Mio to Absorb the NavMan Brand

Mio just announced that they are going to absorb the NavMan name in the US after buying the Navman company last February.

"With the merger of the Mio and Navman brands, two complementary organizations have been brought together with a shared passion for delivering consumers the best navigation experience," said Samuel Wang, president, Mio Technology Corporation. "Mio Technology brings core competencies in hardware to the table, while Navman brings expertise in software and content, creating a new brand that is better able to create unique, innovative products and services."

Either way, I'll be happy to bring you news and review of NavMan and/or Mio products going forward.

Despite the merger, the Navman brand will continue to exist in select markets, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

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GPS Review: Navman iCN 750 GPS with a Camera

Navman recently announced the Navman iCN 750, the first GPS navigation device to have a 1.3 MP camera on board. A camera you say? Yes – use it to snap pictures of your favorite Points of Interest and use those pictures as icons to navigate back to them. The units has a big 4 inch screen, and right on the front buttons to get you to the nearest gas station, or parking garage; nice touch (I’d like a Home button too; hey it’s the place you are going to navigate to most!). A new review has hit the net and rates the product pretty high.

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New Navman GPS Receivers: iCN 720 and iCN 750 with Cameras

Navman launched several GPS receivers today with some pretty interesting features. The big news is out of the iCN 720 and iCN 750 which are equipped with NavPix service and a 1.3 megapixel camera. This feature and service allows you to take pictures of locations, let’s say your favorite restaurant, and then save that image as the Point of Interest image that you navigate to. The NavPix service will also allow you to upload and download pictures of locations, sharing them with friends and family. So while this is using still images to show locations, it's a step along the pathway from boring colored maps to Google Earth type navigation using satellite images to navigate through. Sure it would chew up a ton of disk space, but hard drive costs are always falling.

Continue reading: "New Navman GPS Receivers: iCN 720 and iCN 750 with Cameras"

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New Navman GPS: iCN530

Navman launched a mid-tier GPS receiver today, the new iCN530, positioning it as a sleek portable GPS receiver. Sleek and pocket-sized, the new iCN530 is less than an inch thick and weighs less than 7 ounces, making the iCN530 one of the lightest and most portable navigation models ever. The iCN530 also features an integrated SiRF Star III GPS antenna and a non-reflective 3.5 QVGA LCD touch-screen.

The iCN530 is packed with some decent features: extended voice guidance which now includes junction and road numbers; clearer map display and color choice; additional 3D next-turn map arrows; and detailed trip-meter report. Furthermore, the iCN530 offers unique one-touch gas and park buttons to help you out in a jam.

Continue reading: "New Navman GPS: iCN530"

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Amazon now selling NavMan Sport Tools

Navman has launched a line of Sport Tool GPS training devices that seek to capture some of the market that Garmin has really opened up with their ForeRunner product line. NavMan's Sport Tool line has several customized GPS training devices that are sport specific, including Sport Tool Marine, Sport Tool Run, Sport Tool Walk, Sport Tool Snow and Sport Tool Skate.

The idea is that each sport demands a bit of customization and NavMan has done the work for you, giving you the training data and maybe the bragging rights to the best of the day's activities. So for the Sport Tool Snow, you get a GPS device that tracks a lot of data including vertical feet skied or boarded, but it takes out the chairlift rides automatically. The cool designs are sure to be attractive where ever you take them. You can't download to your computer like the higher end ForeRunners. Amazon is now selling most of the line, including FREE SHIPPING. Most are priced under $100. Check them out:

Sport Tool Run

Sport Tool Snow

Sport Tool In-Line Skate

Sport Tool Walking

Sport Tool Water Sports

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Navman iCN 550 - Now Available

More new products hitting the shelves these days, Navman has announced their new ICN 550, a moderately priced handheld/automotive GPS unit with a 4GB hard drive on-board. Yea, it contains maps and points of interest, but where's the MP3 player upgrade? It's ready to go out of the box with maps of the US, Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam pre-loaded. Guam? Huh. It has an available live traffic module (see below).

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Navman PIN 570

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.

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GPS News: Navman iCN320 Flash Based GPS

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).

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GPS News: Navman iCN320 and iCN 550

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.

Continue reading: "GPS News: Navman iCN320 and iCN 550"

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