Gizmodo
The voices in Charlie's head are nothing compared to the cacophony coming from his dashboard. Take a look at this video, where you can hear the voices of four GPS units as he test which tell us to turn soonest. The smooth-sounding male voice is that of the Honda Civic Hybrid's built-in GPS unit, the robotic male voice is the Garmin, the smooth and sexy-sounding female voice is the Cobra NavOne, and the other female voice is the Mio. Between all the yapping, its hard to tell which one was a better backseat driver, so hit up our full reviews here.
GPS Gang Bang [Giz]
Comments
That was...
...recalculating...
...pretty sweet.
A test to see which one tells you to turn the fastest? That makes no since whatsoever.
When it tells you to turn has no indication on which GPS has a better lock or better reception at all. It's programmed in software to give you a certain amount of time to make the turn, but not warn you so far in advance, that you forget to make the turn.
For instance, my Garmin GPS (yeah, no fancy voices, but it works) gives a warning beep about 2 minutes before a turn, then gives a "time to turn" about 20 seconds before the actual turn.
Anyway, funny video though...need to get one with a voice, instead of annoying beeping all the time.
Who needs to bring your family along when you have a setup like that!
Charlie White may be the harbinger of the Apocalypse. He has, after all, the Dashboard of Babel. Set each one to a different language and you may find out how difficult it is for a pillar of salt to drive a car!
LOL, that was funny.
LOL
i just think it would have been cool if at the end, all of them could sing together in harmony, "You have arrived at your destination."
and what? no one could get their VZ Navigator in on the orgy??
"A man with a GPS knows where he's going. A man with two is never sure."
I had borrowed a friend's Magellan for a month before buying a TomTom Go. The Magellan would do that audible "recalculating route" thing too, which more often than not resulted in profane shouting at the box.
The TomTom doesn't do that (though you might catch a glimpse of the progress bar on the screen), which I consider to be a feature. I don't give a flying fig that I missed the turn, just tell me when the next one is.
It goes both ways. The recalculating is telling you that it's busy finding your next turn, and that directions may not be forthcoming until it's done (which can take a bit of time until it's found a route). Also useful for streets where the turning is not so obvious - "Turn left in 50 feet" - except there are *two* left turns possible in 50 feet! Or there are two possible ways to turn left if multiple roads join up.
Remember a goal of the GPS navigation is so that you keep your eyes on the road, you should never need to look at the screen while driving. Including seeing which turn it means. If you missed the turn, it'll tell you that you missed the turn and it'll find a new route. You shouldn't look at the screen to verify that it was talking about the second left when you turned the first, or vice-versa.
Start a discussion:
Login with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?