Though Garmin’s Nuvi 680 and Mio’s DigiWalker C520 both provide clear, accurate directions, the pricey Nuvi offers several nice extras.
Mio Technology DigiWalker C520

The latest GPS devices from Garmin and from Mio Technology–the Nuvi 680 and the DigiWalker C520, respectively–both provide detailed maps, but that’s only the beginning of their capabilities. Both products attempt to be all-in-one travel companions, each unit offering an SD Card slot for viewing images and video on its 4.3-inch touch screen, as well as for playing music files while you navigate or view your location on a map.

Garmin’s high-end, $675 Nuvi 680 adds the ability to stream directions and other audio through your car’s FM stereo. Mio’s $350 DigiWalker C520 lacks many of the Nuvi 680’s extras, but it’s a capable navigator with some nice touches of its own, at a much lower price.

In addition to the features you’d expect from a GPS device–clear on-screen and voiced navigation directions (including the mostly accurate pronunciation of street names), high-quality 3D maps, and a points-of-interest database–the Nuvi 680 offers a basic media player for viewing image and video files and for playing audio, including books downloaded from Audible.com. The device’s Travel Kit also contains a language guide that pronounces words and phrases in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, translated to and from English (you can download other languages and guides for an additional fee).

You also get one free year of the MSN Direct service, which provides traffic and weather information, gas prices, and movie times via a receiver built into the Nuvi 680’s 12-volt power adapter. After the first year you can pay a one-time fee of $130, or $50 a year. The traffic information is available inlimited areas, and even in those regions you may not be covered.

For example, I selected the northernmost section of the San Francisco region only to find that I was about 10 miles outside the coverage area. It wasn’t until I drove into the area that the MSN Direct information could download to the GPS. The initial download can take several hours, according to both Garmin and MSN, but I began receiving reports on traffic conditions along my route after only about an hour. When you encounter traffic the Nuvi 680 offers to route you around it, but I wouldn’t have saved much time with the alternates it suggested. Still, this feature could come in handy.

Another nice extra is the Nuvi 680’s Garmin Lock security feature, which lets you designate a four-digit PIN as well as a security location (such as your home). You must either enter the code or be at the security location to unlock the device.

On several occasions the Nuvi 680 delivered directions too late for me to follow them, while the Mio was more timely. This disparity occurred on both surface streets and the highway, while I used both products simultaneously.

All the most important features of the Nuvi 680 are available in Mio’s less-expensive DigiWalker C520, though without much of the polish. The one major exception is the ability to stream the device’s audio through your car’s FM radio. Even without this function, however, the C520 measures up fairly well, pronouncing street names as it directs you (although you have to change the default voice to get this option). The device’s 3D maps and trip information are easy to see on its wide screen, but the display isn’t as bright as that of the Nuvi 680, nor are the maps and other on-screen options as easy to spot. Each unit comes in a slim and light package measuring slightly under 5 by 3 by 1 inches, and weighing about 6.5 ounces.

Both products use the SiRF Star III GPS transceiver for fast and accurate positioning, although the Nuvi 680 generally suggested faster routes than the C520 did. The Mio GPS was also much less inclined than the Garmin product to give up on its first route suggestion and offer a true alternate. For example, both devices directed me into the teeth of morning commute traffic, and both recalculated quickly when I ignored their advice and took faster surface streets. But while the Garmin’s first recalculated route was my preferred alternate, the Mio instructed me to turn right at every subsequent intersection for about a half mile in an attempt to return me to the route it had selected originally.

You can sync your Bluetooth headset or phone with either device, but each supports a limited variety of phones. I was able to sync a Motorola Razr V3 with the Nuvi 680 only after I reset the phone’s “Find me” option. Repeated attempts to link the phone to the C520 caused the GPS to freeze, requiring a restart. I wasn’t able to complete the sync on the C520, even though the Razr is listed as a supported phone on Mio’s Web site.

The Mio DigiWalker C520 packs a lot of GPS features in a small, affordable box, but it lacks the polish and the range of features of the more expensive Garmin Nuvi 680. Many people will find such extras as the Garmin Lock security feature, the ability to stream sound through their car stereo, and the free year of traffic, weather, gas price, and other travel information well worth the Nuvi 680’s higher cost.

Source: Washington Post

I’ve always disliked back-seat drivers because they never cease to state the obvious. Like a light turning red or a car cutting in front of me. I figure if someone eight inches away from me can see something I can’t, we’re already in big trouble.

But those prejudices have to change fast as there’s a new passenger in the car who won’t flinch at the threat of being dumped off at a street corner – the Global Positioning System, or GPS, unit. Developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1970s, GPS devices can pinpoint a person’s location to within several metres by using more than 24 satellites that orbit approximately 18,000 kilometres above Earth. That’s why these gadgets are the newest must-have among outdoor enthusiasts and the directionally challenged.

Can’t figure out which way is north or south? No problem. If you’re like my sister who gets lost in Wal-Mart, a GPS unit is your new best friend. Type in an address and it’ll give you step-by-step directions as you’re on the road.

Like the time I was driving with a friend in Los Angeles. She had a portable unit suctioned on the dashboard and we were inching our way in the carpool lane on an exhaust-filled freeway near the Los Angeles International Airport. Only the GPS didn’t know we were in that lane.

As we approached an exit, the robotic she-voice became increasingly insistent with commands to “Turn right, turn right now!” My friend frantically started navigating her way through four lanes of traffic to make an off-ramp that was mere metres away. A shouting match ensued between me and the GPS. Fortunately, I won.

But my friend is not the only one relying on technology instead of eyesight. In December, a British ambulance crew transferring a patient to a London-area hospital relied on their GPS – and drove more than 300 kilometres in the wrong direction. According to a United Press International article, the drivers were told “to study their geography and learn to think for themselves.” What a revolutionary idea.

As with all technology that becomes available to the country’s pencil pushers, GPS units are popping up everywhere as stores slash price tags. The NPD Group, a market research firm in New York, reports about 106,000 units were sold in Canada in 2006, raking in $52.4 million. The firm says that’s a 923 per cent increase in volume and a 453 per cent dollar increase from 2005.

With numbers like that, marketers are salivating. Dunkin’ Brands was the first to litter the pristine digital roadway by signing an agreement with GPS manufacturer TomTom. Through this collaboration, users can pinpoint Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins locations in the United States by downloading the logos onto their units.

As if we’re not already having trouble watching our burgeoning waistlines. Now your uninvited passengers include virtual doughnuts and ice cream cones.

GPS technology also changes the rules for The Amazing Race and Survivor. Future shows could revolve around parachuting contestants into unfamiliar cities – without their trusty GPS units. Allowed only a dog-eared, coffee-stained paper map, the “Extreme Me Generation” would trod a circular path and collapse from exhaustion, unable to tell east from west and streets from avenues.

Before T.S. Eliot died in 1965, an age eerily devoid of our indispensable laptops, cellphones and iPods, the famed poet lamented, “Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?” Mr. Eliot, we still can’t answer that question.

Source: The Star