When you go ultra-cheap on a GPS, what do you lose? That’s the question I’m going to tackle today and for the next few days. PriceGrabber includes 10 global positioning systems for vehicular use under $100 that are new (vs. resold).

The Nextar P3 GPS is one of these, and it actually gets a ranking of five stars from three reviewers. (No, that’s not exactly overwhelming, but it sure beats another product to which a lone reviewer gave a single star.)

This $99.99 device has one major difference from the other models I’ve written about recently. It has a smaller display — only 3.5 inches vs. seven. That means your eyesight better be up to snuff or you’ll need to adjust yourself to seeing less of the area you’re navigating through.

However, you will get the absolute basics, including a built-in speaker with voice-guided directions and turn-by-turn voice prompts; a pre-loaded state map for the United States; a database with 1.6 million points of interest; an address book that can store up to 300 addresses; a feature that will recalculate the route; a slot for plugging in an SD card; and 2D and 3D map viewing modes.

Review gnxtut from TN likes the “nice female voice” and the speed warning feature. Quince123 found it to be an “excellent product” with a very visible screen and “excellent text to voice,” which worked well even on the streets of Chicago, which anybody who has ever been there knows will be full of detours, construction sites and Oprah lovers.

Face it, in the arena of GPSs, if it finds you a signal and tells you where you are, then tells you how to get where you’re going next, who cares that it won’t show your photo collection?