Top Stories and Top 5 Reviews for 2009 at GPS Lodge

As the year comes to a close, I thought I would wrap it up with the most popular stories that you clicked on in the last year. The year was driven by a lot of deals, and interest in some of the well built, lower priced GPS units that graced the store shelves - virtual or not.

Garmin Nuvi 780 - this Nuvi was on special a lot this year, giving the user access to traffic reports, gas prices, local events, weather and more through the MSN service. The unit is solid, but the MSN service is scheduled to go away Jan 1, 2012 - still a while to go. See my full review of the Nuvi 780
Garmin Nuvi 755T - the traffic enabled Nuvi 755T is a next generation device offering free subscription to NAVTEQ traffic through an ad supported model. Concerned with intrusive ads? Don't be, the ads are really minor and area a small trade-off for the free service. The Nuvi 755T offers a lot with an improved interface, faster route calculations, Nuvi-optimized multi-destination routing (say that 10 time fast!), and a speed limit indicator right on the screen. See my full review of the Nuvi 755T
Garmin Nuvi 205W/255W - a strong contender throughout the year as these units bring solid features to the market at a reasonable price. Widescreen and for the 255W, test to speech capabilities make this a very broadly appealing feature set for the market. I bought a couple of these this year for myself and for presents. See my full review of the Garmin Nuvi 205W/255W
TomTom 330/330S - the Holiday rainmaker GPS - plenty of sales made this a strong contender at the end of the year. The widescreen units offered users a great set of features at some unbelievable prices. Still a solid choice, especially if you pick the "S" model which has text to speech. See my full review of the TomTom 330/330S
Garmin Nuvi 205/255 - the standard sized screen entry level units that get user to their location with ease and confidence. The Nuvi 255 adds maps of Canada and Hawaii/Puerto Rico. See my full review of the Nuvi 205/255

In retrospect, 2009 was also the year when a few other major trends hit the navigation market. While they weren't the top news stories by page view counts, I think these really are the top items that hit the market this year and will continue to affect the market as we move forward.

iPhone Navigation Applications - Becoming some of the top grossing Apps in the App Store, the iPhone/iPod Touch navigation apps are really very usable and great to have along with you when you travel. There is a value in having navigation capability with you all of the time. I have pulled out the iPhone and navigated several times when riding with others; always wows the audience and always performs well. I have reviewed the TomTom App, and am in the middle of reviewing the Navigon App right now. With a half dozen of these on the market, and more coming, they are coming faster than I can keep up with.
Google Navigation - the Free application for Android is sure to change the market. Google usually goes big, and is not afraid to take on big markets. To me, Google appears to be headed in the direction of helping you search for anything in your life. The application offers a lot of cool capabilities that only Google can offer at this point. They are buying Yelp - the search for all kinds of Points of Interest, especially through their augmented reality browser. Google gets into Navigation on the Mobile Phone
Connected GPS - So, finally Garmin launched theirs, Dash left the market/got sold, Telenav launched their Shotgun connected GPS, and TomTom launched a follow-up to their original 740 Live. If the recession didn't come, and unemployment didn't hit 10% in the US, maybe these would have had a better reception. The problem is that things like the iPhone have set the bar pretty high for connectedness and capabilities, so getting movie times through the GPS isn't all that awesome anymore. Can you please make this ad supported to make it a free service? What these need to do is nail traffic for users; I mean really nail it with surface road traffic integration and smart forecasting. Maybe for 2010, please?

It's not a surprise that all of these biggie ideas are connected ideas; it's where the world is going and it's where the GPS needs to go to be more useful.

With CES 2010 right around the corner, I have to think that there are a few innovations that are going to find their way to the mainstream, and features that make navigating a lot easier.

December 30, 2009

Top Stories and Top 5 Reviews for 2009 at GPS Lodge