Buying Gps And Wanted Some Opinions/advice

[mkayler]

Hey Guys

 

I was going to go out this weekend and buy a GPS for my truck and wanted to get some opinions from some of you that have one. I have Onstar and did not know if there maybe some interference or not from that antenna or not. And wanted to know who liked what and such. Thanks for your help in advance too.

[jrrod2004]

Usually no interference from Onstar, I would say to get Tom Tom, for me it was about the same as Garmin, but had a few extra features and was on sale when I purchased mine. Go for a GPS that has a 4.3" screen, it will help with the visibility.

[PhilB]

This is just a thought...you may want to take in consideration as to when and how much it will cost to get upgraded maps for the gps that you choose.

 

Phil

[Misawan]

Hey Guys

 

I was going to go out this weekend and buy a GPS for my truck and wanted to get some opinions from some of you that have one. I have Onstar and did not know if there maybe some interference or not from that antenna or not. And wanted to know who liked what and such. Thanks for your help in advance too.

 

 

I bought my TomTom Go 700 a couple of years ago. I would say that this is the easiest to use of any of the ones I looked at. It has a big screen, very accurate, and has more features that many of the others I considered at the time. The only downside for me was that I specifically wanted the traffic updates because I drive about 120 miles a day round trip to work and there are always accidents. My Tom Tom does not work with my phone because I have Verizon. Some of the newer models work with that but you should look into the features you want and make sure you have compatible devices. Other than that one thing this GPS has saved me big time numerous times so I am still very happy with it. I have had to use every concievable route to work quite a few times because of traffic and every time it has come through. It automatically reroutes you when you deviate from the planned route and gives you several other options like calculating your trip for the fastes, shortest, avoid highways, avoid roadblocks, or keep to rural streets. The touch screen is big and the icons for the touch screen are easily navigated while you are driving. Some others either didn't have a touch screen or were too small for my preference. If I had to buy another I would buy another Tom Tom but this time making sure that it will have the traffic features that work with my phone. Also, mine is bluetooth compatible so my phone works through it. I just can't get traffic updates because the data feature on my phone doesn't work with the Tom Tom service. This is probably because you can get verizons EZ Navigator and they want to force you to use it.

[jrrod2004]

This is just a thought...you may want to take in consideration as to when and how much it will cost to get upgraded maps for the gps that you choose.

 

Phil

 

most of those updates are over the internet at a cost of $50-$80 an update that is usually good a year (Yes the maps are outdated the second you buy it with all of the construction that goes on but oh well) vs paying $200.00 plus shipping from GMNAVDISC.com

[solarjustin]

Usually no interference from Onstar, I would say to get Tom Tom, for me it was about the same as Garmin, but had a few extra features and was on sale when I purchased mine. Go for a GPS that has a 4.3" screen, it will help with the visibility.

 

I think any of them work well (I perfer Garmins, but that comes from years of flying small aircraft and knowing Garmin has been doing GPS alot longer than TomTom or other ones, but not saying the other are bad). I would say the big thing is look for futeres that are inportan to you. For example not all of the GPS let you plot the excat route you want. Even Garmin will all the models they have only have 3 that let you input the excat route you want. Just find a store that has some working display models and play around with them and see what you like.

[Gripenfelter]

I have a Garmin C330. Love it!

 

Its affordable, voice prompts, and pretty decent for accuracy.

[hubbycap]

I ended up with the Garmin NUVI. Easily transportable and pocketable. Has all the traffic subscription stuff (I don't need this) and I forget the model number but there is a blue tooth version. Intuitive touch screen navigation of menus. I worried that this one did not have the largest screen and have found no problems with it. After all, you are generally listening to the spoken directions. Great windshield mount and it snaps in out very quickly for theft prevention. Quick boot, quick route recalc, MP3, POI Points Of Interest downloading, says street names, and very accurate GPS, sometimes resolved to 10-15 feet. Been using about a year now and am pleased with performance. I do need to do a map update ($75) though, but it hasn't stuck me out in the boonies with the old map. I played with a friends TomTom and found the Garmin much easier to enter destination addresses into.

[nimmer]

This is a great weekend to buy a GPS unit. For example, Best Buy have them on sale for 399.99 on-line because of their Black Friday promotion. That's a super price. Let us know which unit you get.

 

Thanks

[cchupek]

I have always trusted Garmin for GPS units. Never have purchased other brands. From what I have seen, Garmin seems to have some of the best mapping software out there. I bought a Nuvi 660 last year on Black Friday and saved about $250 between coupons and Black Friday specials at BestBuy. I sold it earlier this year for a little more than original purchase price. When I bought the new truck, it has NAV. Wife is about to get an Acadia with NAV, but I will probably buy another NUVI with less features for when I fly into a city and have to rent a car. I forgot how to read a map a long time ago!!

[cymmgarcia]

My GPS is a Dell Axim Pocket PC with a Compact Flash Holux Ultra Receiver and iNav iGuidance Software. It does everything mentioned above plus does searches for restaurants, gas station, hotels and attractions by a selected radius distance from your current location. The software works for both the Pocket PC and my Laptop when I want to have a real big screen.

 

Go to this website if you want a real education on GPS technology:

 

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/default.asp?group=2

 

Happy Turkey day!

 

-Candido

[mini1]

Check out this website. They have the best ratings of all GPS units anywhere. Look at the expert reviews! 6-10 pages of documentation per unit!!!

 

http://www.gpsmagazine.com/buyers_guide.php

 

I just got a Garmin Nuvi 360. I haven't received it yet, but thing is rated among the best. TomTom isn't all its cracked up to be. Read the ratings. They use proprietary (Tele Atlas) inferior mapping software. Garmin (and just about everyone else) uses NavTeq. I've used TomTom many times before and disliked it. The maps are OK at best, it reads in yards, which is impractical and not helpful. The Garmin reads in miles, has excellent accurate maps, and has some of the best live traffic data available in the industry.

[mkayler]

Wow, thanks guys for all the great info. Now that I am armed with some data I know what to look for. I checked out some sites and man what about some deals going on for them. You have no idea how much help all this data has been. Thanks a Ton. Will update with what I got and my findings as a newbie to the GPS world.

[NathanL]

If you go tomorrow or this weekend Wal-Mart has the small tom-tom for 1/2 price at $140 or something like that, which is usually around $250.

[2017HD]

Think about how you are going to use it - if it is simply for navigating the car around town any of the street navigators will work, if you think you might want to use it for boating, or hiking - you will want topo maps too. You might want to look at Magellan's Crossover GPS. It works both in the car and on trail or boat as well. Comes with both street and topo maps. The only problem is that you can't cross modes ie in topo you use only lon and lat and in street mode you can only use addresses. People who Geocashe want to be able to enter a lon and lat into the street mapping system. However I don't Geocashe so I don't really care. I am waiting for the price to come down - or Garmin to come up with a competing product. I think I would either go for Garmin or Magellan - both have been around awhile and have good reputations.