GPS really works!!!
Friday morning. I spent the first part of the morning clearing emails and delegating some work to our admin staff. Then at 10:30, I went for a hair-cut at the neighborhood hair salon. I came back and spent the next hour or so preparing for the client meeting, and at 12:30pm, I was ready to leave.
I had printed out driving directions from yahoo maps before leaving the office the day before (I didn’t know my GPS had arrived) and I decided to bring those with me as a contingency plan.
But armed with my new navigator, I typed in the street address of my client’s office, and set off on my journey. The GPS performed extremely well, exceeding all my expectations.
-Upon entering an address, I could choose routes with the shortest time, shortest distance, most use of freeways, and least use of freeways. After choosing one of the above options, I could then view the full route planned, and if I wanted pick a step and decide whether I wanted to follow it, or exclude it (in which case the unit would route an alternate path).
-When I started driving, it prompted me turn-by-turn every step of the way, with voice-prompts 2 miles before I had to make a next move (be it turning, entering a freeway ramp, or exiting the freeway), then at one mile, .5 miles, and then finally .1 miles from the turn. At the exact moment that I reached the turn, I would hear a chime which confirmed that I should turn there.
-It actually had actual points of interest programmed in…I was sitting at a stop light and saw a little green “fork-and-knife” icon pop up on the screen, right in front of where my car was. I touched the screen and the screen showed “Mickey’s Pizza Parlor”. I was like “whatever”, until the light changed and I moved forward…and right in front of me, I saw the physical place “Mickey’s Pizza Parlor!
-It’s re-routing capabilities were superb! Along the way, I encountered a road-closure, and had to turn onto a side street. I was happy to see that the GPS almost immediately started calculating a new route for me, and now that my yahoo driving directions were useless, I had to rely solely on my GPS to get me to my client site unless I wanted to stop and check my paper map. Since I was making good time, I decided to trust the GPS and kept driving. After following the prompts through a few more turns, I suddenly heard the voice prompt announce “You have reached your destination”. I looked up and there was the building I needed to get to, with my client’s name on the side of it. Woohoo!!!