Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Clarion car sat-nav designed to go places


We all know we’re not supposed to leave out car navigation systems actually in the car when it’s parked, lest they become just another crime statistic, which is probably why Clarion Japan has blended its newest sat-nav with a PDA that slips in a pocket.

The ¥50,000 DrivTrax P5 weighs 198g and measures 90 x 132 x 22mm, making it about the size of a paperback book. The 4.3in screen is touch-sensitive (is there any product that doesn’t want us to poke at it these days?), coming with a stylus for operating the various menus.

The GPS satellite navigation contains maps of all of Japan, from which driving directions are read out by the voice guidance function. A USB port is included to allow Clarion to update the maps in future should, for example, Tokyo be decimated by giant fire-breathing lizards.

Aside from that, the DrivTrax also has a database of 11 million addresses and telephone numbers in its 2GB of flash memory and can play back MP3, WMA and WAV audio files. The operating system is Windows Mobile 5.0 and the battery lasts 4.5 hours after a full charge from the car’s cigarette lighter socket.

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