car box

[Jerry Feldman]

On Tuesday 28 March 2006 2:55 pm, Christopher Chisholm wrote:
> Hey Everyone,
>
> Over the past few months as my 90' celica has been inching steadily
> closer to its ultimate demise, I've been thinking a lot about where we
> are with certain technologies, and how I could obtain them in a future
> car.  One thing I've always wanted but had never been willing to spend a
> lot of money on has been a GPS unit. 
I currently have GPS running on my Palm Treo using a BlueTooth GPS receiver 
for a total cost of well under $300. The maps come on an SD card. While I 
use this in my car, I can throw the receiver in a shirt pocket. There are a 
number of companies, such as Mapopolis and TomTom that supply the mapping 
software. I rejected TomTom out of hand because the only way to install the 
maps is via Windows. 

The current retail units run for about $800 for the top of the line Garmin 
and Magellan units to under $500. 

Some friends have mapping software on their laptops using either wired or 
wireless GPS receivers. 

One of the major differences in the low cost GPS maps I have and the top of 
the line Gramin is that the Garmin can set waypoints, subscribe to traffic 
bulletins, and look up hotels, restaurants and brothels. With the 
Mapopolis, I simply enter an address or mark an end point. It has settings 
for highway, highway neutral, avoid highways, as does most other units. 

In general, the after-market units like the Garmin and Magellan have more 
features than the more expensive built-in units. 

A friend of mine very much prefers the size of the laptop screen to the 
smaller commercial units and my Palm, but he lives in a motor home. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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