The worldwide development of the GPS market and related devices began around the beginning of this century. But the technology of receiving, transmitting and tracking appeared much earlier, and military intelligence set the priorities for its use. A little later, the technology became much more accurate, and access was opened for its use in civilian household devices.
Today, literally every smartphone or tablet is equipped with its own GPS module, and that is why so many motorists use the same smartphone with a tablet as an alternative to a navigator. Nevertheless, navigation equipment is still in demand, and manufacturers continue to surprise their consumers with all sorts of novelties and functionality of the gadget.
The fierce competition of smartphones and navigators turned out to be in the hands of ordinary users of the latter, because the pricing policy of brands that produce gadgets for cars has become much more loyal, and devices have begun to be produced with good filling and an intelligent display.
Analysts of many independent groups are already sleeping and seeing how the Windows CE platform, which runs navigators, will switch to morewidespread and affordable Android operating system, whose slow but steady "conquest of the world" cannot be overlooked.
In order to make a rating of car navigators, the actual assortment of goods presented on the shelves of car dealerships and Internet sites was analyzed. After the team of testers decided on the current models of navigators, all gadgets were checked and tested under the same conditions. Warm, hot and cold starts with measurement of the device response time in the GPS network, convenience, ergonomics, packaging, functionality, display characteristics and battery life - all this was evaluated and given the appropriate rating that car navigators deserve.
The ranking of the best was compiled based on the following critical indicators.
Navigation and platform
In order to determine the response time of the device in the GPS-stream, bench starts were carried out in cold, hot and warm modes. Hot starts were carried out about 10-12 times for each device, warm starts - no more than 5 times, and for the cold mode one start was enough.
Further, in order to designate the rating of navigators, estimates were given to the speed of loading the operating system and the response of pre-installed software. Then the time was taken into account, which the gadget spent on laying the route both between cities and within a largemetropolis; how quickly the navigator determines that the car has gone off course. Also, one of the important factors was the speed of the device in downloaded and pre-installed applications and the performance of the gadget on the maps.
Ergonomics
The rating of navigators for the car also includes the convenience of the gadget: fasteners, adjustment options, reliability of the latches and the ability to turn in different directions. The filling of the device was evaluated, the amount of internal memory, equipment, dimensions and weight of the device, the presence of a video recorder, that is, everything that depends on the place that it will occupy in the cabin and on the glass, were taken into account, since all additional piles can affect driver review.
Display
The rating of navigators with a DVR cannot do without a high-quality display of the device. Many gadgets that are equipped with an outdated TN-matrix will not please their owner with a clear and understandable image on a sunny day, so current models using modern IPS-scan were preferred.
An important factor for the navigator, in addition to the matrix, is the indicator of the maximum display brightness, which was also tested on all prepared samples. Here you can also include a sufficient diagonal of the gadget, pixel saturation and the operation of the touchscreen in motion.
Functionality
The rating of navigators included an assessment of the functionality of the device. This may include workBluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless protocols, traffic jams and the condition of nearby roads. Devices that had a built-in DVR automatically received an additional point. Gadgets with support for the Android operating system were also on the priority list, because the device could support many more applications, unlike the Windows counterpart.
Work offline
Together with other characteristics, the rating of navigators took into account the battery life of the device. After charging the battery "to the brim", the testers turned on the gadget's display at maximum brightness and tested it in urban traffic jams with a constant change in route and on a highway with a stable direction.
Test results
The first places according to all the above criteria went to Garmin navigators: Nuvi 3590LT and 2595LT models. Having received the largest number of positive ratings, the gadget proved that with it the driver is not afraid of traffic jams, constant route changes, or the bright sun.
Models have the ability to download the state of roads and traffic jams free of charge using a TMS receiver, they are distinguished by good and reliable GPS signal reception, the presence of wireless communication protocols with the device and an excellent touchscreen response. This also includes very convenient mounts both on the windshield and on the front panel of the car, and the ergonomics of the mechanism allows you to see the image on the screen without any twitching.
Silver went to Prestigio navigatorGeoVision 5850HDDVR, which proved to be excellent when working with a touchscreen, distinguished itself by the good quality of the DVR, convenient mounting and a fairly bright display, losing to the "gold" models only in screen resolution and functionality.
Navigators rating gave bronze to Treelogic TL-431, Explay ND-51 and teXet TN-822 gadgets. All models performed mediocre in almost all of the selection criteria described above. The unresponsive touchscreen, the quality of the dash cam, poor performance when working with maps and pre-installed applications, late notification of the wrong route and the inability to load road conditions - all these factors deservedly point to the last place in the ranking.
