Do you ever find yourself driving through a place you've never been before and becoming utterly lost? Yeah, me too, until I got myself a car GPS navigation unit. Choosing which one to get can be confusing though, which is where this article comes in.
Main Car Sat Nav System Features
There are a bunch of features which are standard in virtually all GPS units these days, and without which, the unit would be virtually useless. For example:
Touch Control Screen: When driving, ease of use is essential when operating your GPS unit. A touch screen is a must.
Route Maps: If your new GPS system doesn’t know the area where you live, it would be pretty useless
Spoken Instructions: You don’t have time to stop and look at where the Sat nav unit says you should go, you need a voice to tell you, “turn left”, “turn right”, etc.
Additional In-Car GPS Navigation System Features
Along with the usual Sat nav features mentioned above, there are various additional features you might want to look out for, like:
POI (Points of Interest): Sometimes you don’t just want to be told what directions to take; you also want to know about any interesting sights to look out for. For instance, let's say you're on vaction somewhere for the first time, and you want to know where the theater is, or a particular park, or maybe where a certain historical monument is.
Hands-free Calling: It's dangerous to talk on the phone while you are driving. Several GPS system can connect to your phone, giving you hands-free access.
Lane Help: Several Sat nav systems these days have the ability to give you detailed help with navigating the lanes of busy roads. This means you won’t miss your exit.
The Major In-Car Satellite Navigation Makes and the Products they Offer
Another thing worth considering when getting a new car GPS unit is the brand. Here are the main car Sat nav makes, and a brief idea of the range of gps systems they have on offer:
Garmin: $60-$3,000. Main Sat nav make. Over 200 gps systems available. Very large range.
TomTom: $80-$1,000. Main Sat nav brand. More than 100 products available. Wide price range.
Kenwood: $320-$1,200. Quite a good range of sat navs. Nearly all of them are quite high end GPS units.
Pioneer: $350-$850. Again, a similar kind of product range to Kenwood. Decent range of high quality gps units.
JVC: $100-$1,000. Few gps units, but covers a large price range.
Sony: $200-$840. Similar to JVC. Few gps units, large price range.
Boss Audio: $165-$195. Only a few models on the market, all of which are full-on in-car multimedia players with large screens, for example for watching DVDs.
Audiovox: $80-$270. Not many models on the market.
Escort: $670. Only one product available, made to look like a replacement rear-view mirror
