GPS Street Navigators

[Christopher R.]

Looking at GPS street navigators. Asking for recommendations. Prices have come down to where I can afford one. As with most new electronic technology, I know I'll only use this for a few years before much better units come out, probably integrated with something else to make it more useful. Therefore, I want:

1. cheap
2. easy to use
3. small

I don't want whiz-bang features because I'll be throwing this thing out in a few years.

[John S.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Chris,

The latest issue of Consumer Reports (October 2007)has the information that you are looking for.

[Gary Schisler]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

I have a TomTom 910 and I LOVE it. It has a big enough data base that you can look up a local restaurant, store, or even a country or rural address. I just used it to find my cousin's farm in rural Ohio and then to go cross-county to my aunt's house. My son has had a TomTom 910 for over a year now and now that I have had mine for four months, I can say that I am extremely happy with it.

I actually walked out of the store with the TomTom One and spent a day with it before returning it. It has a data base that is too small, imo, and it didn't have all of the features I thought it should. For instance, you are visiting a friend in Timbuktu and you want to go to the nearest Home Depot. The TomTom One won't find it unless you know the address. The 910 will.

I only looked at Garmin & TomTom, whom I have been told are the leaders in the industry.

Just my opinion.

Gary

[Michael W.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Lowrance iWay 250C

Now under $200, can't beat it at 3x the price!

[Chuck S.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Garmin 330 off the internet for about $230. Not their cheapest, but it has preloaded software, voice directions, and very visible maps in either bird's eye view (a kind of perspecitve map) and plan view that indicate your position relative to street names.

It's the best thing you can do for marital bliss while driving.

[Gary Schisler]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Let me add that if you go to Best Buy or other electronic superstore, be sure and check out the features. "Play" with it, if you will. You really need to see what a unit can and cannot do. I found out that price was not the determining factor in my case. Features, ease of use, and functionality were the deciding issues.

Gary

[John D.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Chuck, Labor day I had to drive in the sticks of PA to visit my son at a remote college to say the least. I borrowed my sisters Garmin 330 and was truly impressed with it. I put it to the test a lot because I made some wrong turns on purpose and side trips. Drove the little girl in the box crazy as she had to keep rebooting new info. Reconfiguring it's called. My brother just bought the top of the line Garmin but it's too pricey for me. The somewhat lower entry Garmin is a good buy for the money. Don't like the accessory three legged dash mounting pad though that my sister bought. Clumsy and not attractive. Course there are probably other options for temporarily mounting it.

No matter which portable GPS anyone buys NEVER LEAVE IT IN THE CAR in sight or it will be history. John

[Chuck S.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Mounting...Ours came with a cute litte suction cup mount that you can stick to the windshield, and then raise/lower, twist clockwise/counterwise, or tilt up/down. We took it up to Marlborough, and it was a Godsend; I can go to sleep with the wife driving now...let her and "Stella" work it out and wake me with "Arriving at Destination".

The only problem with the suction cup mount is that when we returned to the airport, the suction cup wouldn't come off the freakin' rental car windshield. After grabbing hold of it with both hands and putting my feet on the dash it still wouldn't be pulled off. I finally said to myself, "Hey, dummy...Peel up the edge and break the vaccum." Yeah, right...when I finally got the edge peeled, it left some of the suction cup on the rental ("Ah, forget it; somebody else's problem.")

In a paranoid stressful moment, I asked the wife "Did we ever leave the car unlocked...I think some of my halfast NCRS friends have superglued our Garmin mount to the windshield as a prank!!!" She correctly surmised..."You're nuts."

We're going to have to order a new suction cup for it before the next out-of-town adventure.

[John D.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Chuck, Try a credit card to remove the suction cup. My radar detector suction cup thing comes off real easy with an plastic card. Sharp fingernail on the edge too. I don't have a whole lot of luck with the suction cups as they don't last that long. Typically I know where I am going and the On Star works pretty good if I don't. Don't plan on buying a GPS as long as I can bum one from the family. Between the CB, the radar, and now the Garmin the plugs are maxed out. Wires everywhere. John

[Keith M.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Chris, I have had a Garmin 550 for about two years. I normally drive about 40-60,000 miles a year with it. I love it if I am renting a rent a car at an unkown airport trying to ge to an unkown destination and read the multitude of unfamilar road sign it is God's gift. I have it set up to take me to my destination the quickest. I find it takes me on the most heavly traveld roads. It will not take me around Houston, TX it takes me right down the middle. I would say it is about a good 80% good aid. I have had it take me down a one way street the wrong way.I don't leave home with out a good map.

[Gary Bishop]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

I have a Garmin 2720 which isn't the cheapest. But I like it because I can map out a route on my computer then up load it to the GPS unit. Great for National Road Tours, etc when you want to program a few routes at once. Easy to set up routes on the fly also.

[Jack H.]

The REAL test comes...

when you pack your little 'jewel' and fly out of North America and ask the sucka to work for you in England, Holland, France, Australia, Etc. Two years ago we took a 'bargain' Garmin with us for the road tour from London to LeMans and put it through its paces doing 'castle hunting' trips in the south of England.

Well, it was a virtually IMPOSSIBLE ordeal to order and install the non-North American mapware.... At cable modem speeds, the updates to the out-of-the-box Western Europe map took about FOUR HOURS to download! Then, the great pleasure of downloading the assemble/updated Western Europe map from the desktop PC into Garmin. That task ran OVERNIGHT...

Plus, along the way there were several 'mille scuze' error messages informing me that due to 'lack of space' some 'things' had been deleted! What did you delete? Was it important? How do I put it back?

Bottom line, da sucka worked.... Oh, the sound quality wasn't all that great with the turn by turn directions expressed in the voice of a drunken dyke. Plus, even with the latest/greates mapware updates, 'she' instructed us to turn the wrong way down one way streets here/there...the locals were IMPRESSED!!!

But, the real test came when we crossed the English channel and began driving in France. What would 'she' say with an English language repetorie guiding us along streets with 100% French names? Yep, a real butcher job that would have made any Frenchman puke.

Rue d'Galle.... "Turn right on ru-way de gal leee". But, hey, for all the jokes and knocks, da sucka actually worked and got us from here to there!!!!!

[Dick W.]

Re: GPS Street Navigators

Keith, you probably talked that Garmin to death Seriously 90% of the time a upper end GPS will take you right where you need to go. The biggest problem I have had was when traveling on Interstates that had two routes on the same highway. When you came to the split of the roads it would tell you to continue on your present route. But which was the present route? I-45 or I-20?? You need to have a little sense of direction to catch these snafu's