Gonna Buy a GPS. Any Advice?

[gregp553]

Finally bought a Garmin Nuvi 765t. Has bluetooth, traffic, allows the sound through the car speakers and is super easy to program. Time will tell how good it is at getting me somewhere. Thanks for all the input. BTW, I bought a refurbished unit from Amazon and when I tried to register it on the Garmin site, it said the unit was already in somone else's name. They said I need to supply a receipt to them for them to delete the other owner and enter my name. That's fine, but here's what ticks me off. Garmin will take back a unit. They will refurbish that unit. They will re-sell that unit to someone else. But they never thought to delete the first owner? Stupid.

 

[sandie]

NONE of them are perfect but we have 3 and they are all Garmins and would not buy anything else really. Yes every once in a while it takes me a different way than I would think would be fastiest but if you are in unfamiliar area it sure gets you where you are going. Definitely get one that speaks the street name in addition to when you turn so it will say in 500ft turn on Main St instead of turn left in 500 ft. In both cases it shows you on the map when to turn but this way you do not need to be looking at the map so much as a little at the map and then street sign. I love ours. Garmin is the best for customer service as well, they have great people and answer all your questions.

 

[Battenkiller]

2nd that. We bought a GPS nav unit a few months ago. Just bought a Droid. Pretty much wasted my money on the nav unit as the Droid does what it does and a whole lot more.

Got my youngest son a Garmin Nuvi 255W for $119 at BJ's buyer's club. Daughter got a new Droid and it does the same thing... for free. Don't care for the Google Navigation voice, though. Particularly when it keeps saying "Scan-Eck-Tad-Y" for Schenectady. lol Still, the Droid is a wicked cool phone.

My iPhone and the built-in Google Maps gets me through some tricky areas, although it won't work where there's no cell signal. It supposedly uses a triangulation method with locations derived from nearby cell towers, not satellites. Got lost on some backroads in the ADKs when that happened. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing since you get to learn new roads that way. Never had it fail in the city, however.

I may get the same Garmin I got my son, seems to be a real nice unit with all most folks would ever need. My feeling is if you don't understand what a certain feature does, you probably don't really need it.

 

[dusty_]

My kids bought me a Garmin nuvi 255w for Xmas this year. It seemed great until I got in the car and realized it was too small and I couldn't see anything on the screen without squinting. I need glasses for reading so the size of this gps made it pretty well useless for me - not to mention very unsafe. I took it back and got a Magellan Roadmate 700 that has a 7 inch screen. I can see everything on the screen fine now. I haven't used a gps for long enough to give any opinion on features but I thought I'd mention the size feature that could be an issue for some people.

 

[sandie]

I like the Gramins. Roadmates are nice, used on rental cars but smaller than yours. The bigger one is harder to hide and you do need to hide it or it will be stolen for sure and you will need to replace a window. Good luck. We love our GPS and not sure what in heck we did without it.

 

[dusty_]

Hi Sandi. Yeah, I'm sure you're right - they'll disappear fast if left in the car in sight of anyone. We just unclip it and bring it with us when we get out of the car. They're so portable. Not sure if this will become a pain in the butt after a while but like I said, we've just purchased one so time will tell. I still can't get used to the idea that they'll do what everyone says they will. It seems so futuristic!

 

[sandie]

The do get you where you are going MOST times. We asked it to take us to Sebago Lake from Naples ME and it took us up a mountain and then announced "Arriviing at yoru destination". It sometimes will not take you the most direct way, but it does get you there for sure.
I totally like the Garmin Company, they are respnsive to questions and solving problems. I have owned 4 of their GPS units since about 1995 or before. I love it. They now have one special for RVers(of which I am one) and truckers that keeps you off roads with low overpasses and where you are not allowed to travel which is very helpful in NJ and NY and I am sure elsewhere. They almost all give locations of restaraunts and gas stations and lots of other things like historic places, traffic conditions on some of them, latittude and longitude etc.
Best of luck, you will soon wonder how you got along without it. Mine took me through Canada which not all of them do, many are only the 48 states.

 

[firefighterjake]

A good friend, geocacher with many finds and an avid Garmin fan says as much as he loves the Garmins and their customer service he personally prefers the Tom Tom when it comes to car navigation . . . and of course he makes fun of my hand-held Magellans that I use while ATVing, sledding and geocaching.

 

[drizler]

For sure if you are over 40 you want to consider the screen size, arrangement and ability to put what you want up there. The bigger the better as long as it doesn't restrict your vision or become too much of a dashboard blocker. Funny though, I see truck drivers all night long and almost all of them use the simple common consumer models we use. Some have laptops with mapping but rely mainly on their unsophisticated little units. The biggest gripe with my Tom Tom is the inability to put JUST what I want up there on the screen and size it somehow. 30 years ago none of it would have mattered.

 

[sandie]

Most of the units use the same maps so it boils down to features and Garmin has them. So far as truckers using consumer units, you would not be able to tell the diffenence of the truck unit vs car unit, they look identical but the trucker one tells them where there are low overpasses and diesel stations that they can fit in etc. The other reason the trucker unit has not taken off like wild fire was that they cost $499 but see they are not about $349 but that is still high for me but a truckdriver could deduct from taxes but may not think about it as a busness expense.

 

[Gooserider]

Most of the units use the same maps so it boils down to features and Garmin has them. So far as truckers using consumer units, you would not be able to tell the diffenence of the truck unit vs car unit, they look identical but the trucker one tells them where there are low overpasses and diesel stations that they can fit in etc. The other reason the trucker unit has not taken off like wild fire was that they cost $499 but see they are not about $349 but that is still high for me but a truckdriver could deduct from taxes but may not think about it as a busness expense.

Don't know about other units, but the Garmin that my friend has, and which we use in a straight truck, is a car unit far as I know, but it has setup options that would make it "truck friendly" - you can punch in restrictions on how it selects routes based on low clearances, truck prohibitions, and so forth. Found this out when I was trying to figure out why it seemed to pick some odd routings at times... I also don't see the screen size as a huge issue - at least when we use it, we have the speaker turned on and mostly listen to the directions, rather than looking at the screen. I punch in the address, and then let it talk to us.

Gooserider

 

[drizler]

Most of the units use the same maps so it boils down to features and Garmin has them. So far as truckers using consumer units, you would not be able to tell the diffenence of the truck unit vs car unit, they look identical but the trucker one tells them where there are low overpasses and diesel stations that they can fit in etc. The other reason the trucker unit has not taken off like wild fire was that they cost $499 but see they are not about $349 but that is still high for me but a truckdriver could deduct from taxes but may not think about it as a busness expense.

Don't know about other units, but the Garmin that my friend has, and which we use in a straight truck, is a car unit far as I know, but it has setup options that would make it "truck friendly" - you can punch in restrictions on how it selects routes based on low clearances, truck prohibitions, and so forth. Found this out when I was trying to figure out why it seemed to pick some odd routings at times... I also don't see the screen size as a huge issue - at least when we use it, we have the speaker turned on and mostly listen to the directions, rather than looking at the screen. I punch in the address, and then let it talk to us.

Gooserider[/quote

So you don't see the screen size as an issue eh Goose???? How old are you anyways? That's one of those predictable things that is gonna get ya no matter what. The big danger there is that you can tend to take quite a while getting focused in on that closer item once you start getting tired or late night ect. It can tend to get longer and longer with all the associated dangers like not seeing Kamakazi Bambi standing there in the distance or walking trees and such. Anyways I just find reading the speed, and arrival time on my Tom tom as difficult and you can't always find space to stick it in that sweet spot on the window or dashboard of your car. It just seems to me that the wider screen models should give you a better view of the smaller readouts and it's something I never noticed until I already had it.

 

[sandie]

IF there is as unit that lets you select Truck routes I would like to know the manufacturer and model #. Mine allows me to say truck but it does not seem to change much in the way of routing.

 

[Gooserider]

Most of the units use the same maps so it boils down to features and Garmin has them. So far as truckers using consumer units, you would not be able to tell the diffenence of the truck unit vs car unit, they look identical but the trucker one tells them where there are low overpasses and diesel stations that they can fit in etc. The other reason the trucker unit has not taken off like wild fire was that they cost $499 but see they are not about $349 but that is still high for me but a truckdriver could deduct from taxes but may not think about it as a busness expense.

Don't know about other units, but the Garmin that my friend has, and which we use in a straight truck, is a car unit far as I know, but it has setup options that would make it "truck friendly" - you can punch in restrictions on how it selects routes based on low clearances, truck prohibitions, and so forth. Found this out when I was trying to figure out why it seemed to pick some odd routings at times... I also don't see the screen size as a huge issue - at least when we use it, we have the speaker turned on and mostly listen to the directions, rather than looking at the screen. I punch in the address, and then let it talk to us.

Gooserider

So you don't see the screen size as an issue eh Goose???? How old are you anyways? That's one of those predictable things that is gonna get ya no matter what. The big danger there is that you can tend to take quite a while getting focused in on that closer item once you start getting tired or late night ect. It can tend to get longer and longer with all the associated dangers like not seeing Kamakazi Bambi standing there in the distance or walking trees and such. Anyways I just find reading the speed, and arrival time on my Tom tom as difficult and you can't always find space to stick it in that sweet spot on the window or dashboard of your car. It just seems to me that the wider screen models should give you a better view of the smaller readouts and it's something I never noticed until I already had it.

I'm 52, and yes, the eyeballs don't work as good as they used to.... The point being however, that once rolling, we mostly don't look at the screen, just listen to the speaker, which doesn't take eyes... I wouldn't try to do any sort of programming or whatever on the unit while driving, even if it had a home theater size screen as the interface takes to much concentration - but that isn't a screen limitation... Not saying there wouldn't be advantages to a bigger screen, but I wouldn't pay a lot more to get a big screen, or that I would let a small screen keep me from getting an otherwise desirable unit...

Gooserider

 

[kartracer]

Fishing, I've had good luck with the garmins and lowrances.On the street,garmin and tomtom.On the street none of them will take me the quickest way I know.If you don't know where you are than the gps' are a help,but will not get you there the fastest,most of the time.

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Be careful on what you ask for. My Garmin will pick the fastest, the shortest... it is usually set at the shortest. This isn't always the best if there are Interstate highways around. These higher speed routs may be only a few miles longer (and an hour shorther in time) and if you let the GPS map you on the shortest, you may not have the best. There may be other choices, that's what I remember... ant the error I have made.