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Cons: Outdated maps and poor directions mar the good visuals and intuitive destination searching.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.

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 and will be available on Boston.com in the coming days.

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 latest generation of Garmin GPS devices being unveiled next week at CES show three distinct characteristics: first a logical progression to speech recognition, then a clearly strong partnership with Microsoft, and finally a sense that smaller isn’t always better.

The Garmin n¼vi 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 n¼vi 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″ n¼vi 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.