It is a strange fact that many purchasers of new cars are ready to pay several times the true value of a satellite navigation system in order to have it installed by the maker. It is true that the car's manufacturer normally does an excellent job of installing the unit, but then you are paying through the nose for it.
If you bought the sat nav unit separately and had it installed by a third party, you would get it for a third or a quarter of the cost. Still, it is part of the image of buying a new car to have all the latest gadgets built in to it. Satellite navigation, popularly called sat nav, is a real godsend, if you buy a system that is up-to-date and that is frequently updated.
It is not necessary to have the sat nav installed in the car factory in order to have it installed well. Many third party installers are quite competent of making a good job of it too without having to have your radio/CD player removed.
Many auto navigation systems are attached to the instrument panel by means of rubber suction cups anyway. Buying a sat nav unit that does not have to have holes cut for it will also keep the price to a minimum without having to forgo quality or safety.
An important issue to remember is that there are many kinds of GPS systems, each with rather specific uses. GPS for an ocean-going yacht does not have to have road maps, whereas GPS for a bicycle may not give sufficient advanced notification for the speed of a car.
Even if you buy a GPS sat nav system for a road vehicle, there are different types. The three fundamental kinds are: stand-alone, such as you see fitted at the car factory; hand-held and systems that are intended to be used with a laptop computer or similar device.
The stand-alone units are the most prevalent, because they have certain advantages: they are built for the job of getting you from A to B via C, D and E, if required; they hold a database of landmarks which will help you know that you are on the correct road; a voice will give you directions so that yo do not have to keep looking at the screen and it will memorize and integrate previous routes.
Hand-held sat nav systems work, but require more thought and sometimes additional software to be supplied by the user. The screen is usually too small to be of much use and some only create voice directions. Others only provide pictorial directions. However, they are better than nothing if you are hiking or cycling in unfamiliar terrain.
Laptops and PDA's provide an excellent service, particularly if you already had the device for other purposes such as office work.
So, it is not just a question of getting hold of a cheap sat nav console and thinking that they are all the same, you have to see it running so that you can judge whether it is going to be of any use to you in your situation.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several topics, but is currently concerned with the Snooper sat nav [http://escort8500.com/snooper-sat-nav.html] system. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Escort 8500 [http://escort8500.com].
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