Get ready for a spate of Our-PDA-Is-Actually-Fun type marketing pitches from big manufacturers in the post-summer season. First up is Fujitsu-Siemens with its new Loox N110, which "can play MP3s at the same time as navigating" with its on-board Navigon MobileNavigator 6 GPS device. It holds 20 hours of music and costs €370.
Nokia's E61 smartphone -- styled and presented like a Blackberry -- is to be launched "properly" in Ireland in July, according to Vodafone executives. This means that it will be available at a subsidised price on a mobile tariff plan, which this blog understands to be €200. The phone is available with push e-mail, similar to Blackberry's, and a Qwerty keyboard. No word yet from other operators as to whether they'll take it up, but it's unlikely.
Looking for a satellite navigation gadget? Watch out -- it may not work with your make of car. A growing number of vehicles are being made with athermic -- sometimes called solar -- windscreen glass. This type of glass has a thin layer of metal attached to it to block parts of the sunlight that heat a car up too much. Environmentalists like it because it reduces the need for air conditioning, thus saving energy. But sun rays are not the only thing the glass stymies. It knocks back lots of different kinds of radio signals, including those used by GPS satnav devices. I discovered this when trying to use Sony’s Nav-U50 in a Mercedes. (Not mine.) Other devices that have difficulty with the athermic windscreens are radar detectors and even mobile phone car kits. To get around this, luxury car makers are building satnav devices directly into the dash and wiring them to a small ‘shark-fin’ antenna on the roof of the car.
Cars built with athermic glass include new Renaults, Citroens, Peugeots, Vauxhalls, Audis, BMWs (X5s anyway) and some higher-end Mercs.
Sony, which has been getting into handheld GPS lately, released two new sat-nav devices to the Irish market today. One, the NV-U70T, has pan-European map coverage while the other, the NV-U50, has a more limited local range. Sony is clearly taking advantage of its hi-fi prowess, boasing a 1.6 woofer on the back of the NV-U50 and a tweeter on the front. Car cradle kits are available, as well as an external GPS antenna. The NV-U50 is €489 and the NV-U70T is €779. Should be available in the next few days from Sony Centres and Peats.
