Delphi has announced the NAV200 portable GPS navigation system, a budget-oriented personal navigation system which comes pre-loaded with maps of the U.S. and Canada and offers most-wanted entertainment features so, in the event you get caught in the middle of nowhere, you’ll at least be able to pipe some tunes and revel in embarrassing photos of yourself.
“Industry trends show the personal navigation market is expected to grow more than double over last year,” stated Adiel Avelar, Delphis’s global navigation business line manager. “Part of this growth is driven by a convergence of different technologies such as navigation and entertainment. Combining these technologies at a fair price adds significant value and is very appealing to a large group of underserved, first time users who want more for their money.”
To that end, the Windows CE-based NAV200 sports a 400 Mhz processor, a SIRFstart III GPS chipset antenna, a 3.5-inch LCD display, and a built-in rechargeable battery which should provide up to three hours of operation per charge. The NAV200 comes with a 1.5 GB SD card preloaded with NAVTEQ maps of the U.S. and Canada (so no downloading is needed), and the nap files are backed up on a DVD so, if you lose the SD card, you’ve got a way to reload your maps. The NAV200 can also play videos (AVI) and music (MP3 and WAV) and display images (JPEG, GIF, and PNG) loaded via SD cards so you can show off those embarrassing road photos to your friends, and users can subscribe to Traffic Monitoring Channel (TMC) and get real-time traffic information and route adjustment via an optional adapter.
The NAV200 will debut in North America in October for a suggested retail price of $349.99; Delphi expects to take the unit to Europe, South America, and Asia Pacific markets soon.
