Personal Navigation Devices

The WSJ has an article on the new generation of GPS-based personal navigatoin devices or so called “personal companions” or “travel companions. In the hopes of encouraging people to carry them wherever they go, many companies have added instant messaging, photo viewers, travel guides with information like restaurant reviews and MP3 players. Featured GPS/PDA hybrid devices that are meant to be used meant to be used by walkers as well as drivers include the Garmin Nüvi, the HP iPAQ rx5900 and the Mio DigiWalker H610.
Drawbacks of such devices are:

• small screens that can be hard to see
• lack of detailed maps (topographical contour maps)
• service continue to route you on streets as if you were a car
• no update of information (look for an ATM and find out that the system sent the user to an ATM that had be removed)

No mention about the quality and coverage of the positioning technologies and how these devices handle them. The same day, Rich of Mapping Hacks wrote a post on plotting waypoints and track logs showing how spotty GPS coverage was in Amsterdam during his last visit.

But I have become partially disillisioned with how really very bad the coverage really is. I still believe in position, but the GPS is not the ultimate answer.

Relation to my thesis: Personal navigation devices compete with GPS-based cellphones in offering services to pedestrians and car drivers. The shortcomings of positioning technologies are not taken into consideration for the review. Details in the maps and accuracy of the information of the points of interests seem to be the most important.