Having to compete with the likes of Garmin and TomTom is no easy task, but Navigon is hoping to woo some new customers with the Navigon 7200T. Now, in the past, we’ve always commended Navigon for offering feature-rich GPS for an affordable price, but we’ve had issues with the spotty performance and the complicated user interface. The 7200T follows a similar story line, but with a happier ending. The GPS offers an attractive design and plenty of features, including voice address entry, 3D landmark renderings, text-to-speech functionality, and integrated Bluetooth. The user interface and maps still aren’t as clean as a Garmin or a TomTom, but performance has improved and address entry by voice can be quite accurate with some training–better than the similarly featured TomTom GO 930. Plus at $499, it’s a more affordable alternative to the Garmin Nuvi 880, though you don’t get all the voice command features with the 7200T. Still if you’re in the market for a higher-end portable navigation device that won’t completely bust the bank, the Navigon 7200T is a decent choice.

Design
Like the Navigon 2000S, the Navigon 7200T features a slightly new design with a black matte casing rather than the lacquered finish of the company’s previous models. It still keeps the compact size, measuring 4.6 inches wide by 3.2 inches tall by 0.7 inch deep and weighing 6.5 ounces, so you can use it in multiple cars or take it with you on vacations for use with rental cars.

The 7200T’s display is slightly different from the company’s other models. The screen is completely flat and doesn’t have a beveled edge, so it gives the GPS a more sophisticated and streamlined look. The display measures 4.3 inches diagonally and is sharp and bright, making it easy to view maps. The touch screen is also more responsive than other Navigon units we’ve tested in the past. The onscreen keyboard is slightly larger than the Navigon 7100, so address entry was easier and more accurate. Also, the GPS features predictive text, so as you enter letters, it will automatically bring up possible result matches. Unfortunately, you only have the option of an ABC-formatted keyboard and not a QWERTY one.

The user interface is pretty intuitive. From the start menu , you have four main options: New Destination, My Destinations, Take Me Home, and Voice Entry. As we’ve noted in our other reviews, the Navigon interface isn’t quite as clean or easy as a TomTom or Garmin GPS. For example, if you simply want to go to the map screen, you have to tap Options first and then Show Map, whereas the other systems have direct shortcuts. The extra steps required on the Navigon 7200T, but it definitely made us appreciate the simplified interface of the other units.

There’s a power button on top of the unit, while there’s a microSD expansion slot, a reset hole, a mini USB port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. Finally, there’s an external antenna jack on the back.

The Navigon 7200T comes packaged with a car charger, a vehicle mount (windshield and dashboard), a software CD, and reference material. The car mount is slightly different than the ones that shipped with previous Navigon units. It consists of a disc that attaches to the back of the GPS, and that piece connects to the arm of the mount. There’s a bit of assembly required, but it’s quite easy. What’s difficult is removing the unit from the disc; there’s a little release lever at the bottom, but we still had problems. The good news is the mount securely held the 7200T in place during our road tests.

Features
The Navigon 7200T includes maps of the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. To plan a trip, you can enter a location by specific address, point of interest, recent destination, user-defined home, and so forth. Of course, the big news is that you can enter addresses by voice. When you first use the voice command system, you do a little test read in your car so the GPS can learn your voice and the environment in which you’ll be using the 7200T. The first couple of times we used the voice entry system, the results weren’t very accurate, but the more we used it, the better it got (check out the Performance section for more details). Unfortunately, unlike the Garmin Nuvi 880, the voice command system is limited to just address entry and can’t be used for other tasks.

The 7200T can calculate routes in one of three ways–fast, optimum, and short–and gives you the option to allow or avoid highways and toll roads. There are also pedestrian and bicycle modes. In addition, the 7200T offers free real-time traffic updates for life, so you can know the road condition before hitting the road or finding alternative routes if you happen to get caught in traffic. If there are any incidents along your route, you’ll see a little exclamation point on your map screen (as well as get an audible cue) and by tapping it, it will bring up a list of congested areas. You can select a specific incident and get more details on the problem or choose to ignore it.
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Ever since the Garmin Nuvi 880 was announced at CES 2008, we’ve been excited to get our hands on this portable navigation system. Given the good track record of the other Nuvi series devices, we expected more of the same, solid feature list and good performance. However, we were most looking forward to taking its speech recognition capabilities out for a test drive. To be honest, we were a bit weary since we’ve tried other such-equipped GPS devices, including the Magellan Maestro 4250 and the TomTom GO 930, and while they worked, there weren’t the most accurate and the capabilities were limited. This isn’t so with the Nuvi 880. We were blown away at the accuracy of the speech recognition, the range of features you can use it with, and its overall ease of use. This, in combination with the navigation offerings, sleek design, and solid performance, makes it worthy of our Editors’ Choice award. The only downfall is that you’re going to pay for these features. The Garmin Nuvi 880 has a price tag of $ 1,071.41, but you can probably find it for a bit less online.

Design
Like the rest of the Nuvi series, the Garmin Nuvi 880 is sleek, compact, and simple. It measures 4.9 inches wide by 3.1 inches high by 0.7 inch deep and weighs 6.2 ounces for easy portability between vehicles. The small size also comes in handy when using the it outside of the car as an entertainment device or travel aid, since the Nuvi comes loaded with games and travel tools.

Another benefit is the Nuvi 880′s spacious 4.3-inch touch screen. With a 480×272-pixel resolution, the display is bright and easy to read, whether you’re reading maps or using the other features. You can adjust the screen’s brightness and there’s an automatic mode that switches the map colors for optimal viewing during the day or night. The touch screen was responsive to our commands, and the onscreen keyboard is available in QWERTY or ABC format. The keyboard is on the small side, so users with larger fingers might have some problems. The good news is that it has predictive text, so it will automatically pull up possible search results as soon as you start inputting a couple of letters.

The user interface and software is intuitive. All the icons and menus are clearly marked, and we found that you could pretty much figure out the basic operations just by playing with the device. However, for some advanced tasks such as planning a multidestination trip or setting up Bluetooth, you might want to consult the user manual.

On the left spine, you will find a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD expansion slot, and a mini USB port. There’s a power button on top, and the bottom of the unit holds an external antenna jack and power/cradle connector.

The Garmin Nuvi 880 comes packaged with a vehicle mount (windshield and dash), a car charger, a USB cable, a speech recognition remote control, and reference material. The vehicle mount is simple to install and attach, and it securely held the Nuvi 880 in our road tests. We found it interesting that there is a separate remote control for the speech recognition capabilities. On other systems with this technology, it is simply built into the device. The control consists of on and off buttons to activate the feature, and a rubber strap so you can attach it to some place in your car, such as the steering wheel. It’s a bit of an eyesore, but we’re willing to overlook this minor inconvenience since the accuracy of the speech recognition capabilities are the best we’ve seen to date (see Performance for more).

Features
The Garmin Nuvi 880 comes preloaded with City Navigator NT maps of North America and millions of points of interest. Perhaps the biggest highlight, though, is its speech recognition capabilities. We’ve seen this technology in other systems, such as the Magellan Maestro 4250 and TomTom GO 930, but the Nuvi 880 is the most impressive with the breadth of its capabilities and accuracy. In all, you can use voice commands to perform 30 functions, including entering addresses, adjusting the system volume, activating the hands-free speaker system, playing/stopping the music player, viewing the trip computer, and accessing MSN Direct services.

To start planning a trip, whether by using your voice or the touch screen, you can enter a specific address, choose a POI, or select a location from the Recently Found or Favorites list. The Nuvi 880 can store up to 500 favorites/locations. In addition, it supports multidestination trips and you can add waypoints on the fly. You have your choice of three route preferences (faster time, shorter distance, or off-road) and three usage modes (automobile, bicycle, or pedestrian). You can avoid certain road types if you choose, such as toll roads and highways. There’s also a detour function if you want to avoid a certain part of the given route and if you happen to get off track, the Nuvi 880 can do automatic route recalculations. If you don’t need guidance, you can just have the Nuvi track your movements by tapping View Map.

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Kenwood DNX5120 Navigation receiver An LCD screen in your double-sized dash opening looks great, but add the utility of an easy-to-use navigation system and you’ve got great looks and great function. Kenwood’s DNX5120 DVD navigation receiver delivers movies and music, plus you get turn-by-turn directions from its built-in Garmin navigation system. The receiver’s 6.1″ LCD touchscreen brings your movies to life when you’re parked, and a dynamic user interface makes it easy to scroll through menus and use the navigation functions. Options for expansion Add to the music mix with a USB connection that lets you control a thumb drive, hard-disk drive, or other USB devices. Add the KCA-iP300V cable to view videos and pictures, plus listen to music from your iPod®. If you own a Bluetooth phone, Kenwood’s add-on adapter allows you to make and receive calls through your stereo system. An audio/video input makes it easy to add a camcorder, gaming console, or other video source, and there’s even a convenient front-panel auxiliary input for other audio sources. Built-in navigation from Garmin The built-in navigation system from Garmin features millions of preloaded points of interest to help you locate nearby services and attractions. You can plan your travels ahead of time or explore the unfamiliar areas of your town with a wealth of information at your fingertips. Note: If you’re going to use your iPod with this receiver, be sure to check “Hands-on Research” for specific iPod model compatibility with this receiver or its optional iPod adapter.

Sell Electronics – Laptops – dell XPS M1730 new product.

PROCESSOR Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7700 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)

OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate Edition – English

MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz

HARD DRIVE RAID Protection: 250GB (2x250GB) 5400RPM

BLUETOOTH OPTIONS Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)

LCD PANEL 17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA

Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor

BATTERY OPTIONS 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Prim

INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)

WIRELESS CARDS Intel PRO/Dell Wireless 4965a/g/n Mini Card

ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE PC-cillin Internet Security with AntiVirus and Spyware removal 24-months >

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Height:

4.5 inches (115.5 mm)

Width:

2.4 inches (62.1 mm)

Depth:

0.48 inch (12.3 mm)

Weight:

4.8 ounces (135 grams)

Color

• Black or white

Display

• 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
• 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi
• Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
• Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

Audio playback

• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
• Audio formats supported: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
• User-configurable maximum volume limit

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13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display with support for millions of colors

Supported resolutions: 1280 by 800 (native), 1152 by 720, 1024 by 768, 1024 by 640, 800 by 600, 800 by 500, 720 by 480, and 640 by 480 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio

Connections and expansion

• MagSafe power port
• Gigabit Ethernet port
• Mini DisplayPort
• Two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
• Audio in/out
• Kensington lock slot

Storage

• 250GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard disk drive; optional 320GB or 500GB 5400-rpm drive⁴
• 8x slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/
  CD-RW)Maximum write: 8x DVD-R, DVD+R; 4x DVD-R DL (double layer), DVD+R DL (double layer), DVD-RW, DVD+RW; 24x CD-R; 10x CD-RWMaximum read: 8x DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-ROM; 6x DVD-ROM (double layer DVD-9), DVD-R DL (double layer), DVD+R DL (double layer), DVD-RW, and DVD+RW; 24x CD

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