GPS recommendations

[cryptique]

I'm in the process of booking a vacation and just lined up our rental car. I thought about adding a GPS to the rental, but it was $10 per day, and I realized that over the two weeks that we'll have the car, I could just buy my own GPS.

 

This is for a trip within California, but if I buy one, I hope to also use it elsewhere in the U.S. I will not need it for everyday use when I'm not on vacation, but would probably use it at least a couple times a month for various day trips and whatnot.

 

So, what should I buy?

 

Garmin ... Magellan ... TomTom ... or something else? Which brands do you trust, and which models do you like?

 

Which features do you have that you can't live without? Which features do you find you never use? Is it worth the money to get live traffic updates? How do map updates work on your device? (And how much do they cost?) What annoys you about your device?

 

Any other comments?

 

Thanks!

[Guest Speed Racer]

My mother with brain damage has a TomTom and gets home every time. Except those two times...Seriously, if she can use it, anyone can. It has a "home" button she can press that tells her how to get home from wherever she is. Might be helpful on vacation if you set your hotels as "home."

[bobfrombob]

I like my Garmin. I think it's a 260 model. I don't use the traffic updates because that feature is not available in Ottawa. I mount it on the windshield only when I don't know where I'm going and put it away otherwise. So the "suction cup on the windshield" feature is good for me. In fact, all I really do is enter the street addresses of new destinations, add them as favorites, and pull them up as needed. I have used the "search" function a couple of times and find it's really slow at finding places - I guess because of the amount of data.

 

I find the voice feature pretty essential since you should really be looking at the road most of the time and not a little video screen. I wouldn't get one that didn't talk. Plus I love it when she says "recalculating".

[IATTBYB]

I actually use the GPS app on my Blackberry and it hasn't failed me yet.

[cryptique]

Don't have that option, because I neither have nor want a smartphone.

[Moss]

I am in the market as well. I had a Magellan up until a week ago when it just decided to die. It worked well once you got the address in and everything but the touch screen was not very good. It was a pretty cheap model.

 

I would agree the voice feature is a must have. Once I got the address in I never really had to look at it as it would tell you when to turn. Something update-able would be nice. Would love to know what you end up getting as even the last one I had was a gift so I have never really perused the different features.

 

My wife researched it a bit and it looks like we are leaning towards this one, it's a Garmin nuvi 255W:

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015EWMX8/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A13BNE3P7C8THK

 

 

 

[Wendy]

I have a Magellan and I will never buy another one, it is a persnickety damn thing, and updating the maps and misc info was too expensive. I'd rather just buy a new GPS. I assumed it would be a free update until I actually decided I needed an update and found out about the charges.

 

One day I borrowed my brother's TomTom and it was so easy to use.

 

I have no experience with the Garmin.

 

Here's a little tip that might save you some problems. If you are parked in a parking garage, don't turn your GPS on until you get out into the street. My GPS, if you turn it on when it can't get a satellite signal, it gets confused and takes 15 minutes to "find" you. Bad.

 

Have a great time in LA! Oh - I also vote for checking the Largo schedule.

[IATTBYB]

Don't have that option, because I neither have nor want a smartphone.

I would call you a Luddite, but you are looking to buy a GPS and we are communicating via computers and the internet, so I guess that would be a pretty stupid thing to call you.

[cryptique]

I'll probably end up with a smartphone eventually, but I think that is still at least a couple of years away, if not longer. And I'd be getting it for its web-surfing functionality -- because I rarely use the phone. Regardless, a smartphone will not be happening for this particular trip.

[Atticus]

wife gave me the Tom Tom GO 730 (I think that's the model) for bday, and I've enjoyed it. only complaints: sometimes it takes a little while to grab a satellite signal when starting up, but I think that's due to our parking garages and other interference. also, it will not pair-up with my blackberry via bluetooth no matter what I try, and I've spent some time on it, so the live traffic updates, etc. are not available for me, at least until they fix that glitch.

[bobfrombob]

Here's a little tip that might save you some problems. If you are parked in a parking garage, don't turn your GPS on until you get out into the street. My GPS, if you turn it on when it can't get a satellite signal, it gets confused and takes 15 minutes to "find" you. Bad.

Seconded. My Garmin does the same thing.

[lamradio]

Yeah I love my TomTom but it takes a while to find a GPS signal sometimes. It doesn't matter if you're in the country or in a city. I was in downtown Atlanta one time, and it took 20 minutes to find a signal.. So I just drove around aimlessly until it started working...

 

But when it works, it's awesome.

[cryptique]

Update: OK, I took the plunge. Currently on its way is a Garmin nüvi 765 with lifetime map updates, which I bought on Amazon here.

 

After doing a LOT of research, I decided to raise my price range a bit so I could get a few additional features and lifetime map updates. I have some experience with Magellan units (via Hertz car rentals) and I liked them, but updating maps looks like it's expensive (and maybe difficult) and the maps it comes with are (reportedly) two years old. For a long time I was looking at a TomTom XL 340-S Live, because I was attracted to the ability to do Google searches and a few other bells and whistles, but I kept reading consumer reviews and was eventually scared away (though honestly, now I can't remember exactly why). I had initially resisted going with Garmin because of some of the stuff I read early in my research process, but in the end it was the features of the nüvi 765, combined with a cheap deal on Amazon for a lifetime map updates card, that sold me.

 

After making the decision, I checked back with the Consumer Reports website (I had done some early research there but then went elsewhere, at which point I had no plans to buy a Garmin) and discovered that the nüvi 765 was their "Best Buy" recommendation. So I seem to have reached the same conclusion as they did, independently. If nothing else, that makes me feel better about my decision.

 

If I think of it, I'll report back here after my trip to provide an assessment of the Garmin's performance.

 

One device that really tempted me, but I just couldn't pull the trigger, was the Clarion MiND. It's basically a combination of a nav system and a hand-held internet device. If they came out with an updated version of this in my price range, with longer battery life and better multitasking capability (I guess once you put it on its car mount it ceases to provide much in the way of internet functionality), I'd love to have one. But, alas...

[watch me fall]

 

Here's a little tip that might save you some problems. If you are parked in a parking garage, don't turn your GPS on until you get out into the street. My GPS, if you turn it on when it can't get a satellite signal, it gets confused and takes 15 minutes to "find" you. Bad.

 

 

 

Ah, Durham.

[watch me fall]

 

 

 

 

My wife researched it a bit and it looks like we are leaning towards this one, it's a Garmin nuvi 255W:

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015EWMX8/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A13BNE3P7C8THK

 

 

 

 

This is the one I have and I love it. I originally went to Best Buy with all intentions of buying it, but after 30 minutes or so of just looking, not one person asked if I needed help (the GPS are kept in locked cabinets). So I just looked some more, found the one I wanted, and went home and bought it off Amazon. For about $100 cheaper I might add.

 

Oh, and I also use the GPS app on my iPhone, sometimes simultaneously with my Garmin. Yes, I am anal that way.

[isadorah]

i was going to chime in and say that i have a tomtom, the one that actually tells you street names. i like it, susan does a fairly good job. spawn's dad has the previous model that does not speak the street names and Lori drives me crazy, i don't get along well with that gps, it confuses me. the newer version, my version is fairly great. one thing that bugs me is that the suction cup pops off the windshield when it is very cold outside. one can also update maps for free based on user inputs. or can pay a nominal fee and buy updated maps. one can also update maps themselves / make changes to the maps if inclined. that part is rather cumbersome to do while on the road and hard to navigate back to once you get home and can actually make the changes. we don't have the traffic feature on ours, but instead pull up the google map on our iphones and get traffic that way, it is a fairly accurate thing and handy. i tried doing the gps thing via the smart phone and it doesn't work so well if you get a phone call right when you need to merge left...

[Guest Speed Racer]

Oh, and I also use the GPS app on my iPhone, sometimes simultaneously with my Garmin. Yes, I am anal that way.

 

Wow. So, two backseat drivers?

 

I would only be able to use a GPS if I were alone in the car, because someone whom I love dearly, whose name I won't mention, shouts out every street name, pot hole, faded yellow line, house number, make and model of each approaching car, how many cars are in a 50 foot radius, and whether or not they are on cell phones/have pets/children with them. One more voice and it might start to seem crowded in the car.

[isadorah]

Wow. So, two backseat drivers?

 

I would only be able to use a GPS if I were alone in the car, because someone whom I love dearly, whose name I won't mention, shouts out every street name, pot hole, faded yellow line, house number, make and model of each approaching car, how many cars are in a 50 foot radius, and whether or not they are on cell phones/have pets/children with them. One more voice and it might start to seem crowded in the car.

 

 

someone i love dearly shouts as well when in the passenger seat of a car.

[Moss]

This is the one I have and I love it. I originally went to Best Buy with all intentions of buying it, but after 30 minutes or so of just looking, not one person asked if I needed help (the GPS are kept in locked cabinets). So I just looked some more, found the one I wanted, and went home and bought it off Amazon. For about $100 cheaper I might add.

 

Oh, and I also use the GPS app on my iPhone, sometimes simultaneously with my Garmin. Yes, I am anal that way.

 

Just got it in the mail from Amazon (Garmin nuvi 255w) so we will see. I will be using it for my trip to South Dakota/Minnesota in the coming weeks. Couldn't resist, the price kept dropping on Amazon (I think we ended up paying $130) and the reviews have seemed really good. Not as many cool features as Cryptique's though.

[watch me fall]

Just got it in the mail from Amazon (Garmin nuvi 255w) so we will see. I will be using it for my trip to South Dakota/Minnesota in the coming weeks. Couldn't resist, the price kept dropping on Amazon (I think we ended up paying $130) and the reviews have seemed really good. Not as many cool features as Cryptique's though.

 

Cool. Hope it works out for you. I will say that my Garmin does not like it when I veer off the interstates. Maybe there's some kind of feature I don't know about that would change that, I don't know. But I got good and lost about a month ago way out in 'the country' because my Garmin kept trying to get me back on the interstate, which is not where I needed to be. I was so frustrated I almost threw it out the window. That 'recalculating' can really grate on your nerves, especially when you don't know where the hell you are.