GPS recommendations

[sammm]

The and I are taking a trip later this summer. I think our destination is going to be Zion National Park after flying in to Lost Wages. Seems like a good reason to buy a new toy.

What GPS do y'all have/like?

[autocrosspicturesnet]

What GPS do y'all have/like?

#1 Garmin - best all around.
#2 TomTom - easiest to use for non tech types
#3 Magellan
#4 whatever is on sale.....

Or, request one with the car you rent. All the major rental companies offer them, I think its about $10-$12/day extra. Except for Hertz, pretty much all of them use Garmin units...

[blackzx3_13]

I have a Tom Tom, the basic one not a fancy one. It's pretty good, plus I downloaded Darth Vader's voice for free. "Welcome to the dark side, and your destination"

[POS Racing]

Magellan FTW!

Rent it you don't go outside enought to justify purchasing one.

[trickyrix]

I've got a Garmin Nuvi 350 (which I think is probably now discontinued). It works great, it's accurate, and the catalog of restaurants, gas stations, hotels, etc is impressive.

The trip computer feature is cool - gives your ETA, average speeds (rolling and including stops), trip time, stopped time, max speed, etc. The "stopped time" field always points out how much time I usually screw off on road trips.

The only gripe I have is that it won't insert more than one waypoint into your route. But since I don't really use it to plan a route around town, it's kind of a moot point.

I've played with a Magellan, and while the screen was bigger, the map graphics seemed a little too busy. Also, the I found the Magellan's operation to be a little unintuitive. I don't think I've ever had to crack open the manual of the Garmin - it's pretty easy to figure out.

[POS Racing]

The only gripe I have is that it won't insert more than one waypoint into your route. But since I don't really use it to plan a route around town, it's kind of a moot point.

The Magellan will let you load up a bunch of stops/way points as a "trip" very helpful to us salesman/road trip types!

It will also optimize all the stops for ya if you let it.

[HudsonHawk]

Garmin Oregon 400t with the USA street atlas. Portable, touch screen and can be used for both on and off-road activities (mountain biking, hiking etc.). I like it alot. Its not as nice as the NAV system in my wifes Solara. But then again, it didn't cost near as much either.

[Dave04]

I bought my Mom & Dad a Garmin Nuvi 750 this year for their trip across the country (Birmingham, AL to Seattle, WA and back)... It's a great unit with a nice sized display and has most of the bells and whistles except for Bluetooth.

Also, since Garmin has the newer Nuvi 755 out, the older 750 pricing is hard to beat. Amazon still has them for ~$200

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MTEHZC

[Titus]

We have owned both a Magellan and a Garmin. There are things I like about both of them, and next time I will shop more to the features I want.

Magellan- I wish it had a screen like my Garmin that shows current speed, top speed, etc. Some of their new models may have this, but the one I had did not.

Garmin- I wish that I could move around on the map rather than just zoom in and out. The Magellan allowed me to drag the map around to see what was near me... my Garmin can't do that, but I suspect some Garmin models can.

Features I don't care about: Garmin can play MP3s and has Bluetooth handfree. I don't want to listen to music through the crappy Garmin speaker and the Bluetooth hands free is worthless with the top down, so I will not pay extra for these features in future purchases. Garmin also had traffic warning free for the first few months. I ignored major accident traffic warnings twice to test it, and both times there was zero traffic where it said there was. I did not extend the service past the free trial.

[trickyrix]

Which Garmin did you have? I can zoom in and out and drag the map around.

[Titus]

Which Garmin did you have? I can zoom in and out and drag the map around.

I currently have the Garmin StreetPilot c550:





And in the past had the Magellan Roadmate 700:

[Majik]

I currently have the Garmin StreetPilot c550:

I got that one for a steal on amazon about a year ago. If you dont want the latest and greatest, you can get a better feature set at a better price if you go a few models older.

[Awdieee]

I have always been a huge fan of Garmin GPS and I have own quite a few of them. At the moment I have the Garmin Nuvi 755T with the free traffic update.

This GPS is very user friendly and you do not even need a manual to operate the GPS. The map and directions are very accurate and made driving around Dallas a breeze.

The only bad thing is the speaker, even driving with a hard top I can barely hear the speaker and the free traffic update. They both sucks.

Two weeks ago, I came across a deal at Dell and score a TomTom 740 Live for $240. I have yet to use the TT yet but so far with the SIM card traffic update, IQ routing and map correction this will definitely give the Garmin a challenge.

What is not so great about the TomTom 740? The user interface is messy and takes awhile to get a grasp of where everything are. Also, the TT will not announce where the destination is(eg left or right side). Other than that, straight out of the box, this is one great unit.

Hope that helps.

Lee

[Darron65]

Or, request one with the car you rent. All the major rental companies offer them, I think its about $10-$12/day extra. Except for Hertz, pretty much all of them use Garmin units...

IIRC, Hertz uses Magellan. I also think they didn't charge extra; it was included in the base price. That was Feb 2007 in Vegas. I'm sure they've fixed the pricing glitch by now though.

[Radio-Active]

Hertz Ever-lost system sucks.

I had it last year in Canada and the stupid thing was telling me to turn after I already past the turn. Then it wanted me to make U-turns on highways...

[Titus]

Hertz Never lost was the reason I bought my Magellan. I had one in my rental car when my company sent me out here to find a house about 5 years ago. My wife and I loved it so much, we spent part of my "misc moving expenses" check on one the next week. It was over a grand back then, but moving to a new city made it worth it. It worked great for about 4 years, but with all the new construction in Frisco and the extension of PGB opening, the maps were pretty outdated. They wanted $100 to update the maps on it so I opted to spend $175 on the new Garmin. I gave my Magellan to my parents but I suspect they never use it.

[tailchaser]

Garmin seems to have the most up to date maps - and are working on a system to push new maps "as frequently as" quarterly for a 1 time subscription (per device) of $129.

I have a number of Garmin devices. They also have a history of honoring warranty claims *well* outside the warranty period.

[HudsonHawk]

I have a number of Garmin devices. They also have a history of honoring warranty claims *well* outside the warranty period.

Yup, They warrenty repaired an Etrex Legend that was damaged when it was thrown out of my Jeep when it rolled over onto its side (not covered under warrenty). I told the service rep what had happened and how much it would cost to repair. He gave me an RMA number and said that as long as there was no obvious damage to the outer case they would probably repair it at no cost. They did not charge me for the repair.

[sammm]

This one -

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=13431#nuvi255w

[tailchaser]

Yup, They warrenty repaired an Etrex Legend that was damaged when it was thrown out of my Jeep when it rolled over onto its side (not covered under warrenty). I told the service rep what had happened and how much it would cost to repair. He gave me an RMA number and said that as long as there was no obvious damage to the outer case they would probably repair it at no cost. They did not charge me for the repair.

You need a better warranty on the jeep!!!