(Quick tip: If you're using any of these services on the road, don't forget to bring a car charger or an extra battery. With heavy GPS use, the battery life was often no more than about 3 hours on all three devices.)

Loaded With GPS Goodies

If you're using these GPS applications as a passenger and you don't need your eyes on the road, you can take advantage of all of their nifty built-in gizmos--and they have plenty. For instance, each model displays traffic on the map itself, showing how far off the traffic is, and the speed at the jam location.

You can also view traffic jams as a list, stepping through locations along the route and seeing what speed you'd be going. As you might expect, all of the devices offer a way to reroute you through traffic; if you're not driving, you can press a few buttons to take advantage of an alternate route.

While you're staring at the map, you might want a different view--say, a close-up of local streets. Verizon's VZ Navigator has an easy way to zoom in and out of a map: Just press the BlackBerry's pearl and scroll left or right to zoom in or out. In contrast, both the AT&T and Sprint force you to use the keyboard's # sign or plus key, a more awkward approach to zooming.