What is GPS all about?
GPS, Global Positioning System,
is a technology that has been adapted from military applications
to civilain needs. GPS helps the product user to
locate their land location on a visual map, and associate
their position to a variety of local highways, street
intersections and landmarks. The GPS product receives
its coordinate positions from a number of satellites around
the globe to the GPS antenna of the product. Today's
technology can offer upto 5 meter position accuracy, depending
on the quality of the product purchased.
Some systems provide highly accurate position and detailed
information about the area you are traveling through. As
the quality of the product increases, the level of detail
and user friendliness also increases.
Superb GPS systems provide touch screen control,
user friendly operation, and high resolution displays.
You will find a very basic type of GPS advertised on TV,
but these systems are very basic, and do not provide any
detail at all, nor are major landmarks provided for references.
The very best GPS system available today is the Pioneer AVIC-N1,
which offers over 12 million data references throughout
the USA.
It is so well defined for information and ease of use,
a driver could travel to nearly any location in the USA
without ever using a map, and the AVIC-N1 would give you
excellent voice and map guidance to within 5 meter accuracy.
You could call up a variety of businesses in the area
you are traveling or along the trip route and the AVIC-N1
would provide street addresses, telephone #s, and detailed
guidance to the location. The AVIC-N1 also provides
DVD and CD capabilities in the same system, and XM Radio
is optional. It provides 5 meter position accuracy,
superb map defintion and many features, that we
have no room to describe here. See Pioneer AVIC-N1
page details for more information.
The mid-level GPS systems provide good detail, should
not require installation; ie, they plug in and are ready
to operate. We have taken a look at several companies
such as Garmin and Magellan, which offer mid-level GPS
products. We feel Garmin offers excellent features
and operation over Magellan GPS and the 2610 definitely
provides the most user-friendly operation.
The Garmin
2620 is the best of the mid-level GPS automotive products
and offers excellent features, as well as touch screen
control for easy customer interface.
It does not offer DVD or CD capabilities, as does the
AVIC-N1 discussed above. It provides 15 meter
position accuracy and reasonable map defintion.
See Garmin 2610 page details for more information.
For a totally portable GPS product, the Garmin GPSMAP
76CS is ideal. Although it does not offer
voice guidance, it is very easy to use and can be used
in your car, as well hiking, biking, camping.
The CS60 is battery operated and can be used anywhere
at anytime.
If you want to jump in your vehicle and drive into the
mountains or country, the 76CS will get you there, and
then allow you to hike to your location and provide excellent
guidance to your desired location. It would be hard
to get lost, but if you had a 76CS you could identify
landmarks that would enable to find your way to a point
of safety. It provides 100 meter position accuracy and
basic map defintion.
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