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travel / gear / the genuine article
| The Genuine Article |
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Where in the world are we? (page 2)
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| GPS navigators, including
the Garmin nüvi 250, ease travel along unfamiliar routes
and through nasty weather or heavy traffic. |
The market is evolving rapidly, and
recent changes have affected a key aspect of
consumer choice: the underlying map technology.
The main competitors in such map
databases are Navteq, based in Chicago,
and Tele Atlas, based in Belgium. Both
companies were swallowed by larger firms
recently. How these takeovers will affect
the GPS market remains to be seen, but for
now, concentrate on the following key factors
when shopping for a particular model:
• Play with more than one unit from different
manufacturers before buying one. Determine how easy it is to navigate the system
with the touch screen and how readable
and useful the screen information is. The
more you have to (or are tempted to) fiddle,
the more distracted you’re going to be while
driving. Models typically offer a software
lock to limit your choices while driving.
• Check the local accuracy of the preinstalled
maps. They do vary. See whether
a unit knows where your house is by scrolling
around the map display while in the
store. As well as inspecting a Pioneer model
purchased by a friend and trying an instore
offering from LG Electronics, a newcomer
to this increasingly crowded field, I
road-tested a TomTom GO 720 ($449.95).
The TomTom’s Tele Atlas database location
for my home’s street address was spot-on,
while my Garmin nüvi 250’s Navteq database,
in a rare misfire, misplaced it by a
whopping 250 metres. But in and around
Midland, I was struck by how poor the
TomTom’s maps and overall presentation
and readability were compared with those
of the Garmin, even though it was a more
expensive unit and had a screen 2.5 centimetres
larger than the Garmin’s ninecentimetre-
diagonal monitor. The Garmin
also excelled in delineating shorelines and
river courses (either crudely drawn or missing
altogether in the TomTom) and in
including features like parks and cemeteries
and even the roadways through
them. Most manufacturers sell additional
third-party map databases, but this is a
needless expense if the built-in database
is up to the job.
• Determine how easy it is to update the
pre-installed map database and whether
the updates are free. You should be able to
plug the unit into your home computer
and download updates online. TomTom
trumpets the ability of users to update maps
as they drive and then share changes online
with other customers. But these updates are
limited to reversing indicated traffic direction,
editing a street name, adding or edit-ing a point of interest or reporting “other
error.” You can’t start drawing in roads that
aren’t there. Nevertheless, such networked
map updates are more broadly available in
the 2008 models.
• More models are becoming available
with Bluetooth technology for wireless,
hands-free operation using a cellphone.
That can include looking up a point of
interest, such as a restaurant, then having
the unit dial the restaurant so that you can
make a reservation while driving.
• Don’t pay for unnecessary features.
Even basic units can store digital photos, but
do you need a unit that can play MP3 files?
• High-end models speak the names of
approaching streets, allowing you to keep
your eyes on the road rather than the
screen. Whether you can understand them
depends on the speech software.
• Some units offer subscription-based
traffic reports through FM reception.
There’s also MSN Direct, which provides
traffic, weather, gas prices and even times
of movies in the nearest theatre, but it’s
not available everywhere in Canada.
• The most accurate receivers use an
internal wide-area augmentation system
(WAAS) aerial that grabs land-based signals
to improve the position fix from satellites.
If you’re off-roading, this may be important
to you. But WAAS would definitely improve
the performance of basic models. Both my
Garmin nüvi 250 and the TomTom GO
720 assigned me to a road when I was actually
driving in an adjacent parking lot. And,
disconcertingly, the TomTom twice assigned
me to turnoffs at highway intersections
when I was driving straight through. This
could be a major source of confusion on a
busy highway. My Garmin also has trouble
hanging onto a satellite signal when I am
driving the concrete canyon of Toronto’s
Bay Street but has performed fine in downtown
Ottawa and Montréal.
Thanks to the little GPS unit slapped
onto my windshield, I arrived without incident
at my hotel that night in Ottawa,
smoothly negotiating the city’s multi-lane
roads, bridges and one-way streets. And as
I did so, I wondered how many of my fellow
drivers were obediently turning this
way and that to the commands of a plushvelvet
nanny. Not as many as there will be.
Douglas Hunter’s latest book is God’s Mercies:
Rivalry, Betrayal, and the
Dream of Discovery.
His website is www.douglashunter.ca.
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