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Navman S-Series UK launch
Navman launched its S-series at the ineptly named Modern Design centre last night. One speaker said the new models were targeted at "old people who drive a lot but have lost their confidence," among others.
All four products share a new design and use the touch screen, rather than mechanical buttons, for navigation now.
So, from top to bottom: the S90i is the jewel in Navman's crown, costing £299.99 and packing a 2megapixel camera on its backside.
It has a 4.3in widescreen display, just like its younger siblings the S70 and S50. They cost £199.99 and £179.99 respectively and are identical apart from the S70 has European maps installed alongside UK ones.
A new low end model, the S30, cost £149.99 and only has a 3.5in screen. Navman informs us we'll be seeing a range of even cheaper models from the company in the near future.
As well as a revamped design, the S90i has gained a lens cover and all models can now have pin codes enabled so stolen sat-navs can't be used. This is a much under-rated feature and, in my opinion, all sat nav companies should ideally sell every sat-nav with the pin code enabled and a unique code included in the box. This would wipe out any market in stolen sat navs.
The menus look very clean and a new dedicated SOS button particularly caught my eye. It brings up nearby emergency service hotspots when pressed and if you have a phone hooked up via Bluetooth, it can even call the nearest one.
Another new feature, call text to speech, reads out road names as well as directions which reduces the need to flick your eyes over to the sat nav.
The three top end devices, the S50, S70 and S90i, work with Flickr to give users access to over 26 million photos that have latitude and longitude information attached. Users can then search for a location on their PC using the NavDesk software, choose a photo of that location and then use sat nav system to drive there.
Posted by Emil Larsen on September 14, 2007 | Permalink
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