In-Car Navigation: GPS Systems

By Jay Williams - 31/October/2008

GPS stands for Global Positioning System and if you have been living under a rock for the past half dozen years, the technology is being used for portable sat nav, or satellite navigation.

Available on small units for cars, and even on some high-end mobile phones, sat nav makes finding your destination very easy.

Basically car GPS systems have a multi-channel GPS receiver, a map database on a internal flash memory or similar storage device and a central processor (computer) to calculate routes and travel distances.

Most GPS systems these days are plug-and-play with minimal setup required. 

The only thing that takes assembly is the suction cap bracket that fixes to your front windscreen and even then its not permanent as you can simply take the unit from vehicle to vehicle. 

Most modern GPS sat nav units can even be taken with you on foot but when they're not plugged into a car's AC socket, in my experience I've found they don't last more than an hour or two before needing to be recharged.

The good thing about the new GPS systems on the market are that they are pretty accurate and so you can do away with the bulky road maps and atlases. 

They are also loaded with heaps of features. Take the Mio Moov 300: it comes with a 4.3-inch anti-glare wide screen, spoken street names in Australian, pre-loaded safety alerts which notify the user of upcoming fixed red light cameras and the little unit also has more than 12 million address and full Australian road coverage which allows you to simply type in your destination on the touch screen and away you go.

If you want to drive from Sydney to Broome, just plug in the address and away you go.

There is now a company in Australia, Intelematics, that has developed a real-time traffic system, SUNA, that can transmit information to you via your sat nav GPS unit about traffic jams, delays and so forth. 

Some, but not all, portable satellite navigation devices can decipher the SUNA transmissions, but most of the new models have this very useful functionality. See the review of the SUNA traffic channel for a better idea of how it works.

One of the great things about these devices is that the purchase prices have dropped quite a bit in the last year or so, meaning you can pick up some models at low prices.

You can pick one of above mentioned models for less than $300 dollars these days and you can simply download new maps for your system whenever they are available. This is compared to factory-installed car GPS systems (that come standard in more new cars and often cost around $2,000) which are always more expensive and are integrated into the dashboard meaning you can't take it with you.

Because there's been a boom in sale of these portable sat nav devices, there is evidence that they're also becoming highly sought-after items for thieves.

Stats on stolen GPS sat nav units are hard to come by as companies like RACV and AAMI insurance declined to supply any hard numbers. 

However a spokesman from AAMI, when asked how many claims they get for stolen GPS units, laughed and said "plenty". However RACV were a little more help in telling me that they haven't complied any specific numbers on the claims for stolen sat nav units. 

However RACV's spokesman did say "I imagine they [sat nav units] would be right up there with laptops," who inferred that laptops are the most stolen item from cars at present.

Moral of the story? Always take your sat nav GPS unit with you when you leave the or, or else insure your car and everything inside it.

Some of the things to check for when shopping for a new sat nav GPS unit should include how easy it is to enter an address and whether the system offer multiple routes: choice of route is good, especially during peak hour traffic.

Another thing to check for is battery life (though most systems can plug into a car's AC socket), screen size and whether it has anti-glare properties, and what kind of media it incorporates - does it take SD cards, or USB sticks, or does it have a connector cable to plug into your PC or Mac.

Related Articles:
- Honda Crime Avoidance Sat Nav (2008)
- SUNA Traffic Channel (Road Test)
- Toyota LandCruiser (Road Test)
- BMW GINA Light Visionary Model (2008)