3. Garmin nüvi 860 GPS listens to its owner

Garmin introduced the new nüvi 860, a 4.3" widescreen display portable navigation device with speech recognition as its most notable feature. Users mount a push-to-talk wireless remote to their steering wheel, which is used to activate voice commands. Once enabled, the user can manipulate controls by speaking the words that correspond to buttons that are on the touchscreen, so nearly any common task can be performed without handling the unit.

Garmin nüvi 860

Garmin claims that users can also speak complex sentences such as “find nearest Italian restaurant”. The nüvi 860 knows the names of many large business brands as well, so a user need only say, “find the nearest Starbucks” to get a quick caffeine fix.

When the user says “where am I?” the device displays its latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations. Speech recognition can also be used to search for addresses as well. Speech recognition is available for the following languages: American English, British English, European French, European Spanish, German, Italian, and Netherlands Dutch.

The PND also has a built-in FM transmitter, to let drivers listen to turn-by-turn directions and street names, along with MP3s and audio books through the vehicle’s stereo. The Garmin nüvi 860 PND will be available in the second quarter of 2008 at a suggested price of $936.

Garmin nüvi 2x5 series features both 3.5" and 4.3" screens

Garmin also presented its new 2x5 entry level series, with 4.3” or 3.5” screens and a new elevated shaded mapping display. Using the Garmin Connect Photos service, users can download photos provided by Google’s Panoramio photo sharing community to enrich their navigation experiences. The nüvi 2x5 series features a 333 MHz CPU and HotFixTM technology to lower satellite fix times. The 265/265W and 275 models include European mapping or European mapping along with the United States and Canada, and also announce street names in their voice prompts. The new Garmin 2x5 will be available starting in May 2008 at prices beginning at $280.

Garmin nüvi 5000 screen is huge

Finally Garmin showed its new "big guy", the nüvi 5000. It has all the features of the 860 but with a huge 5.2" widescreen display. The 5000 also has a multimedia player for pictures, videos and music, and can display a video signal from an external analog source, such as a reversing camera or in-car DVD player. When an external video source is active, the user may revert to the map display by touching anywhere on the screen. The Garmin nüvi 5000 PND will be available in the second quarter of 2008 at a suggested price of $1,093.

Watch your back with Garmin 5000’s reverse camera.