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Thursday April 20, 2006
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 As a New Yorker without a car, it isn't often I get to test out new GPS systems. That is why PC Magazine has a GPS expert (and car owner) like Craig Ellison do most of our GPS reviews. Still, I had the chance to try out the Sony nav-u ($599.99 list) in a ridiculously priced rental car on a trip up to the Hudson Valley last weekend. Programming my destination took a little doing with the touch screen, but once I did that I appreciated the big picture view of my journey and the firm spoken reminders not to miss turns. The clinical, but not cold, female voice of the nav-u served as a nice buffer between me and my wife. "But honey, the nav-u says we're heading the right way."
Not only did the device help me find my way to Rhinebeck, NY and back without getting stuck in traffic, it may have saved my life. I was hiking in the Shawangunk mountains and I wanted to test out how the device worked off-road. After a few hours of hiking on dubiously labeled trails, I took out the nav-u and used it to determine my location relative to a nearby lake. I am sure I would have found my way out eventually, but this took some of the guesswork out of the process. You can check out Craig's full nav-u review here.
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April 20, 2006 5:43 PM
You owe it your firstborn now, you realize. Okay, okay. This is a big deal though-Sony hasn't really been a player in the car-top GPS and navigtaion device market as of yet, has it? I've thought the reigning champs to this point have been TomTom and Garmin, and that was pretty much that, and all we'd see are revisions of their products when it came to off-the-shelf GPS devices. I'd be curious to see how it stacks up against more established makers' products; the price point is definitely in line, if not a bit more affordable than a TomTom or Garmin to slap on the dash, and trust me, I could use the whole "Are you sure we're going the right way?" "Well the Nav says so" line of insurance!