Mobile phones and GPS locking horns

These days a lot of the personal tech gadgets are starting to incorporate one another. Mobile Phones are being equipped with inceasingly competitive digital cameras, most mobiles now rock 5 mega pixel cameras and my N95 can record video at 30fps in near-DVD quality. All the while these gadgets are trying to make sure they remain small in size so to appeal to the "latest and greatest gadget" geeks.

One of the more popular devices is GPS, there's a growing breed of people who seem to crave being told where to go, a digital map-toting passenger who "calmly reminds" you that you just missed your turn-off. GPS devices were all the rage back three or four years when they were standalone devices parked neatly on the dashboard of many an executive car. These days they have slowed in popularity mainly because people no longer want a stand alone deivce, they want an "all-in-wonder device", so now you'll see a GPS device built in to dashboards and onboard entertainment set ups.

As well as being built in to vehicles GPS devices are amalgamating with mobile phones, recent nokia mobile phones from their N-Series have built in A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning Systems) as well having built in bespoke map software there are a number of GPS companies like TomTom and Garmin that have made versions of their software to run from memory cards on a number of smartphones, clearly they recognized that the form factor of modern mobiles were more appealing than their janky designs that sat in cradles attached to car windshields.

On the other hand Garmin have recently announced their "NuviFone" which looks remarkably like the new touch screen only phones from LG and HTC, it's a slick design that encompasses GPS and mobile phones showing that they are not quite done with the hardware side of things just yet.

So what does this all mean for the future of gadgets, well ask anyone and they'll likely want to carry fewer devices around with them daily in favour of carrying a plethora of tech in their pockets or handbags. The only concern most technophiles will have is that at the moment when an "all in one" device comes out it can be perceived as a way for expensive tech to be made more accessible and invariably, watered down.

Purists will claim a digital SLR camera from someone like Canon or Sony will always be better than the sensors on mobile camera phones. If technology becomes more affordable through these devices then surely the consumer is set to win. It is entirely possible that in the very near future as technology marches forward that we'll see increasingly competitive offerings that cover all bases competantly. Until then you'll have to compromise either in performance or pocket space!