Auto Nav 2000 Plus, Inc. - Laptop vs. In-Vehicle Nav System
Laptop computers were designed to be used as information storage and retrieval systems, and not so much as In-Vehicle Navigation systems. You can take a 25” color TV from your house and use a power inverter to watch T.V in your vehicle, but why would you want to? You match your needs with what is available and best suited foVr the condition. A 12 volt TV with a 7” color display monitor designed for the car will be more suitable for an in vehicle entertainment system. A laptop computer monitor is not designed to be used under direct sunlight and does not perform well under those conditions. And most In-Car Navigation system display monitors are designed to be 4 times brighter then a laptop computer, and is engineered to be used in the vehicle under some direct sunlight conditions! Not to mention that most laptops are not actually designed for ‘true mobile' use. I.E. they can be transported, but generally the on board HDD is not designed to take the beating an in car navigation system gets while in operation. For example the PCMCIA HDD used on the Pathmaster is designed to survive, and continue operating after taking a 100g hit. This is equivalent to falling about 3 feet onto a solid concrete floor! The HDD and display are designed to operate in temperature limits that far exceed laptops, because that's what you get in your car. Most HDD's are not designed to operate at temperatures over 50C, 121 F. This is a common temperature in many vehicles when parked in the summer months. In some places, 160 degrees is possible! The LCD displays in most laptops just don't function when they get that hot, and they don't function very well when the temperature in the vehicle gets below about 40F either. Frankly, laptops are designed to be used in places that you can work with your street clothes... That's why vehicle navigation systems use “Industrial Rated” HDD's, PCMCIA HDD's or CD ROMs. These devices have been specifically designed to take this sort of abuse. Your laptop wasn't... And of course, if your laptop is damaged, not only does it NOT fulfill your vehicle navigation needs, it won't do anything else for you either! So lets say you are using it for navigation, and it has your power point presentation for an audience of 500. How are you going to make the presentation if it gets damaged due to it falling in reaction to a sudden accident avoidance maneuver while driving, or the HDD has failed as a result of operation out side the environmental limits for it?
Laptops are valuable, and have wide general use, so you can't leave it in the car, nor can you easily hide it. Most vehicle Nav systems can be installed either in trunks, or under seats, leaving very little for a potential thief to notice.
Use the right navigation system to fit your needs! Don't compromise!
A customer will have to currently own or purchase a laptop that will perform with some of the aftermarket map software currently available. For example: Delorme Road Worrier / version 8.0 map software or something comparable. The only drawback with this map software is that when it is used in laptop computer for navigation, it cannot reroute you when you take a wrong turn. You will have to pull over and reprogram the computer map software again for a new route.
Vehicle Navigation systems use multiple sensors to provide essentially an inertial guidance system that is COMPLETELY independent of the GPS. It is crosschecked when possible, but can provide accurate guidance information for many miles between fixes. This is something GPS only systems are completely incapable of. This guidance either comes from obtaining this information via an onboard gyro, vehicle speed and reverse sensors (which are on the vehicle as inputs to things like cruise control, and the engine management computers that are on virtually all vehicles built since the mid 1980's. Some of the later versions of Vehicle Navigation systems have eliminated the need for these inputs from the vehicle, by incorporating all of the components of a true inertial guidance system much as you would find in a commercial airliner. These sensors are able to detect movement and measure acceleration in all directions.
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