But no matter how much I try to justify it to myself, I just don’t have that much of a reason to personally have a car. I ride my bike around town eight months out of the year and curse the MBTA’s existence the other four. Cambridge, the place I call home, is replete with bike lines on practically every major thoroughfare, and Boston is certainly attempting to get there too. And when all else fails, I’m always up for a lovely stroll through town. It’s Boston, after all!

But there are times when it’s clear that I need a car. Like for my frequent trips to Ikea. Or like every eight or so weeks when I go on a massive grocery shopping binge because I hate walking back and forth between the grocery store, even though its only ten minutes away form my house. Or like every eight weeks when I do the laundry because I hate doing laundry with every fiber of my being.

Luckily for those times, there’s Zipcar. If you’ve been living underneath a rock, I’ll — pardon the pun — zip Zipcar up for you. The Cambridge based and founded company allows licensed drivers aged 21 and over to rent a wide variety of cars parked all over the city by the hour or by the day.

If you’re feeling eco-conscious, grab Prius Pete — every Zipcar has an adorable, alliterative name — from the Genzyme Garage in Kendall Square for $7 per hour. If you’re feeling flashier, grab Baker the BMW 328 for $13 per hour from the Boston Common garage.

To become a Zipcar member, users pay a $50 annual fee to join. For those who only grab a car every now and then, they pay the hourly or day-rate for whichever vehicle they want. For those who drive more often, users can make a minimum monthly commitment, and cash in on discounted rates. Every reservation includes 180 miles of driving, a gas card to fill the car up — and make sure to use it any time the vehicle falls beneath a quarter tank! — insurance to cover your indiscretions, and a parking pass if the Zipcar lives in a non-free lot.

Users make a reservation, tap their RFID-tagged Zipcard on the windshield to unlock the vehicle, which already has the key inside the ignition. They then zip around town, and then lock it up when finished by tapping their Zipcard on the windshield again.

Car sharing is as simple as the name sounds. The cars are meant to be parked near where users will need them. Because everyone pays a membership fee, they all in a way jointly own and share the vehicles. Everyone is expected to fill the gas when it gets low, keep the car relatively clean, and keep it from being damaged. Zipcar will even reimburse users that pay for a carwash. Another big part of car sharing is making sure the vehicle is where it’s supposed to be. When Zipcar says your reservation is over at 6:00 PM, they mean 6:00 PM, sharp. If you haven’t locked your car up by then, you’ll get a late fee. Get enough late fees, and Zipcar will suspend you from driving.

Obviously, I don’t want to turn you off from Zipcar. You have to really piss someone off to actually get your account suspended, and because it’s a car sharing program after all, users are usually rather fanatic and therefore largely respectful of the rules. Overall, Zipcar is simple, effective, and much better than having a car and insurance payment every month — plus, for me at least, it’s the closest I’ll ever get to driving a Beamer before I can ever afford one of my own.

While Zipcar got its start in Cambridge back in 2000, it has since spread to 49 cities across the world. Zipcar was founded by residents Robin Chase and Antje Danielson who based the company on car-sharing programs similar to those in Europe. By the end of 2002, the company had 6,000 users in Boston, D.C., and New York.

Zipcar got its start by stocking different neighborhoods with different cars, giving each area it’s own identity. In Cambridge, home to the recycling, biking, hippie granola crunchy type, the company filled the neighborhood with gas-sipping Priuses. In the Back Bay, Zipsters were more likely to want a showier convertible Mini-Cooper for weekend trips to the Cape.

Now in 2009, Zipcar has merged with former rival Flexcar, and now commands a fleet of 6,000 vehicles for 675,000 users in places as far as Ann Arbor, Mich., Tuscaloosa, Alab., and even across the pond in London. In fact, in one of the tougher economic times we’ve seen, Zipcar is preparing itself to go public, and is launching an IPO in 2010. The company is constantly adding cars to its fleet and expanding its user base. With the influx of cash from an IPO, Zipcar really will be going places.

What makes Zipcar so special is its amazing blend of cute personality, sharp business prowess, and of course, cutting edge technology. The technology starts when you try to start the car. Sitting in the upper right corner of every Zipcar is a little black box. When you tap your Zipcard on the windshield above it, the system sends out a signal to Zipcar HQ over EVDO — yes, that ancient data technology your old cell phone used to run — that matches your card to a reservation to a specific Zipcar. When everything aligns correctly, the black box unlocks the car door, the black box releases the kill switch on the engine, and you get in and drive off.

The black box is also hooked into the on-board diagnostics system, or OBD. When my Zipcar wouldn’t start on a particularly cold January night, I called Zipcar, and the helpful man on the phone could already tell me that I had killed the car battery by leaving my headlights during my quick trip into Trader Joe’s. If you somehow lock your Zipcard inside the vehicle, a quick phone call to Zipcar customer service can unlock it. Likewise, the black box has a simple GPS system so that the vehicles can be located should they wander off and get lost. The same kill switch that keeps the car from being stolen can also kill the car should it somehow manage to drive off.

However, the newest technology debuted at the tail-end of September is, of course, Zipcar’s new iPhone app. Up to now, users have had to make reservations though the Zipcar website, the mobile website, or over the phone. Both of the websites are robust, AJAXy, and a breeze to use. The phone however, well, lets just say it’s not Zipcar’s fault if you’re using a technology from the 19th century.

But now with the magic of the Zipcar iPhone app, users can locate themselves on a map of all of Zipcar’s offerings, make a reservation, and even unlock the car from inside the application. When I did just that with my iPhone app, I almost cried from the sheer amazingness of what I’d just done. It also made me feel amazingly futuristic, despite the fact that we’re all supposed to have personal jetpacks in the future. And OK, fine, people have been able to remotely unlock cars since OnStar in the 90s, but that still required calling someone who was sitting at a computer somewhere in Arizona. Now, I can do it from my touch screen god-phone.

Using the rest of the app was just as easy as you would expect Zipcar to make it. Making my reservation was a breeze. The app grayed out all Zipcar lots that didn’t have a car that matched my time reservation. If you needed the exact location of a Zipcar lot, the app would send the exact coordinates to your Maps application which would then direct you to the lot. While my reservation as open, I could extend the time I needed the car from inside the app as well.

Zipcar polled its users and found that 25% of them had an iPhone, hence releasing their first app on Apple’s platform. Everyone else without an iPhone can still use the mobile website to make reservations. Also, once you’ve given Zipcar your cell phone number, they’ll send you text message reminders about your reservations. You can then extend your reservation just by texting Zipcar back. “Ext30m” will get you an extra half-hour to get back while “End today 4pm” will do just what it says.

Zipcar has always been a company to embrace technology, and now every car in their fleet now comes equipped with an auxillary cord to plug into your iPod or mp3 player of choice, so you can jam out to Taylor Swift, or any other embarrassing musical offering you might enjoy. Every car has a toll-tag that auto-magically bills your Zipcar account for the tolls.

Another thing that’s hard to ignore about Zipcar is that the company is rather green—and we’re talking about more than its logo. Like I said before, I only drive a Zipcar when I really need one. But if I had a car of my own, I’d probably take a lot more places. That means I’m driving more, burning more gas, and doing my part to warm the earth with more carbon dioxide. When you factor in people who just use Zipcar instead of owning a car, that’s a lot fewer miles being driven out there.

Zipcar recognizes this, and discounts the Priuses in its fleet more than the other vehicles. Zipcar even ran a “low-car diet challenge” which in return for media coverage, encourage drivers to hang up their keys for a month and ride public transit or use a Zipcar when absolutely necessary. While the miles saved from these twelve users is merely a minuscule blip in the amount of carbon spewed into the atmosphere by the millions of drivers in the U.S. every day, the ideas are still a good one. It’s also a counter intuitive notion, considering that Zipcar essentially makes its money when people drive, but it’s just the good-nature of the company. When was the last time you saw gas companies encouraging eco-consciousness?

Zipcar is here for good it seems, and that’s something that I, and thousands of other users certainly embrace. While Zipcar advertises through print frequently, a lot of Zipcar’s brand strength comes through word of mouth. Zipcar user Matthew Lasek shared just such a story. “About two weeks ago I rented a Volvo and zipped to the hardware store to fill up on more paint, brushes and cleaner to remove all the paint I would inevitably spill. While locking the car a 65 year-old woman asked ‘So how does Zipcar work?’” Lasek then explained the entire membership and rental rental process to the questioning woman, Brookline resident Lauren Smith, who lamented how expensive it is to rent a cart through a traditional car service and how she hated asking her daughter to drive her on her errands.

When asked to sum up the Zipcar experience, Lasek put it like this: “I think this is what Zip Car is: freedom. This strong and able senior wanted to have the freedom to do something as simple as go to Johnny’s Fresh Market; while my exploits in Zipcars to the beach or Six Flags are a little more adventurous, the fact remains that Zipcar lets us do things that our own two legs can’t, or what our wallets would prohibit.”

Images courtesy Zipcar, the author, and Flickr users Andrew Currie, rakka, reinvented, and scoobyfoo.

The Kensington Windshield/Vent Mount with Sound Amplified Cradle nearly doubles the sound of turn-by-turn navigation instructions or other sound without the need for additional batteries or draining of the iPhone battery by redirecting the sound towards the listener instead of straight down.

The device mounts to either the user’s windshield or vents and comes with rubber inserts to fit with all models of the iPhone. Another benefit to mounting your iPhone is to give it better reception.

This is a great addition for those of us who live on the go and need to keep our attention on the road while also being productive. The device will be available in Apple retail stores beginning in November 2009 and will cost $39.99.

A new start-up coming to Boston hopes to revolutionize the bike-rental market in much the same way Zipcar has revolutionized the car sharing market. BikeNow hopes to set up a series of solar powered bike stations in and around Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge, where users can swipe a membership card, pick up a bike, and ride off into the sunset. When you’re done, drop it off at any dock, and you’re all set.

Many cities — Amsterdam and Paris spring to mind — have implemented a similar bike sharing program, and it has changed the face of those cities. Many more people have left their cars at home and hopped onto their bikes to travel, cleaning the air and unclogging the roadways. Now, with technology supplied by B-cycle, BikeNow wants to do the same state-side, starting here in Boston.

Vélo'v in Lyon, France

The company intends to generate revenue through membership sales, helmet sales, and by selling advertising on the stands and bikes. Provided it can get the venture capital it needs to get off the ground — right now, about $2 million — the company intends to roll out about 1,500 bikes at about 150 locations. And with founders who represent entrepreneurial and financial professors at Boston University, Cambridge councilmen, and the owner of Boston Pedicab, they just might get the money they need.

Anyone who wants to use the bikes will be able to as long as they have a credit card to insure the bike, although discounts are surely to be had through the membership program. The company also plans to GPS tag the bikes, allowing users to look at all the data they generate on the bikes, from distance traveled, to their carbon offsets, which fits neatly into our data obsessed generation.

Certainly a cool idea, and one we hope comes to the city sooner rather than later. While Cambridge (.pdf) and Brookline have a healthy network of bike lanes, Boston has exactly one which spans Commonwealth Ave at BU — hardly all that useful. A program like this one could work with our city to drive Mayor Menino to actually live up to his pledge to make Boston a truly bike friendly city.

We would embed the company’s infomercial below, but it auto-plays, so head to their site to see it.

Navigon, maker of some of the more attractive GPS devices available is releasing an even more intelligent GPS navigator. Granted, most of the drivers in the world who use GPS devices already trust their lives to a small piece of machinery that’s just one simple voice command from driving them over a cliff and into certain death. But while you many not think that your GPS navigator needs to be smarter, Navigon disagrees.

Available this summer, the Navigon 4300T is a fully featured GPS device that packs all the usual features-a wide touch screen, text to speech, construction and traffic updating, Bluetooth for handing phone calls-the device also comes with an intelligent driving computer that learns the routes you prefer to take at which times of the day, and uses this data to better serve you with a route, all while taking into account traffic and accident warnings. The device will even suggest up to three different routes, and let you choose the one you want to take. Even better, live spoken traffic updates are included free for the life of the device-not shabby, considering that it costs $99 to add onto other models.

Similarly, the Navigon 3300 Max is a slimmed down device with the basic navigation software. Several add-ons will be available for the device when it’s released, including map updates and a Zagat application that will show restaurant ratings and reviews.

Magellan continued its pattern of “please just get me there accurately” with the widescreen Maestro 4250.

The 4250 has a 4.5″ screen and the same hyper-accurate maps we’ve come to give Magellan credit for.

What it doesn’t have is any serious bloatware. It does have 6 million points of interest and on board traffic updates, but don’t expect to watch movies and replace your iPod with this car GPS. This one is meant to get you where you have to go and maybe offer some advice on where to eat.

This model does offer a few more of the price tag-raising features like voice command and Bluetooth for your cell phone.

The 4250 also pronounces directions and street names, which is a vital feature on any GPS.

Overall, you can find this product for about $200 online, and it’s a great balance of value and features.

Not since 8-track tapes to cassettes have cars seen as dramatic a shift in accompaniment than with paper maps or printed driving directions to GPS units.

They’ll get you where you have to go. They’ll show you where to eat, sleep, fill the tank, and bring the kids.

Blast teamed with Boston.com and tested nine of the latest, greatest portable car GPS units recently to see what the easiest way was to get from point A to point B. The results surprised us.

We tested the Garmin Nuvi 880 and TomTom Go 930. We paired those with the Garmin Nuvi 205 w and TomTom XL 330 S. We also tested the affordable Navigon 2100 max and pushed three Magellans to the limit: The Maestro 5310, Maestro 3250, and RoadMate 1430.

We also tested the cartoony Knight Rider GPS by Mio, featuring the voice of K.I.T.T., the talking car from the 80s television show that’s making a return to the airwaves.

We were ok with the blinking red lights and talking car voice of the Mio Knight Rider. What we couldn’t get past were the inaccurate maps and addresses. This surprised and disappointed because the Knight Rider GPS is brand new (actually it doesn’t come out for another week) and many maps in suburban Massachusetts needed updating.

Knight Rider by Mio
$299-$269
Now available

Pros: Fans of the 80s television show (new series premieres Sept. 24) will love it. It greets you by name and with blinky red lights. You can turn all that off if you want.

Cons: Outdated maps and poor directions mar the good visuals and intuitive destination searching. The Mio also has a poor docking cradle that doesn’t charge the unit and is bound to break on you. Awful battery life that crapped out in an hour.

Overall: It seems like the Knight Rider would have been better at $199. Mio makes a decent GPS though, and they offer great value, especially considering their Mio Moov 200 sells for under $150 and gets the job done.

We tested the Garmin Nuvi 880 and TomTom Go 930. We paired those with the Garmin Nuvi 205 w and TomTom XL 330 S. We laughed at the Knight Rider GPS by Mio, featuring the voice of K.I.T.T., the talking car from the 80s TV show that’s making a comebac. And we pushed three Magellans to the limit: The Maestro 5310, Maestro 3250, and RoadMate 1430.

We also tested the affordable Navigon 2100 max with the lane assist and ZAGAT point of interest features turned on.

The Navigon 2100, at $199, is a great buy for a no-nonsense navigator. It’s a cheap GPS without all the bells and whistles. You can add bells (real-time traffic updates) for a one-time fee of $99; and whistles (ZAGAT survey ratings and reviews) for $39.99.

You can also buy Navigon’s FreshMaps service, which offers 12 map updates over a three year period for a one-time cost of $79.99.

But then you’re not really dealing with a cheap GPS anymore.

Let’s say you don’t want any of these features. The 2100 still has a bunch of built-in features like Lane Asisstant Pro, which visually shows you what lane you should be in for a merger or upcoming highway exit. This was a very, very useful, free feature.

Navigon 2100 max

$199
3.5 out of 5 stars

Pros: A surprising amount of features come packed into the $199 Navigon 2100 max. It speaks street names and shows 3D images of road signs when you’re approaching splits and complicated intersections. For an extra charge, you can also add traffic updates, 3-years of map updates, and Zagat restaurant reviews.

Cons: It’s low on the points of interest, delivering “only” 1.6 million. Most GPS units give you 6 million. The cradle is a bit tricky to put together. The font displayed on the screen is WAY too small. The last thing you want to do is squint to see the text while you’re driving. The interface is intuitive, but the “buttons” on the touch screen are too small.

Overall: It’s a value GPS, but it has the same size screen as the Garmin and TomTom we tested. If you don’t want the extras like traffic and Zagat, you don’t have to buy them. This keeps the base price low. At $199, what have you got to lose?

The “Guide+Play” GPS-510na is a widescreen choice that handles navigation, traffic with a built in TMC receiver, text-to-speech instructions and audio/video playback with SD and SDHC card support.

One thing I liked about the 510na was that it found the satellites right away, locked onto my position and was ready to rock in under a minute.

One thing I noticed about the 510 was that it has a lot of parts, and that tends to get a little complicated. Even the power adapter comes in two parts. You have to plug the prongs into the adapter and then plug a USB cable into the adapter. I guess, technically that means there are less cables to deal with since the USB pretty much handles everything, but I can see people losing those two little prongs.

I don’t see much of a use for audio and video playback on a GPS unit, but it does support MP3, AAC, WMA, MPEG-4 and WMV formats, so you could technically keep the passengers entertained with a video. You’ll never, ever use it for audio playback in the car, so let’s just skip that part.

The speaker is decent, and the video quality is very good, and if you’re one of those gadget folk looking for an all-in-one device that will cook you dinner and tuck you in at night, you’ll be happy. I just want navigation. If I want to spend $400 on audio/video features added to a product line not traditionally made for audio/video, I’ll buy an iPhone. Or for $200 cheaper, an iPod touch.

The tragic thing about the GPS-510 is that it has excellent navigation, accurate maps, tons of points of interest, a sharp, color display, vital text-to-speech (it says street names and stuff) functionality, handles traffic and is very easy to use. Why tragic? Because at $399, no one is going to buy the Harman/Kardon GPS-510 because they can buy a Garmin for about that or a TomTom for much less.

That’s why Amazon and other retailers have slashed the price of the 510 by $100, and it’s still priced right out of the market. The GPS-only GPS-310 model was also slashed, and it’s available for $250. Harman/Kardon should make a widescreen GPS like this for $149 or $199 with the traffic receiver. That should have been their approach. Nail the navigation; lowball the price; cash in when people like me say it’s great.

The GPS-510 is great, and should have been a great value-priced GPS, but instead it’s an overpriced toy. It has a few minor drawbacks like the bucket-o-parts it comes with is the fact that the the docking cradle doesn’t charge it. You have to plug and unplug the power cord from the device when you remove it. Also, the touchscreen isn’t as responsive as it is on Garmin and TomTom devices. On my Garmin, I can fly through 3-4 commands in a second and be ready to go. On the 510, you have to kinda methodically make sure you fully press each command, and that’s a bitch while driving

Not that you should do that…

Quick hits:

Publisher: Harman/Kardon
Launch Date: October 17, 2007

Overall: 3 out of 5 stars

“We have been very pleased with Kenwood’s success in selling Garmin-equipped units since we started our partnership in 2006, and we’re expecting even greater things in 2008,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales.  ”We have developed an integrated marketing strategy with Kenwood that will benefit dealers and consumers.”

This is an interesting agreement, the terms of which call for Garmin and Kenwood to team up on advertising and develop a website for the new Kenwood/Garmin integrated products.

“The alliance between Kenwood and Garmin is very unique to the consumer electronics industry,” said Keith Lehman, senior vice president of Kenwood USA Corporation.  ”The combination of Kenwood’s multimedia, in-car technologies and Garmin’s GPS navigation technologies has produced a remarkable line of advanced products that appeal to even the most demanding customers.  With our joint promotional activity already underway, we expect 2008 to be a very successful year.”

According to Garmin, the navigation component features pre-loaded maps of North America or Europe, along with six million points of interest built into a touch screen interface. “The Garmin system uses internal flash memory for driving the navigation software engine so there’s no need to swap navigation discs as with many competitive models,” Garmin said Monday. “Other optional features available on these cutting-edge units include Satellite Radio, HD Radio, Bluetooth, high-speed iPod audio and video control, and more.”

The new Kenwood units will be available globally through Kenwood dealers and their dealer option business.  For more information visit http://www.kenwoodusa.com/ or  http://www.garmin.com/.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with the 3.2L, 250 horsepower R32 last month, and it left me checking price quotes and option packages.

By the way, $32,990 unless you start stripping out the navigation system. You may be asking “can’t I get a smaller engine for cheaper?” Not on the R32 – if you want a four-cylinder model, you need to look at the GTI.

The R32 is named after its engine — the Racing 3.2 L naturally aspirated VR6 engine with 236 ft. lbs. of torque.

The package is completed by the VW 4Motion All-wheel-drive system and Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG) transmission, which takes the jolt out of changing gears. It’s an automatic transmission with optional Tiptronic shift-paddles for a “virtual manual” experience. DSG is a dual-clutch system that gives you racing-tuned shifting without a clutch pedal and shifter – like what I discussed in the Eos.

It does 0-60 in 6.5 seconds.

This car is fast, and it has a good roar to it when you rev the engine — this is not supposed to be the case with a small car. You expect a Fast and the Furious-inspired high-pitched squeal out of a small car’s engine, not something more suited to a Mustang.

It’s like this: when you’re in the left lane on I95 and someone is going 70 in front of you. If you let off the gas and then give it a good rev, they’ll get the picture and get out of the way.

Not that I did that or anything…

This is a hot car. In the $30,000 range, it’s priced between affordability and luxury, but it gives you a ton of the luxury features you’d expect on a $50,000 car.

I’m a satellite radio skeptic. But with the integrated system on the R32, (and many other cars starting to follow the trend) I liked being able to switch between my favorite AM, FM and newly found Sirius channels.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the navigation system. I would have much preferred a touch-screen to the dial and knob operation on the R32. I know you’re not supposed to touch your GPS while driving, but sometimes you just have to make an adjustment, and it’s a lot more complicated to make on-the-fly changes with the built in nav system than with a Garmin or TomTom. They charge you enough for it; it might as well be touch-sensitive.

The seating, on the other hand, is the picture of comfort for the driver. The racing seats hug you in, resulting in a quite comfortable driving experience. The car easily fits four and can do five if you need to.

I was amazed by how much headroom the car gives. It’s low to the ground, but once you get in it’s very roomy. There is also good cargo room in the hatchback trunk.

Overall, it’s a wonderful car to drive that’s packed with features. It’s fun on long journeys and decent on gas mileage (18 city, 23 highway).

Now if that’s not a hell of a statement, I dunno what is.

“The uPro distance measuring device … gives golfers the best of both GPS and laser technologies in a small, easy-to-use system,” uPlay said Wednesday in a statement. “With aerial photography, video flyovers and easily viewable high resolution color display, the uPro is the most functional, effective and intuitive hand-held rangefinder in the industry.”

It looks like a big, expensive toy for one of the world’s elite games. The device allows golfers to determine distances to holes from their present location. It also maps out courses, hazards, fairways, etc.

“It was our goal to develop a distance-measuring device with the most advanced features and optimum usability,” said Joseph Balardeta, co-founder of uPlay LLC,. “The uPro allows golfers to see the course and the game from a whole new perspective.”

The uPro lays out detailed course maps, video flyovers and aerial views of every hole on the course and allows golfers to get exact distances to and from any point on the course, according to uPlay.

“Want to know how far you can hit the ball and still lay-up in front of a hazard? The uPro will show you. Want to go for it? The uPro will tell you how far you have to carry the hazard.”

The uPro will debut at the 2008 PGA Show in Orlando January 16-19.

The Garmin nüvi 800 Series models are the new kings of the field. They build on everything that made the nuvi series the best and feature MSN Direct for trip planning and point of interest content, hands-free cell phone capability and brand new speech recognition technology that — finally — gives the driver a safer option to input on-the-fly courses and changes.

“Now it’s possible to keep both hands on the wheel, tell nüvi what to do and where to go, and you’re on your way to stress-free travel,” said Dan Bartel, vice president of sales for Garmin.

MSN Direct is an Internet-based pay service ($49.95/year) that feeds the GPS info like traffic, fuel prices, news and business headlines on demand.

The 800 series also boasts a 4.3″ color touchscreen display at 480×272 pixels that shows up clearly in bright sunlight. It also plays MP3, OGG and Flac audio and Audible.com audio books.

Look for a Q2 release date. The 880 will run with an MSRP of $1071, while a slightly downgraded 850 is hitting stores at $857, Garmin said.

Garmin is also releasing an oversized, 5.2″ nüvi 5000.

“The nuvi 5000 is ideal for those with larger vehicles that need navigation on a big screen” Bartel said.

The 5000 has most of the common Garmin features and gives the user the option of MSN Direct for traffic or analog FM traffic advice.

The unit can also receive video from any line source, making it a mini-van-friendly accessory. Fire up the DVD for the kids until you get lost, then it’s back to GPS mode. The 5000 does not do speech recognition, however.

The nuvi 5000 will be out next month at suggested retail price of $857.

Finally, until your New Year’s resolution wears out, Garmin’s Forerunner 405 is the latest in the trend of GPS-enabled workout equipment.

“Runners no longer have to choose between fashion and function,” Bartel said.

Argh…

The 405 uses ANT+Sport personal area network technology to transfer data from the watch to your computer when you’re close enough. It lets you keep track of you workouts, and will run you about 300 bucks when it comes out this quarter.

Garmin is also putting out a nuvi 780 with a wide display and a more affordable nuvi 260W.

So there. If you ever get lost again, don’t blame me.