Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

The helpful folks at TeleNav shot me out their new Shotgun and here are my first impressions.  If you are planning on buying a GPS device this holiday season, this is one to watch carefully.  I’ve had the device in my hands now for about 30 minutes and already am very excited about it for 3 main reasons.

Excitement reason #1: POIs

TeleNav says it has 11 million POIs.  The local Ikea, for some reason, shows up on no GPS devices that I have tested except my TeleNav phone GPS.  No surprise that the Shotgun finds it easily as well.  So far, the TeleNav’s connected search has always been able to find every location I’ve searched for.  I cannot say the same for Garmin, Navigon and Dash.  Keep reading about what other points make the Shotgun a damn good GPS.

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TeleNav, the on-phone GPS provider that I rely on, announced this morning they are in the connected GPS game.  This news comes on the heels of Dash GPS announcing they were done making their stand along connected GPS device.  Let’s get to it: how good is this GPS device?

From the looks of it, pretty good.  A connected GPS device is the way to go.  Static data trapped in a box isn’t helpful.  What is helpful is a device that reaches out to get new info, expand its searches.  And that is what the TeleNav Shotgun is.

Check the connected features of this GPS device.

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One for the “impressive moments in tech history”: I just received a Dash GPS device for a review last week.  I’ve played with the device for a couple of days and now learn the product is out of production.  Even odder, driving around on lunch today, I was thinking they’ve nailed the connected idea for GPS and traffic, but lack in what Navigon has dialed: awesome guidance.  I was going to suggest a change in business models to something similar to TiVo, an alternative to pay more for a service you desire—like the best traffic info on the planet.

Sure, that is easy to say now.  Now it isn’t helpful or ground breaking.  In fact, it probably looks like I am lying out my rear end.

But no.  I would love to marry the traffic info and POI search of Yahoo local thanks to Dash to the Navigon unit.  To me, that is the best of both worlds as Navigon is top dog in my book for clear, concise guidance and I can’t say enough good things about the Dash traffic info.  And I am still going to review it as the tech is going to be licensed into other products (come on Navigon!).

A sad day for the Dash GPS team as they had the dream, delivered the product and then find perhaps the concept wasn’t spot on.  Here’s to hoping their brand of traffic and connectedness lives on.

Read [Wired}

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The good manufacturers of the Dash Express have been hard at work updating the software. There a few main updates to the system, which are sure to make the Dash Express even more popular.

One of the first updates involves something called MyRoute, which studies a route you go on often and figures out ways to improve on it. For example, if you are commuting from home to work, it will learn the route that you usually take. Now, next time you want to make that same trip, this program will look for faster, more gas efficient ways to get to the same place, and then you can choose if you want to go that way or not. One of the problems with the initial software in the Dash Express was the time it took for the maps to render. Many users wanted their maps to load faster, Dash was able to fix this issue and now they claim that the maps will render about 50% faster than before.

Additionally, their is a new program in the software called Search Along Route, which basically helps to find POI’s nearby and will display any near POI’s along your route as well as the distance from current location. The last of the updates includes a new program, which is provided by the SiRFInstantFix technology, and the program is called FasterFind. Basically, this obtains information from direct GPS satellites and displays that info to start moving within seconds. All of these services update automatically when in Wi-Fi range.

The Dash Express costs only $300, which is pretty cheap considering all of the new and improved features it comes with.

Via [NaviGadget]

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Owners of the T-Mobile Dash has been receiving little gifts in the mail as of late, which are coming in the form of new batteries. It turns out that the current batteries that were made by Dynapack are experiencing some issues with overheating, the new batteries are made by Celxpert. While T-Mobile claims the issue has only been in “rare occurrences” they are still taking the necessary precautions.

Along with the battery comes the simple explanation:

“T-Mobile and HTC are providing a replacement for the T-Mobile Wing battery made by Dynapack at not charge to you due to rare occurrences of the battery overheating.“

Any current T-Mobile Dash owners with a battery marked Celxpert may want to be on the lookout for the new battery to arrive in the mail soon, if not a call or stop into a T-Mobile location may be a good idea. Last thing anyone needs is an overheating battery.

Via [WM Experts]

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