navpix
Latest
Mio's Moov S501 and S401 finally go legit
After Mio basically non-confirmed / confirmed these to us in April, letting us know the pricing was off, but saying nothing else about the leak, it was really just a matter of time until the two navigators broke into the realm of officialdom. The Moov S401 and S501 bring 4.3-inch and 4.7-inch displays, respectively, along with a new "Spirit" interface and some new functionality like Google Send-to-GPS, NavPix for pulling location from geo-tagged photos, text-to-speech for spoken street names and MioMore 2 PC software for calculating mileage and fuel economy. The S501 is Mio's thinnest PND ever at 0.64-inches, and includes 12 million POIs, while the S401 is inexplicably thicker at 0.71-inches, with 4 million POIs. They go for $200 and $180, respectively, and will go on sale in June.
Navman drops four new GPS devices
Navman is bumping the specs and shortening the names of its GPS units, with the F20, N20, N40i and N60i (pictured) set to launch this fall. All four look to be relatively minor updates, with each getting a built-in camera for use with Navman's Navpix service as standard issue, as well as an upgrade to the SiRFstarIII chipset, TeleAtlas 2006 maps, and Navman's latest software interface (as seen on the iCN750 and iCN720). While Navman itself seems to be staying mum on these for now, with not so much as a mention on its website, some European retailers already look to be taking pre-orders for 'em, with prices coming in between €249.99 and €499.99 ($318 and $635).[Via MobileWhack]
Navman iCN 750 GPS navigator with NavPix reviewed
Remember those new Navman GPS units launched back in March featuring integrated digital cameras for the new NavPix system? Well, PocketNow got their hand on the top-end iCN 750 in-car navigation system to see just how useful downloading location-mapped pictures can be. The unit's "pretty GUI" was up and running right out of the box thanks to the US maps coming pre-loaded on the 4GB internal hard drive. Nice, right? Only thing is, data stored on that relatively slow disk drive (instead of flash memory) resulted in "sluggish" screen-to-screen transitions. Still, the highly touted NavPix feature was so useful for navigation that the reviewer claims it will be emulated "much like the iPod clickwheel" soon enough. High praise indeed. In fact, we should expect Navman to start offering guided city tours whereby you can download an itinerary of coordinate-tagged photos for your destination city -- just tap the picture and hit "go" to navigate to a point-of-interest. The iCN 750 would have pulled more than the 4/5 overall rating had it included 4GB of flash memory to speed things along, a non-reflective coating to help out in direct sunlight, and a battery indicator right up front on the main menu. All in all, a pretty sweet setup for the $700 beans required to take this high-end navigator home.
