Walkabout GPS Style |
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What isn’t there to love about
GPS devices? Not only can I navigate to Graceland, Yosemite,
or South Beach and back without a road map, but with
the new portable GPS models, I can walk or bike with
confidence to anywhere in the city – even that
new Trader Joe’s that friends always tell me is
“somewhere over there.”
The mobile GPS devices are sleek and rechargeable (think
iPod) and come with “walking” or “biking”
settings that keep you on pedestrian-friendly thoroughfares.
After giving a few of the most popular units a test
drive, I found a few favorites.
Steve
Editor — Home
Electronics Journal
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Imagine getting from point A to point B easily and efficiently
– and that’s it. That’s the TomTom
ONE. It’s an elegant GPS solution offering navigation
essentials and accurate directions without the frills.
With a clean interface, intuitive touchscreen and competitive
price, it’s perfect for first-time buyers. Featuring
a sleek body design and weighing in at 6.5 ounces, it’s
also an enjoyable and reliable unit to walk with –
that is, once you figure out how to put it in pedestrian
mode. |
| Garmin
Nüvi 360 – MSRP $749 |
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The Garmin
Nüvi 360 is not for the faint of heart. It is
so chock-full of features that it’s not even called
a GPS device but instead a “Personal Travel Assistant.”
This versatile GPS comes with everything but the kitchen
sink – hands-free Bluetooth® wireless technology,
an MP3 player, picture viewer, world travel time-zone
clock, currency converter, measurement converter, language
dictionaries ($75), and world travel guides (ranging from
$70 to $160), just to name a few. However, its battery
life suffers from all its super-cool features. On the
Nüvi, you get an average of three hours of battery
life as compared to the industry standard of four to eight
hours. My advice is to lay off the power-sucking bells
and whistles if you need the Nüvi’s expert
(and fully juiced) assistance. |
The Navman
N60i has an extra-wide touchscreen and is easy to
use. Cutting to the chase, the most striking feature of
this model is its 1.3-megapixel camera, which allows you
to store the locations of images with geographical information.
Your “NavPix” are geo-tagged with latitude
and longitude information, making it possible for you
to snap a photo of a place (like an address-free sandy
beach), save it in your favorite locations, and in future,
be guided back to that exact spot. There have been countless
times I’ve wandered past a restaurant or store that
piques my interest – only to forget where it is
(and what it’s named) a day later. With the Navman
N60i, I can just snap a shot, assign it as a favorite
location, and re-find that happenstance discovery some
other day. |
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©
2007 Home Electronics Journal, a Thomas, Townsend & Kent
publication. All rights reserved.
Thomas,
Townsend & Kent, www.thomastownsendandkent.com
325 W. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60610
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