Product Spotlight – Garmin Nuvi 200W

Good afternoon folks, hopefully it’s been a good week so far for those of you out there in internet-land. As those of you who’ve read the blog for a while now will know, we like to post up one product every week or so that someone in the office has taken a particular shine to. It’s basically a space where those of us working in the Komplett.ie office can recommend a product that we’re using ourselves for those of you who might be looking for something similar.

Click through to check out our page for Garmin's Nuvi 200W

Anyway, this week our spotlit product is Garmin’s Nuvi 200W. It’s a relatively straightforward GPS that does just about everything you need it to, without overloading on features, so it’s not weighed down in terms of bulk or cost. Essentially, it’s that fact that makes it so attractive. It’s not going to bury you in features, but it should give you just about everything you need without breaking the bank… moreover, it looks well.

Review of the Reviews: Garmin Nüvi 200W & Nüvi 205

When Nokia recently announced the launch of an updated version of Ovi Maps that offers free walking and driving navigation to users of Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones, it’s fair to say that some of the guys at Garmin and TomTom might have been a tad peeved at the prospect of a new buck in town trying to steal their business, indeed stock prices at both companies took a minor hit when the announcement was made last week.

However, a Garmin spokeswoman hit back almost instantly, saying that the company is “already innovating” and noted that it offers similar free services, including on its Nüvifone line. If Nokia are to make a dent in the market though, it will most likely be at the entry level side of things, but a glance through reviews of two popular entry level Garmin models – the Nüvi 200W and Nüvi 205 – reveal that for reliability and functionality, a trusted name in a trusted format may still be the choice for many when it comes to navigation on a budget.

Even the mini Jeremy Clarkson's out there like them...

Nokia Turns Smartphone into Sat-Nav

TechRadar, amongst others, is reporting the very cool news that Nokia is about to turn its smartphones into sat-navs. Nokia have announced that it has made worldwide walk and drive navigation “free” and that the new functionality will come with the new version of Ovi Maps, available on the Ovi Store.

Nokia's latest move will likely prove a challenge to makers of standalone satnavs such as Garmin and TomTom

Anssi Vanjoki, executive VP with Nokia said in a statement: “We want to make using your mobile for navigation as familiar as using it to send a text or take a picture. We believe that making the best maps with voice guided navigation available for free will be the catalyst to do this.”

Nokia/Apple Suits Continue

Nokia and Apple have been tearing into one another in the courts lately, with Nokia launching yet another salvo against Apple this week, alleging further patent infringement on mobile devices.

The whole kafuffle began when Nokia alleged that Apple had infringed no fewer than ten patents it had filed with relation to the various bits and pieces of hardware that make up its by now well established iPhone. Apple’s response was to counter-sue Nokia for a raft of different patents that it filed for the iPhone and felt Nokia had since infringed. Now, it seems, the case continues, with Nokia filing further claims of infringement.

Google Latitude Adds Alerts and Location History

Google Latitude has seen some new additions in the form of requested features from users, one of which is a location history, the other offering alerts when users are near friends.

Word comes from the Official Google Mobile Blog of the new changes to Google Latitude, which users can use to see just how much of their time is spent in certain places. Google notes that the location history feature won’t be something friends can use to check up on you though… which is good news for anyone who’s been spending a lot of time somewhere they shouldn’t. The example Google gives of a simple use for the Location History option is to help a friend find a restaurant you’ve recommended but can’t remember the name of, nice and easy.

Special Offers – Week of September 28th

Good afternoon all, hopefully this Monday has given you a good start to the week, even if it is just a little overcast. For those of you who are familiar with our blog and the days we post bits and pieces. Monday is the day we post the details of items we have on special offer, mostly because our offers are weekly, and it’s better to make sure people are aware earlier

Anyway, this week we’ve got some nice items on offer, including a lovely HP notebook, a GPS from Garmin and a Samsung Home Cinema setup. Without further ado, we’ll get straight to them.

HP 615 NX560EA:

HP’s 615 is an elegant 15.6” machine, all black plastic, including a particularly elegant keyboard. In case you’ve not noticed, we’re kind of fanatical about keyboard quality here. All that said, you tend not to get too far with a notebook bought on looks alone, so we should probably go over the specifications too.

Click through to see the product page for the HP Notebook

The 615 boasts an AMD Athlon X2 dual core processor, 2GB of RAM, a six cell battery and an ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics card, which should get you a lot further than notebooks using the plain old Intel GMA. It’s also got a 320GB hard drive, which means that you don’t need to worry too much about running out of space either.

All that aside, it comes with Windows Vista Home Basic installed by default, which means that if you pick it up you should be good to go with an upgrade to Windows 7 when it launches without too much difficulty (whereas Windows XP users will be forced to do a format and reinstall or upgrade to Windows Vista and then to Windows 7 from there, which is a bit of a headache).

At €459 the HP 615 NX560EA is pretty cheap, especially considering the fact that it’s such a good-looking machine. If you’d like to check it out in more detail, you can head over to our product page for it

Special Offers – August 4th

Good afternoon all, nothing like the combination of a three-day weekend and a four-day week to give you a bit of a lift. It’s also a nice change to be putting up our special offers blog post for this week on a Tuesday instead of a Monday

This week we have three different devices to recommend, starting with a USB TV tuner, then an Asus media player and a nice little GPS unit.

Terra Tec Cinergy T3:

[Update: It's been brought to our attention that the Terra Tec T3 doesn't work for receiving Irish digital TV broadcasts.]

Terra Tec’s Cinergy T3 is, at its most fundamental level, a USB stick that acts as a mini digital TV tuner, which is a charming idea if only for the range of options digital TV offers anyone enthusiastic enough about it to set up a decent recording rig. Other than that though, it does offer a few features that help make it stand out.

HTML sorcery has made it so that clicking the image will lead you to the product page

It’s good to see that it’s got HD TV support, but, perhaps more importantly, it also boasts its own infrared receiver, so you needn’t worry about the whole “back and forth to the device” trips wearing a line through the carpet. Moreover, it’s got support for both Mac and Windows, so it’ll suit people who move between platforms quite well.