TeleNav is a car navigation system in your phone

Thursday, November 01, 2007

(11/02/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- Have you ever seen the commercial where a man is driving a car and feels that he is falling in love with the voice in his vehicle's navigation system? I had a similar experience, but it was only more of an affair since I have to give the unit back to the company.

Over the last few weeks, I've been testing TeleNav's GPS Navigator v5.2 on a Samsung m610 through Sprint, but the service is available on most phone companies.

That's right, this is a navigation system on a cell phone. The company sent me a mount for the windshield that could hold the phone while I drove.

The program was easy to launch and within minutes I was being told where to go. All I had to do was enter my destination, which was La Marque's football stadium on the first run, and TeleNav located my starting point with its GPS system.

Then I was off. A pleasant female voice told me where to turn and which roads to take. That is accompanied by a display that shows where you are and going on a map.

What's the advantage of using a cell phone based navigation versus one that is not connected to a service? Real time data is the answer. TeleNav scanned the freeways and looked for traffic. In Houston, that didn't take long to find. The service told me how many miles till the congestion and to press '0' to find an alternate route.

Another cool feature is a countdown in miles to your destination plus an estimated time of arrival which during my tests was always pretty much dead on.

I am a native Houstonian. That's not me bragging, but telling you that I know the roads around here pretty well. I know when the freeways will have a lot of traffic. This kind of experience cannot yet be captured by a navigation system.

What I am trying to say is there were a few directions the system gave me that I did not agree with. That's cool, because if you go your own route, TeleNav reorients itself and continues on your current path to the destination.

An another trip we were trying to go to a new barbecue joint in Spring. The navigation told us to exit the freeway miles before the destination. Then it told us to get back on the freeway only to exit again for the restaurant that was located right on I-45. In all fairness, this is a new location and Google Maps could not even locate it. While sending us on a strange path, it did tell us how to ultimately get there.

TeleNav will cost you around $9.99 a month. Also consider the data usage charge your company would charge for use of a Web application. Another consideration is the cost of your phone's batteries power if you are on a long trip.

This system would be overkill for a driver who goes to the same spots every day. However if you are new to a city, it could be a lifesaver.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

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