I have a $500 gift card (the Hallmark variety where I get to choose a retailer – Crutchfield, Best Buy, and Circuit City (some others too)). The problem is that when I look at all these GPS devices, I have no idea what makes one better than the others.
Specific questions:
Thanks.
It could probably comfortably stay in MSPIMS, but since you’re asking for opinions, I’ll scoot this thread over to IMHO.
I have a Garmin Street Pilot. ROCKS. I got the friction mount for it, which was extra. It does get muddled in downtown skyscraper land.
For my next car I’m just going to get it built in.
The difference in model prices of Garmin StreetPilot go from $300 to $760. Is the model that rocks the $760 one?
My folks just got a $400 Garmin (I believe it was this one but don’t quote me on that!)
It works just fine for them - screen big enough, speaker loud enough, portable (can take it out of the car, no installation needed) and easy enough that I could do the initial 2 or 3 setup steps and leave them to it.
It doesn’t have anything fancy like Bluetooth or an MP3 player or phone integration. That’s when you start getting over $400 I think.
Garmin and Magellan. I would stay away from Tom Toms as they use inferior TeleAtlas data.
[ul]
[li]Bluetooth - use your GPS unit as a front-end to your cell phone. With my unit, I can answer on speakerphone my ringing cell phone in the trunk.[/li][li]WAAS - More precise location determination. Goes from around 15 meters without to under 2 with.[/li][li]Included point of interest data - Some units include more POIs in the box than others.[/li][li]Download ability - Buy updated maps, points of interest collections, live traffic and weather, etc.[/li][li]MP3 playback - I don’t use this, but some units with hard drives allow you to put MP3s on them.[/li][/ul]
Absolutely. Any Garmin in that range will be a great unit.
I’m the overpaid nerd with the $900 unit. In addition to the nice screen, the bluetooth phone deely bop, and the MP3 doo dad, it will tell me where the nearest gas station is and how much it is. If I don’t want to pump gas, it will tell me what’s showing at the local cinema. On the useful front, it also tells me where any reported accidents are and how to avoid them.
I have the C330 which retails for the mid-300s.
a) Screen: I do not want or need a bigger screen. I wear contact lenses to correct my vision-with the friction mount I can position the GPS towards me and I have no problem reading the directions. Also, I have it on voice and Big Mama (that’s my name for her) tells me the change in directions .8 miles before they need to occur.
The only reason I think you’d need a bigger screen is if you need to actively fiddle with the map AS you’re driving. My boyfriend and I took a roadtrip from L.A. to S.F. just last week and the passenger was the one who had to pull it off the dash and fiddle with it to change it to “map” mode or “find nearest fuel” or whatnot. This is why the friction mount helps-I can just pull it off the dash and do this (if I’m driving I would pull over, duh, but we had one person in the passenger seat at all times). I’d hate to have to bend over, fiddle with it if it were attached to the dash on the standard mount-I don’t think the size of the screen would change the irritation of doing that.
b) Something Decent:
This is what I like about Big Mama:
Things I do not like about Big Mama:
Irritating inability to locate me in downtown areas. Don’t bother routing out-put it on map function and hope she gets the general neighbourhood.
Sometimes slips into “VIA” mode which is irritating because I’ll be sent to another destination. This is probably my fault though-I have to figure out why she pulls that once in a while.
Sometimes the fuel functionality makes me go “hmmmm”. For instance, we were driving on the 5 and we had let the tank go down to almost empty about 60 miles outside of L.A.* and the fuel function was telling me the nearest gas stations were 15 miles behind me though I clearly remembered there’s that one town right before you climb into the mountains that has gas stations. Yet, it didn’t recognize and tell me about any of those. However, on the way up it seemed to be working properly (correctly told me the nearest gas on the 101 near Salinas).
(*in our defense, we had just been rearended that day in a 4 car collision on the 101 outside of SFO that shut down all the lanes, my boyfriend and I barely escaped shooting through the windshield and I had the only driveable car between the three that were severely damaged, and I was just fucking stressed and pissed. We had to jerry rig the car with tape to get it back down to L.A. since my bf was flying out the next day and in the aftermath of the accident we forgot to fill gas. And before any snarky dopers try to crawl all over me, I’ve been dubbed zero fault since I got rear ended while stopped at like 35 MPH, which is the body shop’s guesstimate as to why my car’s frame is completely totalled).
So yeah. I think the $350 ones are okay. I have used it effectively in L.A., San Fran, San Diego and all along Route 1. I wanted it just for the directions but fuel, lodging and nearby airports all come in handy.
I have a Garmin nüvi. (Not that exact model, but they all look pretty similar and vary on thingls like which maps they are bundled with, different voice capabilities and such.) It has the clearest screen of any that I’ve seen, it’s easy to use, and it’s small - it easily fits in a pocket so you can take it with you when you leave the car.
The newer (and more expensive) Garmin Streetpilots also have INS (inertial navigation, a.k.a dead reckoning) on top of GPS. Useful for when you lose your GPS fix in urban areas.
As a Garmin stockholder, I’m duty-bound to tell you that Garmin is absolutely the best. Seriously, I read a couple of comparison tests before buying the stock, and they liked the Garmins best.
To those who already have a Garmin, thank you very much. The stock is up 62.89% since I bought it. 
I’m too cheap to buy a stand-alone GPS, so I got the Microsoft Streets and Trips software with the USB Pharaos GPS receiver for my existing laptop for $129. It was more than adequate to get me from Dulles to my hotel in Maryland and back. And I bet my laptop’s screen is still bigger than all those stand-alone GPS’s, and it’ll ALSO play MP3’s. (Won’t answer my phone, though, and is only good for finding out cool stuff like movie times if you’re in a wifi area.)
Love my nüvi. Got home from a week in France (alps, at Christmas) and my daughter said “you know, mum and dad haven’t fought all week.”
Now, the si_wife and I only fight when we get lost or otherwise misdirected in traffic (generally in Europe), and it didn’t happen in over 1000 miles of driving.
nüvi FTW 
Si