It’s just another GPS, right? Is that what you’re thinking? While it is just a GPS the Shotgun from TeleNav brings a bit more than your standard Garmin. It’s somewhat comparable to the Dash as well, but we all know what happened to them.
The Shotgun has a 4.3-inch LCD and connects wirelessly over a GSM network for real-time traffic updates and OTA upgrades:
• Restaurant Reviews – Quickly identify the top places to go and read what others say.
• Address Sharing – Share addresses or your location to meet up with friends more efficiently.
• Weather – Get up-to-date, detailed weather information.
• Commute Alerts – Get emailed alerts about traffic conditions on your daily commute.
You can search the Net from wherever you are to find all sorts of POIs like cheap gas, Wi-Fi hotspots and restaurants. Check out the video after the jump.
If you’re like me then you’ll want to pre-plan your trip and you can do so by sending routes from your desktop directly to your Shotgun with plug-ins for Firefox and IE.
The Shotgun actively searches every five minutes for traffic and automatically reroutes if you choose to do so with the touch of one button. You can also dig a bit deeper into traffic problems or incidents to see how slow it’s moving.
It’s small enough at 4.9L x 3.1W x 0.75H inches to throw in your coat pocket or purse/bag if you’re feeling more pedestrian.
The device itself retails for $300 with three months of free TeleNav Connected Service. A 2-year plan will set you back $239 ($9.96/month) or a 1-year plan for $129 ($10.75/month).
Seems cool although not enough of a difference to make me give up my wonderful Dash.
Pretty neat – now port it over to the iPhone and bring the cost down because we already have a data connection and the hardware, I just want the software.
That’s sick. I’m thinking about going and picking it up
http://www.paranormalknowledge.com
We don’t need yet another device.
We need a Google version of MSN Direct for our EXISTING GPS windshield mounted devices.
Why doesn’t Google make a windshield mount for the G1 ???
The problem with the G1 is that it won’t go horizontal unless the keypad is slid up. And people in California can’t mount GPS devices on their windshield. But still they could make a velcro dash mount for the G1 for California use.
I still have my Via Michelin windshield mounted here in California, and I never get pulled over for it.
My point is lets get a service that’s CHEAPER than MSN Direct, or even FREE, that’s GOOGLE branded, and that is DEVICE AGNOSTIC.
One that we can keep mounted on the windshield or on the dash OR an HTC phone that we can mount horizontally without having the keypad slid up.
Let’s not lock a service to a device. That’s 1985 and 1985 is long gone.
The biggest problem I found with all these devices is they never had good directions to industrial sites. In my business I often have to travel to power plants and 1 out of 5 is on a GPS. That said it might be a security issue, which I get but it still sucks.
Is there anything else nearby that you could get directions to? If you go to a set of specific power plants, then you might want to write down their GPS coordinates and just type those in.
That is what you do or get directions from some location near by. Or you just go looking for the stacks but the whole point of a GPS is stress relief. It is why I always choose Avis because the garmin they have rocks. You don’t have to worry about getting lost because if you do the Garmin will help you get found. The point I was making was when you are driving to a power plant on a sales meeting you want to be thinking about your presentation not how to get there. Plus often I go visit one plant and then have to drive to another plant 2 hours away and engineers are busy people. In CA I had a meeting and this was before Garmin, I was using MS streets and I was 30 minutes late. Got the sale but still that was 6 engineers who lost 30 minutes of productivity because I couldn’t find the place.
I think it must be a security issue but it sure would be nice if someone had a GPS built for the traveling sales person who had to go to these industrial sites.
I don’t give a dam about reviews. I just want to be able to get from the Airport to my hotel, from my hotel to whatever industrial site I need to go to and then back to the airport. Have it be predictable in terms of time. Actually what would make my boss happy is if the GPS would show you the gas station close to the Airport so you could get fill up the rental.
It’s very cool and wonderful with new features.
http://www.oxyshopping.com
That is what we sometimes do too youtechno.info, promise one and do the opposite.
Good GPS with Big Screen ;)
Now, here’s what I want for the holidays: the new BB storm with this ported to the BB. Looks very good, but I want to consolidate my devices as much as possible.
my comments at http://www.commentino.com/orim
this product is ultimately a “locator device”.
The thing about GPS devices (or satnav if you prefer^^) is that once you are dependent on them you pay no attention to where you are going and are lost without one.
It’s like spellcheck. Ever since that came along, I’m lucky to still be able to spell my own first name…
i would rather telenav on my iphone than another device.
Maybe with the reported pending shakeout across the tech sector, one of the GPS suppliers will ditch the GPS and just sell the 4 to 5″ screen for external display for PDA.
Wow!! I just got my Garmin, and this makes me feel i’m gonna have to throw it to the trash without even have used it.
It’s amazing how they wpuld’t stop inventing new gadgets all the time!
Regards.
I agree with the earlier comment. Just figure out the issues with the Apple lawyers give Steve his cut of the revenue stream and make the software available in the App Store for the iPhone. Oh and one more thing. Integrate Trapster into the data flow or have Apple allow two complementary apps to run in the back ground when connected to the car power input. My BB 8310 did that just fine and saved me a bucket of cash which would have been paid to the revenue starved authorities in the Washington DC area.
Restaurant reviews…are they trying to kill motorists? Idiot drivers have driven into lakes and off cliffs with their TomTom’s and now they are going to be even more confused with reviews of their local eatery.
Wouldn’t surprise me if you read in the headlines “Good review restaurant gets slammed by car”