Job one for any in-car GPS unit is to help you get to your destination safe and sound. In the past you'd have to pay extra for such features as speed and school-zone alerts, and text-to-speech pronunciation of street names. Now Netropa brings these and other important safety features to the low end of the GPS market with its Intellinav 3, which lists for only $330.
The Intellinav 3 measures a compact 4 by 0.8 by 3.2 inches (width by depth by height) and weighs less than 7 ounces. Maps for the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are preloaded on an included 2GB SD Card, along with a points-of-interest database totaling 6 million entries in dozens of categories.
The downside to the Intellinav 3's small size is the crowded 3.5-inch touch-screen LCD. Moving between menus in the device's settings and other controls is clear and easy, but locating a specific item on the map, such as your estimated arrival time or next turn, can be a challenge while you're driving. The screen also washes out in bright sunlight. That's where the pronunciation of street names comes in handy: When you can hear where you're going, you don't have to try to find your next turn on a tiny, sun-splashed display. Best to keep your eyes on the road, where they belong.
The Intellinav 3's route selections were usually spot-on, though I disagreed with a couple of the device's rush-hour suggestions. The product uses historical traffic patterns to choose your route and to calculate your arrival time. In my testing, however, I noticed no reduction in travel times.
While you can play audio files and view images on the device, you can't do so while navigating or viewing the map: You must close one application to open the other. The product features a pedestrian mode, thanks to its rechargeable battery. It also has the ability to add waypoints to a trip with multiple stops. Your route options are limited to the standard quickest/shortest, toll roads and ferries (include or exclude), and carpools, but you can also choose to minimize turns along your route. Two other nice features are the school-zone alert and the speed alert, the latter of which sounds an alarm when you exceed a speed that the device determines automatically (based on the type of road) or that you set manually.
Though the Intellinav 3's built-in 1-watt speaker was sufficient for me to hear the driving directions above road noise, I missed the ability to stream the navigation audio through my car's FM stereo, a feature of the more expensive Garmin Nuvi 680, for example. Nevertheless, the ability to hear street names while you navigate puts this GPS miles ahead of other entry-level devices.
Dennis O'Reilly
