This was another fun month here at the GPS Lodge, as we were able to bring you a lot of GPS News this month. Most recently you may have seen us referenced on Gizmodo where they picked up our exciting announcement on the new Magellan RoadMate 800. If this is your first trip to the GPS Lodge, welcome. Check us out, we have a lot of GPS information and GPS reviews on receivers and devices. While you are here, check out some of the other sites at the Blogpire.
We also covered Magellan's announcement of their new RoadMate 360, adding features to the low end of the automotive market. We also reviewed the Magellan eXplorist 600 this month - Magellan's high end handheld.
In news from the other biggie in the industry here in the US, Garmin announced the new Garmin Nuvi, a personal navigation handheld device geared for travelers - complete with translation capabilities. Garmin kept up a fast pace on GPS releases, with the new Garmin StreetPilot i5 - a great little inexpensive automotive GPS. Wonder how Garmin can keep up the fast pace of new introductions? Check out our article on Garmin's HUGE increase in R&D spending. In cleaning up some older business, we reviewed the tried but true Garmin V GPS; is it a handheld? Is it an Automotive GPS model? It's both!
In other news, AOL's MapQuest announced that they will start selling a MapQuest branded TomTom model. In case an automotive GPS is too big, you can carry along a key chain GPS from Navicom or the GPS watch from Suunto. Finally there's some interesting news coming out on the Navman PIN 570.
Another week and another Best of the Blogpire. If you haven't checked out GPS Lodge then you're missing some of the best GPS news & reviews on the web. They've got a great review of the new Magellan RoadMate 800 which has an mp3 player built in. Now on with the Best of the Blogpire!
The latest in the RoadMate series has been announced (not officially - more later) upping the ante on the hot automotive GPS market. The Magellan RoadMate 800 adds a couple of extended features on top of the popular RoadMate 760 released earlier this year, namely a build in MP3 player and a photo viewer. Magellan calls it a "multimedia marvel." This release comes on the heels of the new Automotive GPS, the Magellan RoadMate 360 which was announced September 14, 2005 (see article).
Update March 24, 2006 -
Looking for the new Magellan RoadMate 860T - Click Here
Looking for the new Magellan RoadMate 3000T - Click Here
Anyway, much like it's little brother the Magellan RoadMate 760(see review), the feature set on the GPS side of the RoadMate 800 is plush and rock solid.
Honda has selected Garmin to be part of their tier one parts providers for GPS units to be sold on their Gold Wing motorcycles.
Known as the Honda Satellite Linked Navigation System, it provides complete North American mapping with nearly six million points of interest - places like hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, and Honda Motorcycle dealerships and service centers - displayed on a large seven-inch integrated display.
Magellan: $50 rebate on eXplorist 400, 500, 600 Through Feb '06
Magellan just announced a $50 mail-in rebate on the eXplorist 400, 500, and 600 for new products purchased between September 24th, 2005 and February 18, 2006. The offer is valid in the US and Canada.
Details and rebate forms available at the Magellan Site.
Inrix announced today at CTIA Wireless 2005 that it has partnered with Tele Atlas, a leading provider of digital geographic content, to deliver Inrix Traffic Services to Tele Atlas partners and customers through a reseller agreement. As part of the agreement, Tele Atlas will also provide Inrix with the rights to resell and internally use Tele Atlas map data with Inrix's services.
AOL's MapQuest in deal with TomTom- The MapQuest PND
UPDATE: We have received pictures from MapQuest and here it is the MapQuest branded Personal Navigation Device (PND). Not bad; like we thought, looks like a TomTom GO 300. Good for them, happy to have more people driving the use of GPS to the masses. TomTom is under represented in the US market despite their high quality GPS devices and interfaces. Maybe this will give them some help and on the back of AOL/MapQuest, they'll do well.
Sept 27th - TomTom, (makers of the TomTom GO300, GO700, TomTom Rider, and the NAVIGATOR 5 - a BlueTooth GPS module) announced today that they are working with AOL's MapQuest to launch an automobile unit - branded the MapQuest Personal Navigation Device (PND).
From the information here, it sounds like a re-branded and customized TomTom GO 300, pictured to the right - second pic.
"The MapQuest Personal Navigation Device represents the most natural and significant extension of our brand to date, as we move beyond the PC and take navigation into the car making it simple for drivers to reach their desired destination and change course, if needed," said Austin Klahn, Chief Technology Officer, MapQuest, Inc. "We selected TomTom, a global leader in developing personal navigation solutions, as we believe they offer the latest technology and the best consumer experience in personal navigation devices in the marketplace today."
Garmin StreetPilots featured with Dollar/Thrifty Rental cars
In a move that will certainly be seen as an intrusion on the Magellan/Hertz space (another salvo in the Garmin vs. Magellan battle), Garmin has announced that a unit based on the StreetPilot c330 portable automotive GPS will be available on Dollar and Thrifty rental cars at 138 rental locations throughout the US and Canada. The extra cost will be about $10 a day.
AOL's MapQuest in deal with TomTom- The MapQuest PND
TomTom, (makers of the TomTom GO300, GO700, TomTom Rider, and the NAVIGATOR 5 - a BlueTooth GPS module) announced today that they are working with AOL's MapQuest to launch an automobile unit - branded the MapQuest Personal Navigation Device (PND).
From the information here, it sounds like a re-branded and customized TomTom GO 300, pictured to the right.
"The MapQuest Personal Navigation Device represents the most natural and significant extension of our brand to date, as we move beyond the PC and take navigation into the car making it simple for drivers to reach their desired destination and change course, if needed," said Austin Klahn, Chief Technology Officer, MapQuest, Inc. "We selected TomTom, a global leader in developing personal navigation solutions, as we believe they offer the latest technology and the best consumer experience in personal navigation devices in the marketplace today."
With more and more people (civilian and military) using GPS signals, a new more powerful replacement satellite was launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral. The 2 ton GPS 2R-M1 is a new breed of satellite that will provide the normal navigation signals, as well as an extra civilian signal. These new signals will bring greater accuracy, added resistance to interference and enhanced performance for users around the world. On top of this two new military signals will be broadcast from the satellite.
The Magellan eXplorist 600is a high end handheld that is packed with features and allows you to navigate the world with ease and comfort of the amenities that you'd come to expect or dream of in an advanced handheld GPS. In this review of the Magellan eXplorist 600, the GPS Lodge will take a look at the features and usefulness of the eXplorist 600, we'll sum it up and give you a couple of other units to compare it to if you are thinking of buying one.
This latest GPS tracking device from Navicom is small enough to be placed on a keychain, but features a full set of GPS functionality. The C-TRAC GPS Personal Tracker has unlimited GPS tracking/locating, an E911 emergency feature, and even a push-button concierge service akin to GM's OnStar - working through the cellular network. Since its E911 functions work through a cellular network, don't expect help to come running when you hit the call button from 100 miles away deep in the back woods. Other features include a two-way speaker phone, programmable buttons for one-touch dialing, a USB port, and 256k flash memory.
Here's a quick bit that I came across today and thought that I would pass along......
Readers of the GPS Lodge know that Garmin has been introducing new GPS devices by the truckload since July..... the Garmin StreetPilots (i2, i3,i5, c340, 2720), the innovative Garmin nuvi, the bicyclist targeted Garmin Edge, the new FRS based RINO 520 and 530, the Garmin Mobile phone service, the Jeep Wrangler only Trail Guide, the iQue M3, the Garmin GPSMap 376c and the Quest 2 receiver... whew! Are there more, our sources say that there are. Ever wonder what's changed? A huge increase in R&D spending is what's changed. In 2003 R&D spending was a fraction of what it was the following year....
Gizmondo has confirmed that they are planning a release of a widescreen version of their GPS enabled handheld game. We discussed their original launch HERE. Seems like they have announced the upgrade before even launching the original product here in the States. Either brilliant - people love hype, or Short Sighted - "Forget the original, I hear they have a widescreen coming".
Navman's got a new PiN device out, the Pocket PC based 570. It looks a lot like the Garmin iQue, and the PiN 570 features Navman's SmartST 2005 software, a 2.5-inch 65k color QVGA touchscreen, a 266MHz CPU, 64MB RAM, SDIO slot, and no Windows Mobile 5.0.
TomTom and BestBuy announced today that TomTom GO models 300 and 700 will be available through all 694 BestBuy locations nationally this month.
"The market potential for personal navigation devices is tremendous; through this relationship, Best Buy will broaden TomTom's reach and bring the TomTom GO line to drivers nationwide," said Jocelyn Vigreux, President of TomTom USA. "This only reinforces that consumers want personal navigation in their lives."
With the Commodore 64 ancient history, the name resurfaces again reincarnated as a combo device that has a GPS incorporated into a video and music playing handheld device. No you don't have to hook it up to your casette player to store data like the old Commodore 64, instead this device comes with a 30GB on board hard drive that has maps pre-loaded.
Just when you thought things couldn't get smaller, the Suunto x9i watch brings GPS to your wrist. The Suunto x9i is not much bigger than other watches, but comes packed with a GPS receiver that allows you to plug into a computer and download your trips. Some features include black or tan colors, an altimeter, barometer, 3D compass, chronograph and comprehensive GPS unit accurate to three feet. Did I mention it's compatible with National Geographic TOPO!
New Garmin StreetPilot i5 - building on the entry level of the Automotive segment
Garmin today announced the Garmin StreetPilot i5 GPS Navigator, it is pre-loaded with detailed maps of North America which includes the entire United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It features three buttons on the face of the unit: on/off button, "back" button, and a unique and convenient click-to-enter scroll wheel -- which makes it easy to select a destination from the unit's menu-driven interface.
A lot of readers have been asking about alternative mounts for their new Garmin StreetPilot 2720. For one reason or another the factory mount isn't suitable for their needs. The folks over at eMounts have confirmed that these mounts will fit the 2700 series products. So if you need a windshield mount, a c-clamp bar type mount, a cup holder mount, or a crazy floor mounted bendable stand, you can find them there.
GPS Review: Dual XNAV3500P Portable GPS Navigation System
Well, it'srefreshing to see that people can be honest in their reviews; here's some information on a GPS that you should stay away from. Here we have some words from a straight forward review that ranks the Dual XNAV3500P as Poor: "What really differentiates navigation systems is the quality of the user interface and routing algorithms. Unfortunately, the XNAV3500P from Dual Electronics misses the mark on both."
At a street price of $999, this thing isn't cheap, and for that money you could get one of the biggies with better features and proven track records.
Another Amazon Sale
Limited-Time Savings - Take advantage of the lowest prices of the season on popular electronics offered by Amazon.com. For a limited time, prices have been lowered on select GPS, including the Magellan 760 and the Garmin 2610. Hurry--special pricing ends September 26.
Here are a few of the hot models to check out the prices:
What a week. If you haven't read it already, Shaving Stuff has word the Gillette is introducing a Five-Bladed Razor. I'm not sure the world needs a 5 bladed razor, but I'm sure I'll have to try it. We have a new blog we will "OFFICIALLY" announce next week called Liquor Snob. If you want to spend the the rest of your Friday and have something both interesting, naughty, and downright funny to read - check out Liquor Snob.
Not to be outdone, Magellan has announced the new Magellan RoadMate 360 , a continuation on their popular RoadMate line. The RoadMate 360 has picked up on some key needs of the lower end of the market and added onboard maps for a device ready out of the box to navigate. It also has a full color touchscreen and a full set of advanced navigation features at a price point that comes in lower than the high end RoadMate 700 series.
Not to be outdone, Magellan has announced the new Magellan RoadMate 360 , a continuation on their popular RoadMate line. The RoadMate 360 has picked up on some key needs of the lower end of the market and added onboard maps for a device ready out of the box to navigate. It also has a full color touchscreen and a full set of advanced navigation features at a price point that comes in lower than the high end RoadMate 700 series.
GPS News: Garmin New Nuvi 350 a Personal GPS Travel Assistant
Garmin is keeping up their break-neck pace of introducing new models in new forms all attempting to break out of the woods and integrate location based knowledge further into life. The Garmin Nuvi 350 combines a GPS navigator, language translator and travel guide capability, an MP3 player, an audio book player, a currency and measurement converter, a world clock, and a digital photo organizer - all in one slim, sleek, and easy-to-use device. The Garmin nuvi 300 comes with 200MB of flash memory and is available in Europe only; it does not have text-to-speech capability. The Garmin nuvi 350 will be available in Europe and North America and has 700MB of onboard flash memory.....
Simple way to GPS Tag Photos: Flickr, Mappr, Google Earth....
Stumbled across this post and thought I would pass it along. The post offers an easy way to tag photos with GPS/Lat Longitude coordinates and see on a map or google earth where you took them. With the advent of cheaper, smaller and more efficient GPS modules, we should start seeing the convergence of GPS receivers and other electronics like digital cameras. For now, you have a work around.
Sept 9th - More info available from the Gamrin Press Release and the hometown favorite newspaper for Garmin (Olathe Kansas, USA) from the Kansas City Star.
"Garmin Mobile exposes an entirely new group of consumers to turn-by-turn satellite navigation," said Gary Kelley, Garmin's vice president of marketing. "We are thrilled that Sprint Nextel, an industry leader in voice and data communications, has chosen Garmin to provide these exciting new applications and location-based services to their customers."
It's the Best of the Blogpire time again, but before we sound off with the best of the best, please take time to click the banner above any Blogpire weblog and donate to the Red Cross at Amazon.com. The victims of Hurricane Katrina can use your help and a donation is one of the best ways to do it.
Navman has launched their Euro version of the iCN320 at the Frankfurt Auto show. This continues the new product flow out of Navman recently. The Flash based (SD/MMC card) GPS navigator has a 2.83 inch LCD screen and comes pre-loaded with street level maps of the UK and Ireland.
Other features include the ability to search for town, postcode, street, junction, house number or point of interest (POI).
The iCN320 is expected to retail for under 300Pounds in the UK (Roughly $580 USD).
GPS NEWS: Hey what's in your Phone - Garmin Mobile?
Garmin is moving into the phone market by providing the service that helps you navigate with your GPS enabled phone. They are doing this through Sprint PCS Vision phones (for now) with 3 Sanyo phones. The service is an easy to use software application that lets compatible mobile phones (in the US) funciton as GPS navigation devices. Want to go to restaurants, addresses, ATM's? Bring up the Point of Interest, get directions and be able to directly dial the phone number of that restaurant to make reservations.
This is Blaupunkt's first portable car GPS unit, and it also happens to be the first ever portable GPS that plays music, photos and can pipe voice directions over your car speakers.
The Blaupunkt Lucca will come in two versions, a 370Pounds that adhere's to the windshield and a 430Pounds Smart Cradle edition that - needs to be installed by a pro. The upgrade to the cradle based system seems like a worthwhile step because it allows the unit to pipe the voice directions and the MP3/WMA tunes over your stereo speakers.
GPS News: Hey you wanna Play? Gizmondo - GPS based gaming
Gizmondo is rolling out a new handheld player that uses GPS (SiRF Xtrac) to provide locatoin based gaming. GPS is not the only feature of this gaming platform, as the list is long and looks pretty good. It's got a camera, a Music Player, a Movie Player, Messaging, a GPS, GPRS connections for head to head playing, and Bluetooth. Whew! That's a lot of stuff. The Sony PSP looks like it is in the sights of the Gizmondo, as the Sony comes closest to the feature set of the Gizmondo, but the PSP does not have a GPS receiver. Hang on, because with the advent of low cost, small and highly accurate GPS components like SiRF is rolling out, is there any end to where the GPS location based activities will end? It's not just for geocaching anymore folks...
Most of us don't have to worry about cruising around in our cars or walking around the woods with a GPS and whether or not that's going to cause any privacy issues. How about when you grab a rental car with a nice GPS navigator in it for your use? It's there for your convenience, right? Ever stop to think about it being used against you? You may recall a case in Connecticut where a a rental car company used the onboard GPS tracking system to fine the renter for going over the speed limit.
The folks over at BusinessWeek online took a look at several of the Automotive GPS recivers oon the market and came down with some decent observations that we thought we would bring along to you. Most of us are aware of the player in the market, especially the ones that have come out recently; Garmin Streetpilot 2720,the StreetPilot c340, the Cobra Nav One 4500, but the author adds in the system on an Acura RL - the first car to use the Traffic feeds.
Singletracks.com website is a good little websote that holds a fair amount of information about hundreds of mountain bike trails across the country. While the site still has a ways to go on bulking up the database, maybe you can help. They have a few hundred maped trail locaitons with directions to and from the trailheads of the trails. Each trail has a few comments posted about the trail itself. The newest feature called "Trax" is the ability to upload and download GPS tracks for mountain bike trails.
Cobra announed that they are launching the Cobra NavOne 4500 that they started teasing us about a few weeks ago. according to the press release, the feature set looks impressive, and the large screen luxurious in comparison to some of the other products on the marketplace. It will be available in September.
The French site Mobinaute, has interesting and exclusive news about the iCN 320 (330 euros) and the iCN 550 (799 Euros, 899 Euros with Traffic Feed), the new PIMs from Navman.
The gadgets will be released in Europe in the coming weeks as well as the US.
It's September and Summer is slowly wrapping up around the Blogpire. The students are back in Boston and causing traffic madness wherever you go, the nights are a bit cooler, but we all know we've got a few weeks left of some really nice late Summer weather and some great late Summer blogging.
We wanted to review some of the other GPS receivers in the Garmin line and today we are looking at the Garmin V GPS, a versitile GPS receiver that is right at home either as a hand held device out on the trail, or on the dashboard of your car.
UPDATE: Geocaching.com Contest Details for September
Geocaching.com and Jeep Contest UPDATE: Use your GPS Receiver to have fun this summer with geocaching.com. The contest has you out looking for travelbugs and taking pictures according to the themes below to win prizes. The new goals or themes are as follows:
GPS Lodge Monthly Round-up for September 2005
(
Continue reading: 
Honda has selected Garmin to be part of their tier one parts providers for GPS units to be sold on their Gold Wing motorcycles. 
Magellan just announced a $50 mail-in rebate on the eXplorist 
Inrix announced today at CTIA Wireless 2005 that it has partnered with Tele Atlas, a leading provider of digital geographic content, to deliver Inrix Traffic Services to Tele Atlas partners and customers through a reseller agreement. As part of the agreement, Tele Atlas will also provide Inrix with the rights to resell and internally use Tele Atlas map data with Inrix's services.
In a move that will certainly be seen as an intrusion on the Magellan/Hertz space (another salvo in the Garmin vs. Magellan battle), Garmin has announced that a unit based on the StreetPilot c330 portable automotive GPS will be available on Dollar and Thrifty rental cars at 138 rental locations throughout the US and Canada. The extra cost will be about $10 a day.
This latest GPS tracking device from Navicom is small enough to be placed on a keychain, but features a full set of GPS functionality. The C-TRAC GPS Personal Tracker has unlimited GPS tracking/locating, an E911 emergency feature, and even a push-button concierge service akin to GM's OnStar - working through the cellular network. Since its E911 functions work through a cellular network, don't expect help to come running when you hit the call button from 100 miles away deep in the back woods. Other features include a two-way speaker phone, programmable buttons for one-touch dialing, a USB port, and 256k flash memory. 
Navman's got a new PiN device out, the Pocket PC based 570. It looks a lot like the Garmin iQue, and the PiN 570 features Navman's SmartST 2005 software, a 2.5-inch 65k color QVGA touchscreen, a 266MHz CPU, 64MB RAM, SDIO slot, and no Windows Mobile 5.0. 
TomTom and BestBuy announced today that TomTom GO models 300 and 700 will be available through all 694 BestBuy locations nationally this month. 
Just when you thought things couldn't get smaller, the 
A lot of readers have been asking about alternative mounts for their new Garmin StreetPilot 2720. For one reason or another the factory mount isn't suitable for their needs. The folks over at eMounts have confirmed that 
Stumbled across this post and thought I would pass it along. The post offers an easy way to tag photos with GPS/Lat Longitude coordinates and see on a map or google earth where you took them. With the advent of cheaper, smaller and more efficient GPS modules, we should start seeing the convergence of GPS receivers and other electronics like digital cameras. For now, you have a work around.
Navman has launched their Euro version of the iCN320 at the Frankfurt Auto show. This continues the 
Most of us don't have to worry about cruising around in our cars or walking around the woods with a GPS and whether or not that's going to cause any privacy issues. How about when you grab a rental car with a nice GPS navigator in it for your use? It's there for your convenience, right? Ever stop to think about it being used against you? You may recall a case in Connecticut where a a rental car company used the onboard GPS tracking system to fine the renter for going over the speed limit. 
The folks over at BusinessWeek online took a look at several of the Automotive GPS recivers oon the market and came down with some decent observations that we thought we would bring along to you. Most of us are aware of the player in the market, especially the ones that have come out recently; 
Cobra announed that they are launching the 
Mailing List
Subscribe - RSS
