Gadgets make driving a pleasure
Navigation just one of the features of two new offerings from Magellan and JVC
Magellan navigates past competition
We had all but written off the traditional GPS players such as Magellan, Garmin and TomTom because clunky navigation devices seem so passé in comparison with smartphones and tablets, where all functionality can converge into one. Magellan apparently did not receive the memo. The company’s new RoadMate 5265TLMP suggests the big three navigation manufacturers have a lot of life in them yet. Features include a fiveinch touch screen, North American map data, Bluetooth, portrait viewing mode, realistic images of road signs and OneTouch, which enables drivers to assign a single button to their favourite destination. But where Magellan really scores is with the new Bluetooth Safe Texting mode, which provides a handsfree auto- response to incoming texts with a pre- written text alerting callers that you’re driving your car, with an option to include the car’s location and estimated time of arrival to a destination. This feature is not new, having appeared previously in smartphone apps, but kudos to Magellan for paying attention to marketplace innovations and then adopting them liberally as its own. $ 200; visit magellan. com.
Speed rules at JVC
JVC’s KW- NT700 is a navigation USB/ DVD Bluetooth multimedia receiver that will appeal to customers who do not like to wait for their gadgetry. Some people don’t care about the speed at which their devices operate. Not us. We aspire to press a button and have our unit snap into action, because we despise hourglasses. The KW- NT700 features S3 data compression and eight gigabytes of solidstate drive memory, which combine to ensure common navigation functions such as route calculation, points of interest lookup, scrolling and 3D rendering happen quickly. The device offers a seven- inch touch panel, North American maps, texttospeech and picture- in- picture capability so an attached rear- view camera can operate in a small window onscreen while the GPS software continues to run. It has 30,000 onscreen colour combinations to match any interior, Bluetooth capability, a 13- band equalizer and settings to affect the delivery of individual music notes so audiophiles will have all the customization they want. But speed’s the thing, which JVC recognizes, since the KW- NT700 operates at twice the speed of its already fleet- of- foot 2011 predecessor. $ 900; visit jvc. ca.