Digital Trends

Portable GPS devices are among the hottest selling CE gadgets: An amazing 12 million are expected to be gobbled up this year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Not too bad for a device that simply tells you where to go—and gets annoyed if you decide to take a different route! (We affectionately call our Garmin GPS “Naggie” since she gets a dismissive tone if we choose to blaze our own shortcuts.) Still it’s unbelievably cool getting a real-time view of your location and directions to grandma’s house—or wherever else you’re off to.

Dramatically-dropping cost is perhaps the biggest driver of GPS popularity since you can now buy one for $149 US, although low-end models are hard to recommend. In GPS Land, three companies dominate sales—and no, Sony, Samsung and Panasonic are not among them. Garmin, TomTom and Magellan own 80 percent of the market while others like Navigon are trying to claw their way into the top ranks. That said, we recently were sent the Navigon 2100 Max off to our testing labs to determine if it deserves to be considered a top-tier unit. Now let’s take a drive…