Auto GPS

“So what GPS units does everyone have in their cars? I'm thinking of buying one but am not sure what the big things to look for are. It seems the only real difference is points of interest. I'm looking at the Magellan 1212 and the Garmin nuvi 250. They seem to be the same price and features.”

“I use my hand held Garmin GPSMAP60. Sometimes I take my laptop for long road trips.”

“I like those that speak the street names so you can be sure you're getting on the right road before you turn.

Also useful is a trip computer. Mine allows you to enter up to 20 addresses and then it calculates the quickest route between them. Only a handful of models do that. Some will only take you to various addresses in the order that you enter them.”

“Rand McNally Atlas.”

“i have a tomtom one xl... had it for about 6 months now. i love it. the one fault i have found is that the maps are less than accurate in rural areas -but- fur urban driving it's the bomb. they have new maps out since i bought mine but i don't know if they are better in this regard.

the traffic feature, if you are a big city driver, is huge and works very well. i use bluetooth and let the tomtom get traffic updates via my cell phone. i don't have to do anything... just get in the car and turn on the tomtom... it automatically connects to the phone and snags the data. it has saved me a lot of headaches this road construction season.

weather updates are handy as well.

there were a LOT of "reviews" of the tomtom that were totally false (it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that sort of things). my advise is to ignore the stupid product reviews on web sites like amazon and see if you can find someone that has one you can borrow or make sure you buy from a store with a good return policy if you are unhappy about your purchase.

the kids love the voices it can use... their favorite is austin powers and "mr t". hilarious but really a sort of irrelevant feature.

the one xl is nice in that it doesn't just say "turn right" or "turn left" but it actually pronounces the street names... so it will say "turn right ahead onto lake street" or "enter highway 53 eastbound and keep in the left lane".”

“Yogi just called Nigal, XL. hehe”

“I picked up the TomTom One a good while ago and it has been great, expecially having moved areas a couple of times. I picked it because it was the cheapest but it's done the job just fine.

I think those who complain about it expect the thing to replace their brain.”

“After my wife accidently drove to Kentucky, I got her a MIO because it tells you street names. But it sucks - I've tried to use it a couple of times and it's told me to do some crazy stuff, like take an 85-mile route to a destination 40 miles away. Once it makes up its mind where it wants you to go, it won't adjust the route, but will tell you to turn around at every cross street for the rest of the trip. So far it's been a huge distraction 100% of the time and helpful 0%.

I think it's extremely user unfriendly, but Consumer Reports thinks it's one of the better ones.”

“I like the ones that speak with female Brit accents. After hearing it say, "turn left in 500 feet", I have to pull over and fondle myself. Again.”

“I haven't heard a bad thing about any of them. I'm going to field test the Garmin on our next trip.”

“A co worker of mine had the Garmin and it was really cool. The female voice gave the streets and directions. I told her if I had one I'd have to give the female voice a name. Something like Anistatia Beverhausen. I'm leaning towards the Garmin but will have to look at the Tomtoms now. Thanks everyone.”

“this brings to mind the bob and tom skit, nagigater”

“report back which one you select, nigal. plz!”

““Rand McNally Atlas.”
dayhiker

+1”

“make that +2...on our last road trip i learned that our house is approximately 43 miles from a gummy bear”

“““Rand McNally Atlas.”
dayhiker

+1”

I have an atlas, a state gazetteer, and a city map but I need to know how exactly to get from house to house for work. It'd be nice to know how far it is and how long it'll take to get to my next patient. Plus with gas at $4 I'm hoping to cut the mileage down some too.”

“Patient? Do you run a portable enema service?”

“hold on to something solid, you're gonna feel a little pressure”

“I went for the whole kit n caboodle. I got an Avic-Z2 with XM, XM Traffic, 30gb hard drive with GraceNote CD Database--instant MP3 conversion, 7 inch touchscreen, 20gb of map data, 3D and dual views, voice directions and voice interface, bluetooth, ipod connectivity as well as an aux port for other mp3 players, and it will play DVDs. I can add a screen to the back and I can listen to music and navigate and my kid can watch a DVD with her own set of speakers. I'm going to add a backup camera to my truck and camper so I can see behind both. All this for about $1000. They have a new series, the N or F which does more.”

“I bought the Garmin nuve 250. It doesn't have the text to speech feature but I wouldn't be able to hear it over the sound system anyhow. It does have the 6 million points of interest and Garmin gives the '09 unpated maps for free on their site.”

“Having a GPS unit giving directions is like having your wife telling you which way to turn.”

“the text to speech thing is nice but overrated in terms of value. i am sure it will work out well for you nigal. don't expect maps to be free for long from garmin. they are good at locking them up and selling them. get the free updates while you can. all the vendors are the same in this regard. the new maps for the toptom cost $99 (us and candada) and i just bought mine 4 months ago! more than a little pissed about this.”

“I have a Garmin GPS12XL in the truck :) (Hey, you asked...)

That thing on the dash? It's a backup camera. Also picks up traffic cameras, surveillance video at mini-storage places, etc.”

“the text to speech thing is nice but overrated in terms of value. i am sure it will work out well for you nigal. don't expect maps to be free for long from garmin. they are good at locking them up and selling them. get the free updates while you can.

Yeah I'm not missing the text to speech too much. It tells me to "turn right", "in .3 miles turn left", "keep left", ect.

I already don't know what I did before I had this thing. I have cut a lot of miles from my daily mileage at work while saving time and my mpg has gone up to boot. Today I needed the phone number for my local garage so on a lark I looked it up on the gps. Sure enough it had all the contact info there.

I also ordered a mount for my bike. The battery life is five hours so I'm on the hunt for a solar charger now. Any suggestions?”

“On my trip to the red this weekend I brought my TomTom with me. I was riding shotgun and my friend had a Garmin. So I had a chance to really study the TomTom and Garmin side by side (-and- had the chance to do so while riding rather than driving.)

In the end there were things I liked about both units. The Garmin had better looking maps but they seemed as complete and accurate as the maps for the TomTom. The text to speech for the Garmin was better. Also the POI features of the Garmin were better. That said, the TomTom traffic (which was why I bought my GPS navigator) was clearly vastly superior to the Garmins. I found that travelling between cities between zones for the FM traffic thing you basically didn't know about traffic until it was too late to do anything about it. The TomTom, using bluetooth, got the traffic well before we entered a new city and kept us out of trouble (which we hit south of Cincinnati on Sunday). I don't know that the Garmin units can't get traffic updates via bluetooth but either this model did not or my friend did not configure this option. I found the TomTom screen easier to read but the maps did not have lakes, rivers, parks, golf courses, etc on it... They are POIs. So the maps aren't as colorful or fancy but I don't drive my car on lakes, rivers, parks, and golf courses. The TomTom I have won't let me change the icon for the car... Bummer. Also the TomTom only really has one text-to-speech voice but the Garmin had several to choose from. Not a huge deal. In the end I decided I liked my unit better (honestly) and was a little relieved as I really did not study both units that closely when I bought mine.

I would say its a pretty close call... Very subjective and you are going to make a good call with either brand.”