What with one-way systems, congestion charges and endless road works, getting around the UK is no longer the jaunty exercise of old.

With an ever-increasing number of drivers competing for space on the tarmac, it's no wonder that road rage is sweeping the country. Thankfully, a touch of 21st century technology is at hand to help with the driving experience.

With a computer-assisted co-driver in the car, you can avoid traffic jams, find the quickest route to wherever you're going and perhaps, most importantly, never take a wrong turn again.

There's a wide range of in-car route-planning and navigation gadgetry available, as well as software for both normal and handheld computers.

To see whether they are up to scratch, vnunet.com's sister title Computeractive teamed up with easyCar rental and hit the road in a Renault Clio loaded up to the gills with the latest kit.

We also bought a map. Technology isn't always the panacea that it's made out to be and paper maps have been the standard navigation aid for centuries.

For driving purposes, a good road atlas has a number of advantages over a computer-based alternative. An atlas is portable, doesn't need any power and has clear, full-colour high-resolution maps that can be leafed through with ease. It's also cheap, which means that driving off with it still on the car roof isn't so much of a problem.

The downside is that a road atlas isn't that useful for planning a journey unless you know your destination reasonably well or have a street-level map to get you from door to door.

Even then, an atlas can't help you differentiate between the quickest and shortest routes, and map-reading while driving is a dangerous (not to mention illegal) practice.

This means either having someone else in the car with you for map-reading (and we all know where that can lead) or lots of stopping and starting as you figure out where you are on the map and where you're going next.

Maps still have a place in the car, although we would prefer to use one for reference rather than as a manual navigation tool.

GARMIN GPS V
The GPS V is a self-contained GPS-based (see below) navigation device, so you don't need a separate computer to plug it into. This saves money but does mean that you end up with a product that isn't particularly easy to use.

The device looks like a fat, black sausage, with a monochrome screen on one side and a thick fold-out antenna above it. The screen is a lot smaller than that on a handheld computer and is difficult to read, even with the back light on.

Planning a journey is also tricky, as you have to use an on-screen keyboard with the four-way control pad to find a town or city and then scroll around manually to find your exact destination.

This done though, the GPS V springs to life and asks if you want to take the quickest or shortest route.

Although the route is highlighted on the onscreen map, you have to rely on the GPS V beeping at you every time it wants you to make a direction change. At this point the map zooms in to show the road layout more clearly and concise written instructions are displayed.

We found that the screen could be slow to update at times and the maps take a long time to be drawn. This can make it difficult to see where you are going or which direction to take.

The small screen makes it nigh on impossible to get a clear picture of where to turn, especially if you're concentrating on the road at the same time. For this reason, we suggest only using the GPS V if you have a passenger who can read out its instructions.

As well as the map information, the display also shows you the distance to the next turn, distance to the destination and the estimated time of arrival. If this view doesn't suit you then you can switch to a screen page that simply lists all of the directions.

The GPS V is bundled with some software called MapSource. This lets you plan all of your routes using a PC but is quite difficult to use. It does allow you to save commonly-used destinations on the GPS V, but only if you have a serial port on your PC.

Verdict: The GPS V successfully directed us to our location but the small, indistinct screen and complicated interface means that a handheld computer-based option is better.
Price: £580
Contact: Garmin 0870 850 1241
www.garmin.co.uk

MICROSOFT AUTOROUTE 2003
Install AutoRoute 2003 on your PC and you can plan a door-to-door journey in detail before you leave the house. It's simple to use and has detailed street-level maps of the UK and large parts of Europe.

The maps also include places of interest, so you can even plan rest stops in places that are far more interesting than a motorway lay-by.

Planning a journey couldn't be easier. All you need to do is use the Find facility to locate all of the places you want to visit and then click the button to get the directions.

This immediately highlights the route on the map. You can even drag this route around on-screen if you want to avoid driving through certain areas.

AutoRoute has loads of options to customise the route to suit your driving style. These include being able to set your preferred type of road so that you can, for example, avoid motorways.

AutoRoute also has the choice of plotting the quickest route or the shortest distance.

The final result gives you step-by-step instructions on the roads that you should take and an estimated driving time. Using this figure you can even get AutoRoute to schedule stops for you to overcome tiredness.

Most people will use AutoRoute to plan a route and then print it out. A print-out typically includes the list of driving instructions and a copy of the map with the route highlighted. For the more technologically inclined, the maps can be downloaded onto a Pocket PC.

If you have a GPS receiver, you can even get the Pocket PC to show you where you are on the map. However, unlike the true GPS navigation systems, it won't give you verbal warnings or visually show you when to turn.