The buzzword in tech this year is most certainly GPS. Although a decade behind the US, India is catching on to the crest of the GPS wave with the entry of GPS enabled mobile phones, pure navigation devices and GPS add-ons. Nokia unveiled a couple of GPS enabled phones last year - the N95, the 6110 touted as the Navigator, the E90 and the N82. Following soon on their heels is Sony Ericsson P1i, clearly indicating GPS as a key component of high-end handsets. But the big question is just how useful is GPS on a cellphone, especially if you were to compare it with standalone GPS devices offered by the likes of MapmyIndia, Satnav and Garmin?

At present, GPS is enabled into a limited number of handsets available in the country – the Nokia N95 (original and 8GB), the Nokia N82, the Nokia E90, the Nokia 6110 (Navigator), the HTC P3300, and the Blackberry 8800 and 8820, to name a few. Contrary to what people think, each handset handles GPS differently. While the technology remains the same – finding your location using satellite signals and plotting routes between different places – each device has its own way of utilising it. For instance, the Navigator uses Route 66 Maps for finding locations - the best according to me whereas the Blackberry 8820 uses the free Google Maps application for the same purpose. Needless to say, both applications work very differently – the Navigator’s software is far more feature rich and suits Indian conditions whereas the BlackBerry holds the edge in North America and Europe, for which Google has detailed maps.

If you are looking for a GPS device, look at the following GPS-oriented features before making a decision:

Software
No, we are not talking about the operating system here but the software that is used for maps. You should check whether the phone comes with maps of the regions/cities you live in or are likely to visit. Another option you must look out is for is the kind of navigation options it offers – does it come with turn-by-turn navigation in all cities and does it have traffic updates? Does it have a directory of useful landmarks built into it (Nokia’s Route 66 does)? Can it correct your route quickly if you take a wrong turn? And of course, does it offer spoken directions (Google Maps does not!)? GPS-enabled phones tend to lag behind dedicated GPS devices in this regard, which have better software as they are totally focused on GPS. That said, updating maps on a phone is easier than on a device!

Screen size
The biggest edge that dedicated GPS devices have over phones is that they have larger screens. Barring the Nokia E90’s internal display and to a certain extent the P3300, most other GPS enabled phones have sub-3 inch screens which result in a lot of squinting – not something you want to do if you are driving. GPS devices are a better option as they generally have larger, brighter screens.