Geek Out With The Knight Rider GPS Car Navigation System – Review

Never get lost driving again with K.I.T.T, the most iconic TV car of all time from the 1980s TV show Knight Rider. Mio’s Knight Rider GPS navigation unit brings an authentic Knight Rider experience to your car. Red LED light accents with voice guidance and turn-by-turn directions provided by the original voice of K.I.T.T. (William Daniels) help you get out of any jams (traffic or otherwise).

NERD NOTE: Knight Rider is an American television series that originally ran from September 26, 1982, to August 8, 1986. The series was broadcast on NBC and starred David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a high-tech modern-day knight fighting crime.

The Knight Rider GPS Has It All

Boasting fast and accurate GPS reception, top-notch mapping, and a comprehensive POI (Points of Interest) database in addition to a 4.3-inch widescreen LCD and memory card expansion, all that’s missing is Michael Knight (aka David Hasselhoff) and his patent leather jacket.

Great Voice Design Helps Make This An Authentic Knight Rider Experience

For an authentic Knight Rider experience, the manufacturer collaborated with Navtones to include exclusive voice guidance and turn-by-turn directions featuring new recordings made by William Daniels, who provided the voice of K.I.T.T. for the 1980’s TV show. The Knight Rider GPS will even play a randomized greeting every time you turn it on.

To ensure the fantasy is complete, the Knight Rider GPS by Mio ships with over hundreds of male and female names pre-installed, so you’ll be addressed by name as you head out to rid the world of evil, or just head down to the corner store for a gallon of milk.

The device’s integrated randomized greetings and custom names will welcome you to your navigation experience. You can be Michael if you’re a purist, or choose from one of 300 names. It’s up to you.

The Knight Rider GPS also features an active LED voice synthesizer display that moves in sync with the voice, just as it did on K.I.T.T.’s dash, which provides a clear representation of all audio commands as they occur. The unit can even be programmed to advise you of speed limit infractions just in case you’re applying too much turbo boost.

Unfortunately, that’s where the geeky fun ends. It would be impossible to record William Daniels saying every street name in America and Canada. So what did Mio do? Did they have a synthesized voice take over and say the street names for Mr. Daniels? No. They left it out. KITT will still tell you to “turn right in 500 feet” but all streets names have been nixed from the voice prompts.

This is a huge disappointment. Sometimes when driving you can’t always look over at the GPS and rely on the voice prompts. Especially in complicated New Jersey intersections (ie. the 1&9, 139, John F. Kennedy Blvd, and Tonnelle Ave. intersection isn’t exactly fun).

K.I.T.T.’s LCD Screen

So having William Daniels tell you where to drive is cool, but let’s check out the LCD screen. Intelligently designed, the 4.3-inch anti-glare touchscreen LCD allows for more on-screen information and additional details about upcoming intersections. This full-color display also offers a 480 x 272-pixel resolution for easy at-a-glance information.

Knight Rider GPS Receiver

But what if this GPS unit didn’t have vocal talents of William Daniels? Is this thing all hype and marketing or will it actually help you get to where you are going?

It’s not all hype. The highly sensitive SiRFInstantFixIII GPS receiver provides a rapid time-to-first-fix positioning (via Tele Atlas), is WAAS enabled, and can acquire a signal even in urban canyons and under dense foliage. With pre-loaded maps of the U.S. and Canada, the Knight Rider GPS is ready to operate in minutes with no computer set-up required.

Containing over 4-million POI’s (points of interest) such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations and more, you are never more than a few keystrokes away from your destination. Simply select the category of your desired location, make your choice from the provided list, and you are ready to find just about anything you are looking for, giving you a local expert as a traveling companion.

NERD NOTE: WAAS: An acronym for Wide Area Augmentation System, WAAS augments the information provided by GPS satellites with a network of ground-based stations that compare the two sets of location data. A GPS that utilizes WAAS corrections can provide position accuracy of less than 3 meters, compared to the 6 to 12 meters with a normal GPS signal.

Knight Rider GPS Product Features & Technical Details

1. LED Display
2. ON/OFF Button 6. Speaker
3. Mini USB Port 4. 4.”3 Touchscreen 7. SD/MMC Card Slot
4. 4.”3 Touchscreen
5. Device Mount Slot 6. Speaker

Product Features

• Preloaded U.S. and Canadian Maps with no PC-Map data download have you up and running straight out of the box.
• Turn-By-Turn Voice Navigation, featuring the original voice of K.I.T.T. allows you to keep your eyes on the road and still get directions.
• Knight Rider’s voice syncs with lights, move every time a navigation greeting, or a navigation voice instruction is given.
• Voice greeting: Ability for user to change name in greeting (KITT recorded voice files with 150+ male & 150+ female user-selectable names)
• Easy and intuitive Point Of Interest search helps you locate over 4 million gas stations, restaurants, hotels and more – quickly and easily.

Technical Details

• Brand Name: Mio
• Model: MIO-KITT300
• Connectivity Technology: Bluetooth
• Display Size: 4.3 inches
• Resolution: 480 x 272
• Battery Average Life: 8 Hours
• MP3 player

Final Thoughts

If you were a fan of the original Knight Rider 1980’s TV show, then you’ll love this GPS unit. This GPS gives you authentic Knight Rider experience wherever you roam with red LED light accents and voice guidance and turn-by-turn directions provided by the original voice of K.I.T.T. (William Daniels) to help you get out of any jams (traffic or otherwise). It would have been nice to include a synthesized version of the street names in the audio prompts but for many fans that probably won’t be a deal-breaker.

Now all you need is a black Trans AM.

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