Navman buffs its image and adds fuel-saving smarts with its new S Series Platinum, announced today.

In the iPhone age of style-conscious gadget-seekers, the company says its in-car satellite navigation systems need to look good. The new S Series Platinum has a brushed steel finish, and at 13.5mm is the thinnest Navman yet.

The S Series also gets extra street smarts, such a new one-touch “block” feature that lets you avoid an area where you know there’s traffic trouble (and it is still up to you to know about such traffic trouble, though not for much longer – read Keallhauled for more).

An enhanced “find” feature, which now lets you search for a business by name rather than address, is another feature that takes advantage of an iPhone-influenced “glide scroll” feature introduced by Navman’s Auckland-based R&D team.

The top-of-the-line Platinum version will now pronounce the names of streets as part of its spoken directions (matching the vocal talents of Vodafone’s Compass).

And in tune with our credit-crunched, energy-starved times, a petrol-efficiency mode will pick out the route that involves the least stopping and starting, roundabouts and unsealed roads.

Navman, which maintains most of its R&D staff in Auckland, has also put an emphasis on anti-theft measures.

Personal identification number activation means someone might nick your S series Navman, but without its PIN, they won’t be getting any directions.

Hopefully word of the PIN number protection will get around, so crims don’t lift the sat-nav systems in the first place (more on the rampant GPS theft problem here).

The S-Series Platinum S200 costs $649.

Two step-down models, the S150 ($549) and the S100 ($449) are just as slim (at 13.5mm) and share the S200’s roomy 4.3-inch screen, plus its intelligent search, pedestrian mode and fuel-efficiency route mapping.

But each has 1GB of memory to the S200’s 2GB. And neither possess the S200’s transmitter for beaming its spoken-word instructions through your car’s FM stereo.

At the bottom of the Navman foodchain sits the S35 ($349), which has a smaller screen (3.5-inch), thicker form factor (1.9mm) and lacks the new search, fuel and security features.

All models in the new S-Series will automatically log your mileage if you need to record it for expenses.

All bar the S35 support Bluetooth for hands-free dialing utilising the Navman’s built-in speaker.

And all feature maps supplied by Navman’s long-time New Zealand partner GeoSmart, now owned by the AA.

New Zealand-founded Navman was sold to US-based Brunswick in 2005. Brunswick in turn sold the company to Taiwan’s Mitac and Singapore’s Navico International last year. Most staff remain in Auckland, but management and marketing has relocated to Sydney.

See also:
It’s the real-time traffic, stupid
Steal this GPS