SEMA 2004: New Portable Out-of-the-Box Vehicle Navigation from Magellan Makes Debut

Perfect for Directionally Challenged Drivers: Easy-to-Use, Turn-by-Turn, Voice-Guided Navigation

SANTA CLARA, Calif., SEMA Show 2004, Booth #10344, Nov. 2 -- Today at the 2004 SEMA show, Thales debuts its new Magellan(R) RoadMate(TM) 300 at booth # 10344. Available later this month, just in time for the holiday travel and gift-buying season, the new Magellan RoadMate 300 is a color touch screen vehicle navigation system that offers turn-by-turn text and voice-prompted street navigation for use in any car, at any time, right out of the box. Simple, yet complete and portable, the new Magellan RoadMate 300 is the first vehicle navigation system for everyone.

The new Magellan RoadMate 300 joins the award-winning Magellan RoadMate 700 in the best-selling family of Magellan portable vehicle navigation products. The premium Magellan RoadMate 700 offers drivers built- in street-level nationwide navigation for Turn it on and go!(TM) convenience, while the Magellan RoadMate 300 offers users a dedicated vehicle navigation system with expandability for map storage in a low-cost package.

"The great value proposition of the Magellan RoadMate 300 is that it extends the award-winning, best-selling features offered in the easy-to-use Magellan RoadMate 700 to the more cost-conscious consumer," said Christian Bubenheim, senior director of worldwide consumer marketing for Thales' navigation business. "It delivers the same intuitive user interface that sets Magellan products apart from the competition. And, we've integrated advanced, customizable features that customers have requested, for added convenience, flexibility and efficiency."

The compact, lightweight Magellan RoadMate 300 includes a built-in map of major roads and highways. North American drivers can simply turn it on and go to most cities in the continental United States and Canada without connecting to a PC. It's also easy for drivers to gain door-to-door navigation to any street address, even in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Using the Magellan RoadMate manager PC application, it's easier than ever to download the most up-to-date, fully unlocked, street-level NavTeq map data. Drivers have full flexibility to handpick and save detailed maps to the internal memory, which stores up to 110MB of map data including the major roads and highways of North America. The system's expandable memory allows drivers to access even more detailed map areas by using additional optional Secure Digital (SD) memory cards (sold separately).

Drivers can trust the Magellan RoadMate 300 to provide reliable and accurate information due to its Magellan TrueFix(TM) Technology, which provides a WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) -enabled, 14-channel GPS receiver for faster, reliable GPS signal reception and extreme positioning precision so drivers know where they are within as little as 3 meters.

Designed for the way people live and drive

With the Magellan RoadMate 300, drivers can create routes with multiple destinations instead of routing to one place at a time. Drivers can use their navigation device or the user-friendly Magellan RoadMate Manager PC application to create and store up to 20 trips with up to 20 destinations each. In addition, drivers can choose to see particular points of interest, like restaurants or gas stations, displayed along their route. Users can also record their travel paths and view it on their device or on a PC. For added convenience, the Magellan RoadMate 300 provides a trip computer to help mobile professionals and others gain useful information for tracking mileage, travel time and other trip statistics.

Large Color Touch Screen

The Magellan RoadMate provides a large, daylight-visible, color touch screen that displays a clear, full-color route on a moving map to show the driver's progress, plus a 3-D graphic that shows one turn at a time. Drivers gain direct access to menu options, an optimized QuickSpell(R) keyboard for faster address input, an intuitive backlit keypad, an integrated GPS antenna and turn-by-turn text and voice-guided directions in seven languages. An integrated speaker delivers loud and clear voice prompts to diminish driver distraction, plus there's a headset jack to ensure drivers hear directions even in noisy environments or when driving a convertible vehicle.

Multiple Ways to Select Destination

Not only can drivers input information faster, they have a variety of convenient ways to select their destination: by intersection, street address, previous destination, any point on the map screen or a point of interest from the built-in database of nearly two million restaurants, hotels, gas stations, entertainment, tourist attractions and more. Users can also route to a destination from their personal address book, capable of storing up to 600 addresses (200 for each of the three different users, with customizable preferences for each).

Many Available Route Options

Drivers also get the directions they want quickly and easily due to the numerous routing options available. They can also choose a route based on their preferences for traveling, such as, "the shortest amount of time," by "the most (or least) use of freeways," or "avoiding toll roads." Drivers can even exclude route segments where they know there is traffic or road construction. If the driver misses a turn or veers off course, the system automatically recalculates the route.

The Magellan RoadMate 300 is packaged with a windshield mount, a cigarette lighter adapter, an AC adapter and a USB cable for PC connectivity. Other Magellan RoadMate accessories are available at www.magellangps.com.

About Thales

Thales is an international electronics and systems group serving the defense, aerospace, services and security markets. The group employs 61,500 people worldwide and generated revenues of euro 10.6 billion in 2003.

Thales' navigation business is one of the world's leaders in positioning, navigation and guidance equipment with global operations. Thales markets its Magellan(R) brand GPS solutions in the consumer electronics, recreation, and automotive markets, and its GPS and GNSS professional products in the survey, GIS/Mapping, and OEM markets. Through its joint venture with Hertz, Thales has developed the Hertz NeverLost(R) vehicle navigation system. Thales key innovations include the first U.S. commercial hand-held GPS receiver for positioning and navigation, and the first handheld GPS with industry standard Secure Digital Memory Card capabilities.

Thales' navigation business is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. with European headquarters in Carquefou, France. For more information, visit http://www.thalesnavigation.com/.