Never get lost when to grandmother’s house you go with a GPS navigator. These handy devices will give you turn-by-turn directions, easily readable maps, and often suggest restaurants, gas stations, and rest stops along the way. The best navigators provide even more information and help, making your trip as easy as possible.

Ditch the paper atlas and misleading Google Maps directions and get or give a GPS navigator this season. Click here for our favorites.

We recently praised TomTom

Interface and Features

MapQuest’s app can do a lot of things: give driving directions, perform local searches (MapQuest boasts more than 16 million points of interest), using the iPhone’s GPS to establish a base location, and even speak street names, something we complained that TomTom’s app can’t do. Users can also choose between 2D and 3D  maps.

One of the things that really sold me is the points of interest carousel lining the bottom of the screen. The scrolling, icon-based menu gives users access to common categories of destinations, such as airports. It’s that pretty interface, coupled, with the quicker access to things people often search for, that sold me in my brief hands-on.

Pricing and Availability

As I said, the app is a subscription-based service. Whereas TomTom’s app costs a one-time fee of $99.99 (the car mount is sold separately), MapQuest’s app costs $3.99 for one month, $9.99 for three months, and $29.99 for one year. Is this a good deal? Depends how you look at it. It’s true that a subscription models means you keep paying, but in a head-to-head with the TomTom app, at least, you’d have to use it for over two years to  match that hundred-dollar investment.

Which app wins out? That’ll have to wait until we get hands on with the MapQuest app in a longer-term, real-world situation. Until then, color us curious. Check out more screens after the jump.

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]]> http://blog.laptopmag.com/mapquest-navigator-app-for-iphone-rivals-tomtoms/feed http://blog.laptopmag.com/navigon-calls-it-quits-on-us-pnd-market http://blog.laptopmag.com/navigon-calls-it-quits-on-us-pnd-market#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 09:07:39 +0000 Todd Haselton http://blog.laptopmag.com/?p=15264 Navigon today announced that it is leaving the North American personal navigation device (PND) market, due to economic stress.

The good news is, if you are a current Navigon owner, CEO Egon Minar told GPSBusinessNews.com that Navigon “will continue to fulfill all obligations to our existing PND customers in terms of map update[s], etc.” Hopefully that means support and “Lifetime traffic,” are still included in those obligations.

The company is hoping to pump up its mobile business, though. It recently signed on with T-Mobile Germany for built-in navigation on its line of smart phones. T-Mobile in the United States uses a Telenav solution on its devices.

[via GPSBusinessNews]

Version 2.0 adds predictive functionality, forecasting how fast roads will be moving in the future, in addition to reporting how clogged they are at a given moment. It does this by taking into account not just historical road speeds, but weather reports, construction projects, and other upcoming events.

Like version 1.0, Dynaflow 2.0 uses red, yellow, and green color coding to signal to users, at a glance, how crowded roadways are.

To get started, we simply had to install the new version of Google Maps. Then we clicked the Menu button and selected Latitude. From this menu, you’ll be able to view your friends and add new ones. It will automatically pull contacts down from your GMail account and you can check off any friends you’d like to see on a map. A privacy tab lets you share your location manually, share it constantly, or hide it altogether. Any friends you had have to approve and set their own privacy settings.

When your friends approve, you’ll see them in Google Maps, each represented by a small square with their preset buddy icon. If you hover over their square, you can also view their status update. We really wish this was tightly integrated with Google Talk, a simple “Message John” button, for example, would be very useful. Google could even add in a green, red, or grey icon representing if the user was online. We hope this is added in a future update.

We tested the service on a BlackBerry 8900 from T-Mobile, and the performance was excellent. Within a minute of adding a friend, we saw them on the map. This time will vary, of course, depending how quickly they approve your request. The location of a family member across town was dead-on, and we could see another friend at JFK before taking off. However, a co-worker in our office was placed a block away, so it’s not 100 percent perfect.

We love Latitude. It reminds us a lot of Loopt, but GMail already has millions of users, so it’s more likely your friends will use Latitude instead.

Check it out for yourself by visiting Google.com/gmm on your mobile browser or www.google.com/latitude.

The Go 740 Live measures 3.4 x 5 x 0.9 inches in size and weighs just 7.9 ounces. It has a 4.3-inch, 480 x 272-pixel resolution touchscreen, 2GB of internal memory, and Bluetooth for hands-free calling. Its built-in SIM card support and GPRS modem keep it connected for updates, but more importantly, for Google search and traffic information.

More details and a hands-on video after the break.

TomTom’s IQ Routes automatically calculates the fastest route depending on the time of day you’re driving. This information is taken from a database of stored historical travel data over the past two years across 1.8 trillion miles of road. TomTom told us this means if you’re used to taking Main Street every day on your way to work, but it’s always flooded with traffic at 8 a.m., the device will automatically route you down side roads to avoid that traffic.

Thanks to its GPRS receiver, the device can grab live traffic every 2 to 5 minutes along your route. It will then suggest an alternate route to help save time. TomTom offers this service free for the first year, but hasn’t yet announced the subscription rates that will follow.

The Go 740 Live also supports Google Search using its two-way wireless data connection. This will allow drivers to search for points of interest along the route across 11 million businesses. The results will provide both the location and the phone number, and using the Bluetooth sync drivers can place calls directly from the unit.

Other features include TomTom Weather for five-day forecasts, fuel prices across 120,000 different gas stations, TomTom Buddies, which lets you link your device to a friend to stay up to date on their location or send texts through the devices, and QuickGPSfix for grabbing a GPS connection quickly. Finally, the GO 740 Live offers a new user interface with lane guidance, voice recognition, and map sharing for updating devices to share with the TomTom community. Voice recognition lets you speak 130 different commands to the device, to have it automatically take you home, or check the traffic.

The Go 740 Live will set you back $499 and will be available at major retailers in the second quarter of 2009. We can’t wait to do a full review of this feature-packed (albeit pricey) device.

Doppler Weather Maps
The enhancements include full doppler weather maps which provide up to date weather conditions, which you can view as text or in full weather radar images and map overlays. You’ll be able to view whether the rain storm up ahead is light, medium, or heavy, which will let you make the decision as to whether you should pull over and wait out the storm miles before you ever have to risk driving through it. More impressive, it will notify tell you whether the ice conditions or snowstorm ahead are light, heavy mix, ice and light, or heavy snow. We’re particularly impressed by these updates, which are taking more consideration into driver safety than ever before.

Flight Status Updates
The system will also let you check flight status updates. This is great for when you have to pick up a friend at the airport and have to choose between running through McDonald’s, or attempting to show up on-time just to find out your buddies’ flight is delayed. You can check flights by their departure or arrival time, city, or flight number, and the system will tell you whether the plane is on time, delayed, or if the flight has been cancelled or redirected to another airport.

Microsoft also announced that its MSN Direct service is available in 134 markets across 26 personal navigation devices, and that its traffic service is now available in twice the metropolitan areas as before.

The S556 offers a rather large 4.7-inch display and a brand new, “uncluttered” user interface that Mio claims will help its customers reach any of the 12 million points of interest quicker. The simplified menu offers eight initial home screen choices: Explore, Find, Go, Music, My Places, Petrol, Settings, and Traffic.

The S556 also offers eight preloaded WCities, which offer information on local dining spots, accommodations, shopping locations, and city-specific entertainment spots. If you need to make a call on the road, you can do so using the device’s Bluetooth support for integration with your phone book.

Mio intends to provide users with a few bells and whistles on the S556 that will actually help drivers, instead of unnecessary ones like a video viewer, that won’t actually assist anyone trying to get from point A to point B. While $299 is a bit steep, if the device is as simple to use as Mio claims, users will appreciate its features as much as they’ll appreciate the sleek design and large display. We’ll bring you our impressions after we get a full hands-on.

But the most important aspect is its support for AAA service. Drivers can send their location using AAA Mobile Navigator directly to AAA for roadside assistance. For $9.99 per month or $2.99 per day, dark and desolate roads will never be frightening again.