The Nokia Navigation Pack LD-2

So the Nokia Navigation Pack, codenamed LD-2, is designed to be used with the Nokia Multimedia Car Kit CK-20W (not yet previewed, believe it or not). While this is great for application and hardware compatibility, it sucks big time because it means you'll need to get this (and the car kit) professionally installed.

The Navigation Pack contains the LD-2 GPS receiver, an RS-MMC memory card with pre-installed ROUTE 66 Mobile 7 software, memory card reader, and CD-ROM for Route 66 software. The whole point of the integration with the car kit is to provide the voice instructions to your car audio.

One nice 'lil problem with the whole setup iss that it still requires your compatible Nokia phone, for onscreen driving directions, etc. Which is not cool as most Nokia Series 60 phones have rather smallish screens - high resolution all right, but still pretty small by GPS standards. I can't think of too many things that are more annoying than trying to squint at a tiny like 2.4" screen to read the name of the next street I should turn into. Why can't they just put a nice 3.5" or 4" display on the GPS itself?

I suppose then there wouldn't be too much use for the phone, so the whole thing just ends up being pointless anyway. I think Nokia is still trying to prove that cell phones can do anything that any other electronic device can - mp3 player, gps, phone, etc.

Which brings us to problem 2 with the Nokia Navigation Pack: what if you don't want the RS-MMC card? And the card reader, for that matter. MMC seems to be going the betamax route, and most new Nokia phones are using either MicroSD or miniSD for expandable memory, which for the most part are pretty cheap. The LD-2 lists a bunch of compatible phones (among them, N90, N93, N92, etc) - however, these phones don't even support MMC any more...

There's also a side problem / benefit to the LD-2. If you're actually making a call with your phone, either the volume's muted OR you can choose to have it still speak the instructions WHILE YOU'RE ON THE PHONE! That is awesome. So you could be talking to someone about the weather, and then all of a sudden "Turn right at the next street." I imagine the person on the other end wouldn't too pleased to be sharing the conversation with a GPS application. I'd definitely try it out just to mess with people.

Anyway, the Nokia Navigation Pack LD-2 is expected to be released in the 3rd quarter of 2006.

Tags: accessories, ld-2

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