The Bottom Line
Pros
- Find-the-best-gas-prices feature will pay for the service.
- Get accurate movie times and locations, then press GO to navigate to the theater.
- Look up destinations online and "send to" your GPS wirelessly.
Cons
- Gas prices feature gets the job done, but not 100 percent accurate.
- Local events listings sparse outside of major cities.
Description
- MSN Direct for GPS: $49.95 per year.
- Must be matched with a compatible GPS receiver including Garmin, Avis Where2, Alpine, Pioneer, and Microsoft Streets & Trips.
- Feeds information to your GPS via FM radio waves. Make sure you are within the broadcast coverage area before you buy.
- The send-to-GPS feature is especially useful for easily and wirelessly uploading a cluster of destinations to your GPS.
- Also available for some mobile phones.
Guide Review - MSN Direct Brings Real-time Services to Your GPS
Gas Prices
Select "Gas Prices" on the GPS touchscreen, and you are presented with a list of stations ranked by distance from your current location. When it's nearly time to fill up, just put the GPS in gas prices mode until you spot a station that's beating the competition. It's not perfect, as I describe in a detailed review of this feature, but it will help you find the lowest gas prices.
Weather
The weather feature shows you current conditions and a three-day forecast, with useful graphics. It does the job.
Movie Times
Great feature! Search by title or by theater. Shows you title, star rating, and movie times. Press GO! to have the GPS direct you to the theater. Accurate according to the listings I checked.
Stock Quotes
You select which indexes and stocks you want to display. Quotes are delayed by 20 minutes. Works as advertised.
News Headlines
This feature shows selected news headlines, and if you select the headline, a four-sentence short on the news item. Not particularly useful.
Traffic Reports
If you are in a major metro area, select "Traffic" on the GPS touchscreen, and you will be presented with a map of color-coded major routes, with green indicating free-flowing traffic, yellow indicating a slowdown, and red meaning "jammed." MSN Direct is powered by Traffic.com and NavTeq. This system relies on sensors, police, and department of transportation data.
Local Events
Select from "all dates" or specific dates in the future. Select type of event (music, performing arts, etc.). The list was nearly empty for my region, which is not a major metro, but showed significant listings for nearby cities.
Send-to-GPS
Another strong feature. Simply go to MSN Live Search, search for your destination, then "send to" and select GPS. Select "Send wirelessly with MSN Direct" and it will update to your GPS "Web Favorites" next time you drive.
