Days were there when you need to carry paper maps or ask some one for the direction to get to your destination, now its becoming past, in this fast paced life style where you can hardly manage to waste single minute of your precious time, wasting time in looking to the map or waiting some one to tell you direction compel you to go for other alternative.

In this technological world, there is a better option for you to go for, to get to your location without wasting any minute of your time. This technology that I am talking about is known as GPS.

There are two ways to land to your destination correctly: Either you take the printout (or it can be hand written) of your direction from Google, Yahoo etc which is again a time consuming process, or if you are ready to spend some bucks you can buy GPS that stands for Global Positioning System. From my experience I can tell you buying GPS are really worth, with it driving is tension free.

Well if you are in the market for buying GPS device it is important for you to understand how it works?

GPS devices work on air signals and it is a satellite based navigation system, so you should have GPS receiver and clear view of sky. When you turn on the device, it links up with 24 satellites in the orbit around the planet, that have been put into orbit by the United States Department of Defense.

Depending upon your location four of the nearest satellites are located, and distance from them to you is calculated via the hand held device. Based on that, the GPS device can determine where you are on the planet.

You must be thinking what are the advantages of buying GPS?

This system help people determine their exact location i.e. exact positioning by latitude, longitude and altitude purpose can be anything like personal navigation, military activities or even to get position of your dog or your fishing boats by installing GPS respectively in dog collar or fishing boats.

When you are going for some vacation or for some long drive to unknown place, you will be thankful to GPS for guiding the direction and saved your time on vacation when you would otherwise be stopping for directions.

Types of GPS

GPS comes in several varieties like:

• Basic handheld GPS receivers: These are going to be least expensive choice for GPS, they may or may not have actual mapping capabilities beyond just tracking your route, routing you back to your point of origin, and telling you your coordinates.
• Vehicle mounted units: These are designed to be installed in a car, boat, plane, etc., run on 12 Volt power provided by the vehicle and may not be portable at all.
• Internal or external units: These are designed to be used with a palm pc, pocket pc, laptop or tablet computer and may be self powered or run off the computer's internal batteries.

How to get one for your personal use?

When you will look for different types of GPS devices, you will get so many choices ranging from $100-$5000, you may wonder how to choose one? Here are few points that you can consider before buying.

• Don't go for cheapest or the most expensive one. Cheapest may have very less features most expensive may have extra features.
• Research the brand name
• It should have large display and also lighted so that you can see at night
• If you plan to travel by foot, look for a model that is lightweight, and water resistant.

In market you will get so many brand of GPS, here I am mentioning top brands of handheld and dash mounted GPS units.

Handheld Units

1. Grasim GPS III Plus
2. Garmin eTrex (Standard model)
3. Magellan GPS 315
4. Lowrance GlobalMap 100

Dash Mounted Units

1. Garmin StreetPilot III
2. Garmin StreetPilot ColorMap
3. Magellan 750NAV
4. Lowrance GlobalMap 1600

Once you have decided the model and type, you can get price for the model in your local stores, you can compare the prices at different stores.

You can go for good deals in the auction sites like ebay.com, or you can look for some deals on buying GPS at deals2buy.com, there are many sites for look for the deals like fatwallet.com, edealinfo.com and many more, personally I prefer deals2buy.com.

Conclusion

Deciding to buy a hand held unit or dash mounted GPS depends on your personal choice, you have to consider your primary use, it depends on whether you prefer that GPS should remain in your vehicle, which is primarily used when you are driving, or you want it to use at other times as well, such as hiking, biking, or boating?

One thing I will suggest if your sole purpose is to get to your destination when driving, then you should go for dash-mounted GPS.