It was inevitable that, sooner or later, a speed trap locator would be combined with portable satellite navigation. But it has taken longer than expected for the devices to reach the market.

Initially, it was the producers of camera locators who led the way. However, now both sides have realised that the combined navigation-and-alerts approach is the way to go, and motorists have a wide choice of products on offer.

And the makers haven’t stopped with only those two features. Many units also include MP3 music players and JPG picture viewers alongside hands-free Bluetooth mobile-phone connectivity, TMC (traffic message channel) reception and even weather information.

With this impressive line-up, it’s hard to pick which product is right for you, so we took nine out on the road to find the best all-in-one solution for your car.

The test
As the bugs are ironed out of portable sat-nav systems, it is the extras that can make the difference – so we looked for features such as MP3, Bluetooth, European mapping, points of interest (POI) and a seven-digit postcode search.