GPS advice please....

[Jester]

Nurse Betty has found herself traveling the Phoenix metro area a lot lately for her job, as she has been getting sent to various spots for home nursing.

For Christmas, she received some money/gift cards/whatever to do with as she wished. Basically to buy her own present. She is considering a GPS system for her car, to help her find the various places she gets sent, and just as an all-around convenience. She asked me which one I think is the best.

I myself do not have a GPS, and have had very limited experience with them. So I figured I would ask you find folks your advice. Tom Tom? Garmin? Magellan? Something else? What do you think? And why?

Thanks for any and all input on this.

[Evil Queen]

I've used the Garmin in Albuquerque (belongs to a friend) and the last time a bunch of us (students) roadtripped it to Dallas for a convention. It's the kind I would get if I was to buy one; it's easy to use, has lots of cool features and the voice isn't annoying.

[mikoyan29]

I have a Garmin Colorado which I loaded the road maps on. I got the hand held with car kit because I was going to give a hand to geocaching. It works very well. When my dad and I went to New York a couple years ago, we used the rental companies Nuvi which was pretty good as well. He has a TomTom but I haven't seen it used that much.

[jedimaster91]

I have a Garmin nuvi 205. Two things I don't like about it are it doesn't actually say the street names. It just says to turn in so many feet. It also has trouble getting signal from the satellites in some parts of <Jedi's town>. But other than that, I love it. I did a lot of research before I decided to get my GPS, and the Garmin nuvi 205 was by far the highest rated. However, I have friends who have TomToms that have never had a problem with them.

[Mikkel]

One good thing about Garmin is that their map format isn't proprietary, you can download maps for free, for instance here.
I don't know how far she would go travelling, USA should be loaded on an USA bought GPS but none of the other GPS makers can match that.
Otherwise any GPS should do for some years provided that you get it with a free map update. As far as I know both Garmin and TomTom have this service.

ETA I have a Nüvi 750 for the car and a Garmin Vista HCx for geocaching .

[Dave1982]

Speaking generally, I think Garmin and TomTom are the two best, with TomTom (in my opinion) having a more intuitive interface than Garmin.


"Speaking street names" is called "Text to speech" and is largely a preferential thing. I don't like it myself because if the street isn't marked, it really doesn't help, and the speech synthesizers can easily mispronounce a street name.

Actually, the brand I *used* to like best was Mio, because I thought they had the overall easiest to learn interface, but I no longer recommend them because they are HORRIBLE with map updates. I have a Mio C220 that is now next to useless because the maps are woefully out of date and they have yet to release an update for it. The only way I can update it now is to jailbreak the thing.

[SengaKitty]

Personal experience (and knowing someone who was involved in the design of the program/hardware) tells me that Garmin is the best. I've used it, I love it. You can both get it to give you the directions to write down, or have it give them to you as you're driving. And it works great in Louisville, a city filled with one way streets.

[MaggieTheCat]

My husband and I use a Garmin Nuvi 265W: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product

We got it this summer and it's been a real life saver. Even having lived in the city for almost 5 years, my husband hasn't been everywhere and certainly doesn't know the downtown area all that well so even just cruising around town here, it's been helpful. Nevermind when we went to Los Angeles -- we would have been screwed if we didn't have it for that trip.

We don't really have much to compare it to, since it's the only GPS either of us has ever used, but we like it pretty well. It does read off the street names that we're supposed to turn on, and the voice isn't too bad. In fact, we usually crack up when she says, "Recalculating..." 5 times in a row if we make a wrong turn, or when we're coming home. "In .2 miles, arrive at home. On right."

[SengaKitty]

I love the way the garmin sounds so PLEASED with itself when it says "Arriving at destination.. on right"

[Jester]

I actually had a brief encounter with a Garmin (at least I think it was a Garmin) on my Christmas weekend road trip to north Florida. Going to get the U-Haul trailer, my niece brought along her GPS so we could find the rental place, which was an hour away. It also helped us find a coffee shop when we arrived early, were both cold, and wanted coffee and hot chocolate, respectively.

But it did get annoying at times. My niece giggled at several points where the GPS said something for the second or third time, and I shot back, "Shut up already, you stupid ho!" or some such thing.

I may have mentioned before that I am not very pleasant in the early morning hours.

[Amina516]

I have the Garmin Nuvi 265. Easy to use, afforable (less than $200 @ wallyworld) and has gotten me everywhere and not gotten me lost. ....which is an incredible feat in itself. I recommend it highly. A friend has the 255 and hes equally as happy.

I love that you can change the voices and the car icon. Currently we have a skull and its talking in a horror voice. XD

[Jester]

I love that you can change the voices and the car icon. Currently we have a skull and its talking in a horror voice. XD

NICE!

[mikoyan29]

I actually had a brief encounter with a Garmin (at least I think it was a Garmin) on my Christmas weekend road trip to north Florida. Going to get the U-Haul trailer, my niece brought along her GPS so we could find the rental place, which was an hour away. It also helped us find a coffee shop when we arrived early, were both cold, and wanted coffee and hot chocolate, respectively.

But it did get annoying at times. My niece giggled at several points where the GPS said something for the second or third time, and I shot back, "Shut up already, you stupid ho!" or some such thing.

I may have mentioned before that I am not very pleasant in the early morning hours.

That actually reminds me of a story:


NATO intelligence units regularly monitor radio activity in East Germany (Back in the days when there was an East Germany). One day a Russian Air Force general flying a MiG-23 was heard carrying on a heated conversation as his aircraft attempted to land in bad weather. The MiG began to have mechanical problems, and the general began getting angry. As he came in lower, the cockpit warning system began to announce, in a taped feminine voice, that various systems were broken, and suggested alternative procedures. The general was really pissed off at this point, and as he crashed, his last words were, "Shut up, you whore, don't try and tell me how to fly an airplane."

From "Dirty Little Secrets" by James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi

[42_42_42]

According to my DH, who researches everything to death before he buys anything, the Garmin brand GPSs are the only ones worth buying. He bought himself/us one this Christmas, but I cannot recall off the top of my head which model it was, one of the newer ones is all I can remember. It is very easy to use and even syncs up w/ our phones so you can make cell phone calls hands free with it.

[draggar]

I started out with a Magellan and it was great...

For local driving.

But - whenever I had a long distance drive (say Orland) it would freeze up, completely (I'm assuming when I went into a different area). If I was driving to Orlando it would freeze up around Yeehaw Junction. I would have to reset the thing (with the reset button) and then re-enter my destination to get it to start back up. What a PITA. My wife still uses it for local driving (clients etc..) but we won't use it for anything long.

A year later I got a Garmin Nuvi. It sucked. I was going to Port Charlotte and it told me to get off of Aligator Aley in the middle (yes, it was set to shortest time) - near the gas station. What? I passed it and instantly 45 minutes went of the timer. Then, one day it had a seizure. "Turn left, turn right, go straight on, bear left, turn left, turn left, make a u-turn, bear right, turn right..." for a few minutes non stop. Yeah, I returned it (it even told me to make a u-turn on the highway!).

Then I got a Tom Tom and I've been extremely happy with it. No issues with long trips, the directions are great, it is clear, and doesn't spaz out. I've been on the TomTom for almost 2 years now and I am not looking for a replacement at this time.