GPS units

[Diggles]

Do any of you have standalone car navigation GPS units that you own or operated that you like and would recommend?

What do you particularly like about the specific model and possible what do you not like or would change?

[Vanraw]

For driving or hiking? I have both.

[Snowreap]

I have a GPS/Navigation system built into my car (included as part of the stereo system) and we have a standalone GPS/Navigation unit for my wife's car (a rather old model from Garmin that they don't make any more). both of these systems have built-in map storage which means that as the maps get out of date they need to be updated. this can often be a complicated process involving the burning of a disc with new data (for my car) or bringing the unit inside and attaching it to a PC (for my wife's). you can only do this until the manufacturer drops support for that model and stops providing updated map data for it (this recently happened for my wife's unit). sometimes map updates are free, and sometimes you have to pay to "upgrade" your map data. for my wife's unit, we installed a larger memory card so we can load the entire US/Canada map set in. the factory memory card wasn't big enough for the full set so there was an application you had to run on the PC that would allow you to specify which areas you wanted, then it would build (and compress) a dataset for those specific areas and load it. this was a very time consuming process (it took hours to load the entire US/Canada set) but it might have been slow only because the link was USB 1.1 -- newer models might load faster.

lately, we have been using the navigation app built into my wife's tablet (a Samsung Galaxy Tab, running Android). we're very happy with this, because it provides up-to-date maps and also automatically re-routes us to avoid heavy traffic, all for free (my car's navigation system can route around traffic also but I need a Sirius Radio subscription for that to work). but the downside of the smartphone approach is that the maps aren't stored locally so if you're somewhere where you don't have WiFi or a 3G connection it doesn't work at all.

-ken

[Jakensama]

Do any of you have standalone car navigation GPS units that you own or operated that you like and would recommend?

What do you particularly like about the specific model and possible what do you not like or would change?

I use a tomtom up here and they are pretty standard in the Europe, not too sure about the states but its pretty accurate and there are specialized maps you can download online and upload onto your device that make it quite nice (especially in Germany since cops dont pull you over for speeding, they just put in speeding cameras, so you can update your tomtom online with the latest locations of them all and it will warn you when you approach them).

Plus updating maps is easy since you just use USB.

[Slamz]

What, are you a fuckin' neanderthal?! Get a smartphone!

:twisted:

I had a Garmin but they wanted like $80 for map updates. Now I just use the Droid. It came with a built-in no-charge Google Navigation program that does turn-by-turn speech and all that. I've used that in newer housing developments and its been good.

Just make sure whatever you get, you take a close look at how map upgrades work.

[Zirak]

My wife has a TomTom as well and she really likes it. I haven't used it that much but it seemed pretty easy to use on the few occassions that I have used it.

I recently used the built in navigation app in my phone to help me get somewhere. It did the job but was not near as nice as the TomTom. The voice was not as clear or easy to understand and it did not give me as much control over the route planning as the TomTom. Of course, the route control could just be that I wasn't familiar enough with the app to know how to do it. There is also something to be said for having the window mount of the TomTom so that looking at the screen doesn't take my eyes off the road like it did with the smartphone.

[Snowreap]

a window mount for your smartphone solves that problem nicely. my wife has one for her Galaxy Tab, although I suppose technically it's not considered a phone even though it runs Android and has a phone number (for texting).

-ken

[Diggles]

Smartphone is out of the question. I'm doin some research for my parents, who will be retiring and moving someplace new. Smartphone plans are outrageously overpriced. Hence the standalone qualifier

[Vanraw]

I have a stand along tomtom and its been very good. They have several models now, some that include 2 way communications for things like traffic reporting and news updates and such that require a monthly subscription.

The one I have doesn't have the 2way communications. One of the features I have on my tomtom model that I really like is a lane change feature. Basically as your approaching any complex high way merges and such it pops up a picture of the lanes, and has bright green arrows showing you where you should be. When traveling in strange cities, this has been very useful. Even more so for someone elderly such as your parents.

I have a droid, and have done side by side comparisons on trips just for fun... I find the droid actually has better directions in most cases. for instance, driving from north suburbs of Chicago to southern Ohio. The TOMTOM would send us through Chicago expressway during rush hour, where the Droid used the by pass. So the Tomtom model we have seems to define best routes based on minutes / miles it calculates.

FYI the TOMTOM has another cool feature that I dont see on the droid. It tells you where speed changes are, and tracks your speed, turning red when your over. It can be configured to beep when there is a speed change coming, sort of warning you of possible speed traps.

Over all we are very happy with the TOMTOM. It comes with like a year of free map updates, but does have a subscription after that time. I think my last update subscription was around $35.