Garmin has unveiled its new range of feature-heavy sat navs and GPS devices at CES this week, with new devices tailored for use by golfers and motorcyclists, as well as a new high-end sat nav for car drivers.
Garmin's new nüvi 885T, zūmo 660 and G5 GPS units have been designed for drivers, bikers and golfers, respectively.
KITT-style speech recognition
First up, the costly but feature-packed $800 nüvi 885T sat nav offers speech recognition (KITT-style!), lane assist with junction view, dynamic content from MSN Direct traffic info and a number of other cloud-based services.
"Combining two of Garmin's most popular features – speech recognition and lane assist with junction view – the nüvi 885T lets drivers keep both hands on the wheel and takes the guesswork out of navigation," said Dan Bartel, Garmin's Vice President of worldwide sales.
"And with enhanced MSN Direct services, the nüvi 885T provides much-needed travel information like traffic updates, flight status, Doppler radar, gas prices, news and business headlines and a wireless 'send to GPS' capability."
MSN info direct
The unit features a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 touchscreen, Bluetooth and an FM transmitter to link up to your car stereo. Drivers also get the following types of dynamic content from the MSN Direct network:
- Flight status: check the status of an arriving or departing flight before pulling into the terminal.
- Advanced weather: displays Doppler weather maps and other current weather conditions (including high/low/current temperatures, chances of precipitation, humidity, pressure, wind and weather alerts), as well as three day weather forecasts.
- Traffic conditions: receive up-to-date incident and flow information for most metropolitan areas across North America, and let nüvi select a route that avoids traffic accidents, road closures, and construction.
- Fuel prices: receive gas price data from more than 85,000 gas stations across the nation. Drivers will always know where to get the best prices – and save time and fuel by using the unit to navigate directly to the station of their choice.
- Enhanced movie listings: search for movies by title or by theatre and receive show times, 'star' ratings, genre, actors and more – and get driving directions to the theatre.
- Local events: receive special notices on festivals, concerts and sporting events in your area, and navigate to them.
- News and stocks: the latest news headlines and financial market updates are always at your fingertips.
- Send to GPS capability: plan trips and look up destinations from the convenience of your computer, via Windows Live Local, and then wirelessly send locations to your nüvi 885T.
Biker-designed, golfing gadgets
Finally, the biker-designed zūmo 660 is built for motorbiking types (well, those with $800 to burn on a new sat nav at least).
The Garmin zumo 660 features a sunlight-friendly touchscreen display and Bluetooth for feeding you turn-by-turn directions directly into your ear canal.
Last up is the waterproof Garmin Approach G5 for golfers with a three-inch touchscreen, intuitive tap and drag functionalities.
"While playing, golfers will see detailed course maps with precise distance information from their current location to fairways, hazards and greens. As you move about the course, the Approach continuously updates your position and distances to each target."
Cool! The closest you can get to the feel of playing Nintendo DS golf, while playing, well, ACTUAL GOLF!
