Garmin Nuvi

 

Thats a good point then maybe they will stop calling tjangi and myself.....

 

My older Nuvi (350 I think) displays speed, time to dest. ect if you want it to. That's how I figured out how far off my wife's BMW 328 speedo is. BMW is notorious about over-stating the speed on their cars and they do it on purpose. They don't consider a speedo "off" unless it reads 10% or more over the actual speed.

 

Garmin - Nuvi 265wt w/ 4.5" screen & Bluetooth, or Nuvi 260wt w/ 4.5" screen, w/o Bluetooth.

I have the 265wt and it is a good basic navi that has more functions than I need or use. It is also pretty intuitive in its operation. It is a little slow at "Acquiring Satellite" signals at startup but by the time I'm at the end of my street I always have a connection.

I bought mine at Costco in the summer and they had the best pricing (here in Canada) at the time, and it came with a case, suction cup mount, USB cable and a car charger cable. I'm sure you can get better deals in the US.

Check out cNet.com for reviews.

 

That's been the frustrating part about my Nuvi as well. It sometimes takes a very long time to sync to a satellite when you first power it on. It works well once it does, however.

 

Garmin + Costco, good enough for me.

That said, at some point having a GPS device separate from one's phone will prove redundant....
http://technmarketing.com/cellphone/...om-droids-gps/
http://www.theweek.com/article/index..._vs_GPS_makers

 

I have the Garmin 265wt, $200 from Costco, where I buy almost everything. Far superior to the factory Aggravation system in wifey's new Benz.

 

I did the same thing Mark did, got it at the same place and love it. Sure, I wish it talked out the name of the streets, but for the price, I'm happy. Had it for over a year now.

 

I notice this too, thought it was just my unit that had the issue. I've noticed that it's particularly slow when the weather is cold. Today it wouldn't sync so I turned it off, held it in front of the heater vent for a few minutes and when I powered it on again it worked immediately. YMMV.

 

Rennlist. I have an I Phone with TomTom GPS app. It is pretty slick. It does have phone capability....neat piece, TomTom is releasing a dash mounted docking station. Then you can use the I Phone as a speaker phone as well as TomTom GPS + thousands of other applications.

A Garmin would be nice, but just one more gadget to deal with. TomTom stand alone from AVIS, in Europe, is programmed to call out photo radar locations...sweet!

 

Echoing everyone it seems - Garmin nüvi series. I bought a 360 last November for $179 and am very happy with it. Fast, accurate, integrated bluetooth telephone speakerphone and SD card slot for loadable maps (eg Europe, when I went to France).

The latest models like the 885T do all of the same, and in a wide-screen format. Go for older models, don't be afraid of even two year old ones, and you should be able to find something around $180 or less.

I researched and ultimately bought via Amazon. The SKU I bought included various useful power cables and car adapters. Any of the Garmin product pages has a comparison chart of the models and features.

 

Garmins have always worked well for me. But you do have to pay annually if you want to download updates of the software/maps. Runs around $60-$70 each time.

But the future in portable gps devices is in smartphones. I just got a Blackberry Tour - the gps/maps/directions are very easy to use and updates are free. Lay it on the seat, turn on the speaker, you're done. Costs only $5/month on you cellphone bill. I hear the Iphone app is also good - and the new Motorola smartphone with Google software even better - and free.

 

I wanted nav and bluetooth. Got a Garmin 265WT. Recently purhcased to replace a pos tomtom.
chuck

 

+1 for the Garmin Nuvi 350. Bought ours at WalMart.com, which was cheaper than Walmart off-the-shelf. Nice thing is, the car charger is the same for both of our phones and the Nuvi. As others have said, you can also use it to track speed, record your max speed, etc. The only drawback of the 350 is I have a hard time understanding the voice prompts. Not sure if the voice quality is better on the upper-end models?

Cheers,

Paul.

 

+1 for Garmin Nuvi. Got mine for Europe driving (270), if you ever think you may drive in Europe, it may be a lot cheaper to get a US / Europe model now.