Going in the right direction

Among the lakhs who thronged Pragati Maidan in New Delhi in the past week, there must have been very few who were not busy fighting for a vantage point from where to espy Tata’s Rs 1 lakh car. The car was news alright, but I thought I’d also check out the technology stands and get a sense of the items that car companies were cooking up. So it was that I noticed that maps—or more precisely, the Global Positioning System—was the buzz. GPS companies Map My India and SatGuide both had new products. While SatGuide had come up with a cheaper receiver, Map My India had a more versatile receiver. There is another major player besides these two in the dedicated GPS business now. Have a look at their products.

MapMyIndia Navigator:
The most expensive option available to the car owner today, but loaded with the maximum maps. There are two GPS receivers, the earlier one manufactured by Delphi, and the new one called the A-Max 06GP5A, which looks like a Chinese import. Both the versions are priced the same: Rs 21,000 if you are in Delhi, and Rs 22,000 across India. Here’s a tip: get one at an auto accessory shop for just Rs 19,000. The new receiver has a 3.5 inch screen, and can act as an MP3 player, a DivX video player and a photo viewer. All the maps are loaded on a pluggable SD card. There is no clarity on how and when you will receive updates for the India maps, and right now not all cities are available, but I felt that Map My India had the best cartography.
The unit comes with a windscreen-mount suction stand. The touch screen an easy interface. Also if you intend to use it as an MP3 player (it’s way too expensive for this purpose soley), I would suggest you buy a screenguard on day one. The navigation menus are a breeze and brilliantly done.
However, this GPS limits you to India, as it is designed for in-auto use with India maps.
More details: www.mapmyindia.com

Satguide PND:
Unlike the expensive device it had earlier, Satguide has just launched a lovely item, the PND, for Rs 12,000. However, don’t grab the PND because of its price. It too plays MP3s, movies and pictures, has a touchscreen and a 3.5 inch LCD, but there is a catch. The PND, by default, comes loaded with the map of just one city. So if you were to venture out of the city you live in, you will lose your bearings. Additional maps come for about Rs 1,000 per city. The quality of the maps leaves you with a slight feeling of discontentment. For instance, some of the major streets in Delhi and Mumbai are not even named, simply marked as “unknown streets”.
The Satguide PND suffers the same problem as the Map My India device of being loaded with only India maps. In case you want to travel abroad, you may have difficulty finding new maps. The device runs on Windows CE, so loading a third party map may not be that much trouble, but you will have to see how the warranty is worded.

... contd.

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