Getting from place to place used to be easy, but traffic, ever-present construction, and the mercurial nature of the road makes it so we need all the help we can get. Sony's foray into the portable navigation realm is the NV-U70. Known as the Nav-U, it's a small but useful tool in the never-ending battle to get where you're going without hassle. As a die-hard fan of live music, such a device could come in handy when traveling to exotic locales where scruffy folks attempt to entertain me after separating me from my cash (not to mention the cost of gas getting there). But would it pass muster? I'd have to do some serious truckin' to find out.

The Nav-U comes basically ready to go out of the box. Here's what I found:

• Nav-U main unit
• Suction-mount cradle
• Car battery adapter
• AC power adapter
• AC power cable
• USB cable
• Mounting plate and 3 screws
• Adhesive tape
• Pad
• Carrying pouch
• DVD-ROM with additional maps and languages
• Instruction manual
• READ THIS FIRST card
• Warranty card

After extracting all the needed accessories from the package, I checked the Nav-U out. I was quickly enchanted with the Nav-U's size. It fit into my hand, though admittedly my hand is larger than average. It's also surprisingly light, about the weight of a baseball. The Nav-U looks like it could probably fit into my jeans pocket, but Sony includes a soft carrying pouch for transport. There are two buttons on the top of the unit; a voice/position button and an on/off button. On the side are inputs for the included power adapters and USB cable, plus the auto dimmer sensor. Underneath is the cradle connection input and the power button, and the rear of the unit holds the external woofer, which complements the small speakers on either side of the screen.

I checked the READ THIS FIRST card, which was tucked in under the box's lid. It demonstrated with clear diagrams how to mount the suction cup and cradle apparatus to my windshield. I then turned to the owner's manual, which featured instructions in French and Spanish as well as English. After thumbing through the manual for a few moments, I powered the Nav-U up using the power switch, clicked the user agreement/warning button on the screen, and took the Nav-U and its accessories out to my car.

The menu screen is easy to follow, with options for searching nearby or for a specific location. Notice the quick-release button on the handy windshield-mounted cradle.

The Nav-U comes with a couple of different mounting accessories. For permanent installation on the dash, there's a metal mounting plate and three screws, plus some adhesive tape to hold the plate in place while mounting. The cradle then mounts to the plate on the dash with the suction cup. I decided to affix the cradle to the windshield via the suction cup. It took about a minute to get the cradle to click into place and in a stable position, but otherwise there were no installation issues. Plugging the cradle in with the included car battery adapter was simple, and without turning my car on, I left the Nav-U in its cradle for twenty minutes to allow the GPS satellites to find it (this is only necessary the first time you use the unit — after that it locks on to the satellites in just a few moments). When I returned, I saw that the unit had located my car on the planet right down to the block and street name. The battery was running low (as I hadn't turned my car on to charge the unit) so I brought the unit back inside, turned it off, and plugged it in with the power cable and AC power adapter setup so it could charge overnight.