Panasonic Corp announced April 22, 2009, that it will release four models in its "Strada Pocket" series of portable navigation device (PNDs).
Street pricing for the products equipped with a 5-inch touch panel LCD display is expected to range from ¥60,000 to 75,000 (approx US$612-765). All of the four models use acceleration and angular velocity (gyro) sensors in addition to the GPS function to increase the accuracy of their current position estimation. They will be released June 12, 2009.
"They mainly use GPS information to estimate the current position while using positional information provided by the acceleration sensor, etc, to correct the estimate when the GPS information has a large margin of error," Panasonic said.
The PNDs use Toyota Mapmaster Inc's map data and the Windows CE operating system. The map data is stored on a 4-Gbyte microSD card. Panasonic did not use an SSD to store the data because map data can be updated more easily with a microSD card, the company said.
In addition, the PNDs support SD memory cards. Therefore, it is possible, for example, to register the information on the destinations searched through "Google Maps," a map service run by Google Inc's Japanese unit, in the PNDs. Nissan Motor Co Ltd realized the capability to set a destination for a car navigation system in 2008.
The four models are the "CN-MP200DL," which supports 1seg digital TV broadcasts and comes with accessories such as an AC adapter and a stand for home use, the "CN-MP200D" with the 1seg capability but no accessories, the non-1seg "CN-MP100DL" including accessories, and the "CN-MP100D," which has no 1seg capability or accessories.
The prices are expected to be about ¥75,000, 70,000, 65,000 and 60,000, respectively. Panasonic is planning monthly output of 6,000, 8,000, 2,000 and 3,000 units, respectively.
The four models all support the "VICS" traffic congestion information service. The dimensions are 129 x 87 x 32mm. The weight of the CN-MP200DL and CN-MP200D is 292g, while that of the CN-MP100DL and CN-MP100D is 281g.
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