3. Choosing A Portable In-Car Navigation Device

People who are fascinated by the capabilities of this technology already can choose from a wide variety of systems with a broad range of functions and an even broader choice of prices. Starting at less than $100 and topping out at several thousand dollars, the search for the right device can be time consuming and confusing. So let's start from the top and narrow down our search to a portable GPS unit with universal talents.

Ordering a car with a built-in GPS system may be the most elegant and convenient solution, but with prices that typically range between $1,500 and $2,000, these systems are everything but affordable. The CD- or DVD-based systems offered by manufacturers are neatly integrated either into the gauge cluster or dashboard but sometimes trail current technology trends set by portable systems that can be moved from car to car.

This review is focused on portable GPS systems that are priced significantly below the manufacturer-offered systems, but offer similar functionality and reliability as a navigation guide through local and regional traffic. Our goal was to choose two capable systems that represent current market offerings and are compact enough for use in everyday traffic but powerful enough to accompany a family on a vacation trip across the country.

The market offers five main categories of GPS devices:

Researching the market quickly revealed that only one product class could meet our requirements. Flash-based devices can only store portions of maps and can become a pain to use on longer trips. Notebooks and PDAs with preinstalled mapping software are handy on business trips, but inconvenient to use on a vacation trip, especially if users are traveling from coast to coast and are required to load a new map onto a PDA twice a day. Stationary systems are mostly offered at nose-bleed prices and are rarely an option for the typical family. Hard drive based systems represent the best compromise, which retail for around $1,000 and usually store detailed maps of the U.S. and Canada, without bugging the user to delete and upload new regional maps. At the start of the review in November 2004 we identified five such GPS systems that were available on the US market:

We opted for the Magellan Roadmate 700 that practically won every award there is and is considered the benchmark for today's portable navigation systems. Lowrance's iWay 500c was chosen as the second contender since Lowrance has substantial experience in marine and aviation navigation, and we expected the device to be a capable and innovative challenger to the Roadmate. We would have liked Cobra's Nav One, but we were told the systems would not be available for review. Garmin and TomTom did not answer our inquiries.

Both Lowrance and Thales - which manufacturers the Magellan Roadmate - sent us review units for a thorough six-month test to examine the capabilities and limits of their portable navigation units. By the end of November 2004 we were ready to go and began the test track in the Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Orlando areas and used six different cars to evaluate the units.

Review units of this comparison: Magellan Roadmate 700 (left) and Lowrance iWay 500c.