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You have surely seen auto navigation systems in your friends’ cars and you could be on the point of buying one yourself. It is certainly true that the auto navigation systems are impressive and the price of a unit has fallen fairly radically over the last few years. There are indeed many benefits to be derived from owning an auto navigation system, which is also known as sat nav.

In this piece, we will take a look at some of the most important benefits of using a sat nav system.

Safety is paramount in whatever pursuit you undertake and safety has to be taken into account when driving too. It is difficult to know whether the world used to be a safer place or not, but it is a fact that these days more people are wary of getting embroiled with strangers than they were before.

Solitary drivers do not want to stop a stranger and admit that they are lost or even stranded. Maybe the stranger will send you into an ambush, set up hastily over a mobile phone as you drive off happily suspecting nothing. People have become very suspicious of strangers.

It goes without saying that lone female drivers are the most distrustful of asking strangers for directions, but families with children are often very wary as well.

Having an auto navigation system remedies this problem, because you will never get lost again, assuming that the sat nav console is wired to your car battery or you have spare batteries for a hand-held device in the glove box.

Confidence in getting to your destination on time, if you have left early enough, is another major benefit. Traffic jams, road works, accidents and natural disasters will no longer be surprises to you and your sat nave system will be able to propose alternative routes in order to avoid the obstacle. This is a very big advantage.

You will no longer have to leave really early to make sure you miss the traffic or to make sure you get somewhere on time. Sat nav will give your ETA. This can save you a whole lot of stress, especially if you have to be in different places for work or the kids all the way through the day.

Not to have to juggle with maps is a godsend as well. No more folding and refolding maps and struggling to remember portions of the route and then stopping to check and remember the next section of the route. Maps are always out of date too. New sections of motorway are always being added and small roads are sometimes closed for a new housing project. Paper maps just cannot keep up.

The last but not automatically the least major advantage is the freedom an auto navigation system gives to you in your spare time. It opens up the countryside If you were always a little uneasy about going on a Sunday drive because you did not know the way or did not have a co-pilot to read the map, now you can just go with your auto navigation system.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on different subjects, but is currently concerned with the Snooper sat nav system. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Escort 8500.

Auto navigation systems have improved a great deal since they were invented by the US military in the Sixties and Seventies. In fact, their development is a continuous process, as you can well imagine. I remember in the Eighties when you got a fix on your location every twelve minutes or so.

This meant that ’sat nav’ was great for shipping and yachts, but not much good for cars or other fast-travelling vehicles. They were also very expensive and quite large, not like the units that cyclists can buy in a wrist watch these days.

In spite of the fact that sat nav has advanced far enough for companies to be able to manufacture affordable auto navigation systems, there are still problems with them. But there is nothing new about that, it has become normal to start selling a product while it is still at some phase of development.

Look at MS Widows for an example; it is nearly thirty years old and still does not work seamlessly - it is still ‘under development’. The same holds true of auto navigation systems.

And part of the trouble is with the software running the device. Software is a very problematic thing, as Windows proves to its users every day. I am not necessarily knocking Windows software, it is probably the best of its kind, but then there is no real competition for it and that is a shame for all the usual reasons such as apathy, high-handedness and over-pricing, just look at Windows ‘Vista’. What an expensive heap of junk that was.

Needless to say, if Microsoft cannot get their software right, then auto navigation companies cannot either. Therefore, it is imperative to use an auto navigation device that either regularly updates itself automatically or permits the user to do it manually.

You need the latest bug-fixes to the software and the latest updates to the maps. Ideally, the unit will update itself every day automatically, but you should do it manually at least before each extensive journey.

The signal is clearly very significant as well. In order to get a fix on your location at least three satellites have to be able to ’see’ your auto navigation system. If a fourth can verify the data, then so much the better.

This means that you may vanish ‘off the radar’, so to speak, if you are travelling under ground or in mostly built-up locations. Being seen by one or two satellites is not good enough, there is no triangulation.

It is rational to assume that if you have a clear view of the sky, then the three or four satellites should have a clear view of you, but it is not an infallible test. The best thing to have with you is still common sense. Do not just depend on your auto navigation system blindly. If you think it is giving you a false reading, perhaps it is.

In this situation, the best thing to do is think about whether you or it is right and check it with a map if you have one. If all else fails, take a bit of advice often made by Windows support, turn the device off, count to ten and turn it back on again - in other words, reboot it.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on various topics, but is currently involved with the Snooper sat nav system. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Escort 8500.

In order to find out which GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) navigation system (also known as sat nav) is right for you, you first have to be certain on what you want to get out of the set-up. Will you be utilizing your GPS auto navigation system solely in your car or will you be requiring to use it to go cycling, hiking or boating? Another question is, whether you already own a laptop or palm computer or not.

There are dedicated GPS auto navigation systems for every situation and some are versatile enough to cover a couple of uses. The best systems are those that are dedicated to doing just one job. In this category, you have the stand-alone vehicular GPS navigation systems. These are either cut into the dashboard or mounted on it or sometimes even onto the windshield.

One good piece of advice, if you are purchasing a new car on finance is to have the sat nav installed by a third party or to pay the garage cash for the sat nav and its installation. If you have the price of the GPS auto navigation system put on the finance deal, you will end up paying a great deal more for it.

On the other hand, you could install the device yourself. I do not mean that you should cut holes in your instrument panel yourself, but you can buy mounting packages that use powerful transparent rubber suckers. They will hold the screen securely, as long as you check them from time to time to make sure that the suckers are still holding.

You can get just as good a service from a GPS navigation system running on your laptop and the screen will probably be bigger that the normal sat nav screen too. Your laptop will run off batteries or an in-car adapter and the software will run within the laptop.

This is an outstanding alternative if you already own a laptop or were thinking of buying one. The laptop will perform its normal tasks as a computer and double as a navigation aid with the added bonus that you do not have to leave it in the car as another reason for a thief to break in.

The cheapest option in the portable sat nav market is the portable or hand-held unit. However, the screens can be rather small and the directions may be given either in pictures or by voice, not all hand-held sat nav systems offer both alternatives at the same time.

If you want a GPS auto navigation system but you are finding them a bit pricey, you could always wait a while, because prices are falling all the time. You could also check out online stores such as Amazon and eBay.

Remember, that the worst thing you can do if you are thinking about costs, is to put the cost of the sat nav on the car finance deal. If you really want a stand-alone GPS auto navigation system installed by an expert, take your car to a garage after you have bought it. Otherwise, run the software on your laptop and sit that on the seat next to you.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on various subjects, but is presently concerned with the Snooper sat nav system. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Escort 8500.

Are you happy driving long distances on your own? Or driving to places that you are not familiar with? If you are, then all well and good, but there are lots of people who have to make journeys like those, but who are terrified of getting lost.

It is not simple to get a job these days and it will probably get worse before it gets any better, so it is not straightforward to object or risk losing your job. A way around these difficulties is an auto navigation system or a sat nav as many individuals call them.

An auto navigation system is quite cheap these days and it can relieve lone drivers of a load of stress, if it is used correctly. If your car did not come with an auto navigation system, then get one installed by a reputable third party or go for one of the other options, such as installing the software on a laptop or getting a hand-held sat nav system.

In fact, the dearest way of purchasing an auto navigation system is to get it with the car on finance, because you will be hit twice. Not only are the car manufacturers and their dealers the most expensive by a long chalk, but if you put the sat nav on the car finance you will pay even more for it. Heaps more.

Buy your car on finance if you have to, but buy all the accessories separately for cash. Consider visiting a few garages and asking for a quote on the system that you like. This requires a little research first, but it is well worth it. There are two ways of going about this: either check out which system you want first, or see what local technicians can install first.

After you have finished this research, you will have your price for installation and then you can go online and find out how much you can get one there for in comparison with the local shopping street.

Another option is to buy an adapter for the cigarette lighter socket so that you can plug your laptop into it and buy the software and hardware as a package so that you can convert your laptop computer into a full GPS auto navigation device.

If you already have a laptop, this is the least expensive, best alternative. It will provide at least as good a system as a stand-alone set-up and the screen may even be larger. It also means that you can remove the device so as not to give criminals another excuse to break into your car.

The least expensive option of all is to get a hand-held GPS sat nav unit. These are also useful, but often they do not provide the same level of service. Like the laptop alternative, the hand-held device can be taken out of the car and used on a boat. However, the hand-held unit can also be used while hiking or on a bike

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on different subjects, but is currently involved with the Snooper sat nav system. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Escort 8500.

There are many reasons why you might be a prime candidate for an auto navigation system: If you drive to new places often, say as a company representative; if the routes that you travel often are always being dug up, if there are frequent traffic jams or if there are lots of traffic lights on it; if you want to circumvent schools or shopping malls or if you just want to find a quicker or a more scenic route to your destination.

Many people would benefit from an auto navigation system, but there are a couple of kinds of systems so it can be quite difficult to work out which one would be the best to suit your requirements. In the rest of this article, we will take a more comprehensive look at these different types.

Sole purpose, stand-alone auto navigation systems are the kind that are frequently built into new cars by the manufacturer. However, that is the most expensive way of buying an auto navigation system, so it is worth getting one put in later, because then the cost of the device does not go on the car’s finance agreement, which would make the sat nav unit very costly.

These units usually bear subscription charges analogous to a mobile phone. This means that the sat nav unit is often sold for a very small profit, but the company makes its money from your monthly payments for the data feed. It is a very similar set up to the mobile phone deals.

The monthly fees are a bind, but the systems are bang up to date. The information in these devices is updated live and you will be made aware of obstacles or hazards in the road ahead of you within minutes of them occurring.

Multipurpose hand-held navigation units are auto navigation systems that do not offer quite as much detail as the stand-alones, but they can be upgraded by software additions to do the same job if you like.

However, because they are transportable, they can be removed from the car and used in a boat or for hiking or cycling. In other words, the hand-held console is far more flexible.

Laptop or Palm Top based models are designed to run on your computer. They are usually just as capable of delivering as detailed information as a stand-alone system and they are obviously portable too.

If you already have a portable computer then this is just about the least expensive, good system. You will get a top of the range, GPS auto navigation system on a large, laptop screen for just the cost of the subscription.

Satellite navigation is certainly here to stay, because young people like it. It can also be seen as a safety device for unaccompanied travellers. For example, if a lone traveller gets lost, there is no need to stop to ask directions or if your car breaks down out of town, you will know where you are located in order to direct the service to where you are.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on various topics, but is presently concerned with the Snooper sat nav system. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Escort 8500.

It is a bizarre fact that many purchasers of new cars are willing to pay several times the true value of a satellite navigation system in order to have it installed by the maker. It is true that the car’s manufacturer normally does an excellent job of installing the unit, but then you are paying through the nose for it.

If you bought the sat nav unit independently and had it installed by a third party, you would buy it for a third or a quarter of the rate. Still, it is part of the idea of buying a new car to have all the latest apparatus built in to it. Satellite navigation, popularly called sat nav, is a real boon, if you buy a system that is up-to-date and that is regularly updated.

It is not necessary to have the sat nav installed in the car factory in order to have it fitted well. Many third party installers are quite capable of making a good job of it too without having to have your radio/CD player taken out.

Many auto navigation systems are attached to the dashboard by means of rubber suction cups in any case. Buying a sat nav device that does not have to have holes cut for it will also keep the cost to a minimum without having to sacrifice quality or safety.

An important issue to remember is that there are many kinds of GPS systems, each with rather specific uses. GPS for an ocean-going yacht does not have to have road maps, whereas GPS for a bicycle may not give enough advanced notification for the speed of a car.

Even if you buy a GPS sat nav system for a road vehicle, there are different types. The three basic kinds are: stand-alone, such as you see installed at the car factory; hand-held and systems that are meant to be used with a laptop computer or similar device.

The stand-alone systems are the most popular, because they have certain advantages: they are made for the job of getting you from A to B via C, D and E, if required; they hold a database of landmarks which will help you know that you are on the right road; a voice will give you directions so that yo do not have to keep referring to the screen and it will memorize and integrate previous routes.

Hand-held sat nav systems work, but require more thought and sometimes additional software to be provided by the user. The screen is usually too small to be of much use and some only create voice directions. Others only provide graphic directions. However, they are better than nothing if you are walking or cycling in unknown terrain.

Laptops and PDA’s provide an excellent service, especially if you already had the device for other purposes such as office work.

So, it is not just a question of getting hold of a cheap sat nav system and thinking that they are all the same, you have to see it working so that you can weigh up whether it is going to be of any use to you in your situation.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on various topics, but is currently involved with the Snooper sat nav system. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Escort 8500.