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Why is it that so many no-name manufacturers come up with feature-filled products? You see it each time Apple brings out a new iPod - seemingly within minutes a knock-off design is available, only with twice the feature list and generally at half the price. GPS is another flourishing area, with rivals to TomTom and Garmin unveiling complex and flexible alternatives that, most likely, you’ll never see on shelves. Today’s heritage-free company is DiXCOM, and their product the CNS-4320: a sat-nav with built in cellphone.
Now don’t go thinking it’s a rival to the Nokia N95 - this won’t give the Finnish all-singing, all-dancing handset a run for its money. But in comparison to, say, the TomTom One you’re looking at a pretty special package. Not only does it use the industry-standard SiRF-III GPS receiver, it has a full GPRS cellphone inside which allows for SMS and MMS messaging, Bluetooth hands-free calls and downloading traffic updates.
Built on Windows CE 5.0, there’s a rudimentary image and text viewer, memo pad and audio/video DAP, all accessed via a 4.3-inch widescreen touch-panel. It’ll also manage multi-tasking, playing music while you use the navigation features and interrupting the song to give you directions.
No price as yet, nor availability details, but I’ve no doubt that these are features we’ll be seeing on next year’s mainstream devices.
DiXCOM CNS-4320 [GlobalSources]
That seems interesting - bundling a phone with a sat-nav device. But the no-name DiXCOM bothers me a little. For now I’d be more likely to trust an established brand like TomTom.
You compared the phone/sat-nav gizmo to the TomTom ONE, which I believe remains the best bang for the buck. What do you think?
It’s a tricky one, August. The problem faced by these no-name manufacturers (and the people who buy their products) is that usability is an unknown quantity. Yes, it has far more features than, say, the TomTom, but part of the reason the ONE has been so successful is that it’s tremendously easy to use. I literally don’t know if the same could be said for the DiXCOM.
Would I take the risk? Ha, probably, yes - if only because I’m a crazy tech person and like the idea of having a cellphone in a satnav unit!
This is my kind of device. It has so many functions I’m not exactly sure what it does. Nice.
http://www.ebizmba.com
The One is very easy to use, and between that and its value compared to other sat-nav devices, I think that is its main appeal. Some other TomTom devices are Bluetooth-capable, (the 910), which is pretty much like having a phone in your sat-nav.