and waypoints can be integrated into both Flickr and Locr, and several file formats are supported including HTML/MHT/GPX/KMZ/KML/CSV files.

Available today, the QStarz GPS Sports Recorder-Explore 2000 will retail for $99.

via qstarz

A GPS-enabled Asus UMPC is nothing new, but the insanity of the R50A’s price tag definitely is.  Shipping from Informatic Center in Madrid, Spain, the Asus R50A sells for €1475 or about US$1850.  Okay, I know everyone has to make a living, but that price tag for the UMPC powered by a Centrino Atom processor, running on Windows Vista and with HSDPA connectivity seems just a little high.  Even if you include the GPS, 5.6-inch touchscreen 32 GB SSD, and 3.5-hour battery.

via pocketables

The folks over at CNET have taken a run at Sony’s NV-U44 and found that it’s a solid entry-level device, and a great buy for those looking for nothing buy basic navigational features.  This isn’t a device for multimedia freaks.  In fact, all’s it has is a Photo Viewer that allows viewing of JPEG photos.

So let’s start with the bad.  First off, the predictive text entry feature is predictably unpredictable.  At times, the predictive search results in a sudden jump to a new page, resulting in accidentally picking the wrong prediction at the last moment.  The best bet here is to type slow.  Secondly, while gesture control is a cool feature, it isn’t well documented in either the instruction booklet or on Sony’s website.  Nor are gestures such as an inverted ‘V’ for returning to the home page particularly intuitive.

The list of good features is quite a bit longer.  For an entry level device priced at an MSRP of $249 (but often priced less online), the NV-U44 offers the text-to-speech feature of its main competitors, TomTom’s ONE 130S and Garmin’s nuvi 255W.  However, Sony’s 3.5-inch navigator offers dual view with lane guidance easing the process of moving through complicated junctions and intersections.  Combined with text-to-speech, the NV-U44 actually allows you to keep your eyes on the road more than its competitors.  In my opinion, that’s invaluable not only to the device’s usability, but also to the safety of those on the road.

All in all Sony’s NV-U44 is probably one of the best entry-level devices on the market right now.

Sony NV-U44-$199.99 at Amazon

via cnet

NDrive has been busy lately, recently launching their Touch PND’s, and now the assisted GPS-enabled NDrive S400 Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional handset.  The S400 isn’t short on impressive specs stuffing a 624 MHz Marvell PXA310 Processor and high-end Qualcomm 6280 chipset into its tight form factor.  It has a 2.8-inch display, 3 megapixel autofocus/front VGA camera’s, 256 of ROM and 128 of RAM, video out port, microSDHC card slot, built-in accelerometer, and FM-RDS radio.  Connectivity support includes quad-band GSM/UMTS/HSDPA with download speeds up to 7.2 MBps, Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi.  The S400’s 1500mAh lithium ion battery should be plenty to support all of these high-end features as well.

via navigadget