In a world with too many products, the dizzying array of choices can be overwhelming. Do you buy an ordinary mobile phone or a smart phone plus a portable nav and then a small laptop? Perhaps you work in a PMP in there as well or a small DVD player. Or do you get an iPod video or Zune and deal with the tiny screen? We have options galore, to the point where adding one more device to your arsenal may cause you pass the tipping point and wish for the good ol' days of paper, pencil and a lot of imagination.
Consumers and manufacturers alike have long been waiting for true in-car, in-dash PC units, while computer makers have diligently been working to make smaller and smaller laptops and tablets that can be plugged into the rest of the world from almost anywhere in the industrialized countries-including from in your car. The latest can-doit- all small device, the NVX3000PC, is a powerful, flexible, versatile tablet computer that does more than run the usual software on a PC. The biggest extra asset it has is the built-in navigation, pretty much as you would find on all those other portable nav devices, except in this case, this feature is but one of various handy tools you'll find on the NVX3000PC.
Measuring 7.5" x 4.75", the NVX is only an inch thick. It has a 7-inch touchscreen (it supports 800x480 to 1024x768 resolution), a 30-gig hard drive, an SD card slot, a couple of USB ports, an A/V out port and expansion I/O and sync port for desktop and notebook. The tablet runs on Windows, so it's preloaded with Windows Media player and Internet Explorer. It also has Word Pad and a virtual keyboard so you can actually compose e-mails, make notes or write short documents. With a little practice using the included stylus you can start working on that next car project proposal.
We loaded the NVX with some audio and video files. You can plug in headphones and watch videos on the tablet or run a cable to your car's aux in and in effect use the NVX as your multimedia source. You can leave your music or video on even when you're using the navigation. As a source unit it's not ideal. While great for when you're out and about, we still prefer our in-dash multimedia setup; but as a nav device it is comparable to any high-end PND on the market. The GPS runs on Sirf III and there's an internal antenna, which kept us connected most of the time. We recommend you connect an external antenna, as we did have some problems with satellite acquisitioning.
The graphics in the menu pages could use some updating but the map is colorful and easy to read. More importantly, the processor worked better than average in terms of quickly zooming in and out of the map, although scrolling across large distances wasn't quite as smooth. The POI icons are simple and have text to indicate the business name.
Aside from a couple of instances when satellite acquisitioning was delayed, the only drawback with the navigation actually had little to do with the computer or the software. It was the mounting device that gave us some problems. While the NVX3000PC is truly small and compact, it isn't very light, relatively speaking. We placed the tablet in the cradle and attached the windshield-mounting device but we had some difficulty securing it to the windshield. We finally did get it to stay in place but during driving the tablet didn't seem very stable, moving up and down enough to make you worry. And as the cradle doesn't really lock in the computer, perhaps we weren't wrong to be concerned. However, given the size of the NVX3000PC you may not want to mount it on your windshield anyway-no matter how secure. Compared to a small PND it is a behemoth-great for easy map viewing but a bit obtrusive on your window. We placed the tablet on the seat next to us on one trip and the GPS continued to track us without a problem.
