Any recommendation for Automobile GPS system.?

Question

I am thinking about getting automobile GPS system. This is for a professional person to visit a patient home (more than 3 homes a day). Voice guidance would be nice. I am not looking for the top of the line one. I am looking for a reasonable one to get a direction from one point to another.
Your recommendation by experience would be helpful and appreciated.

Answer 1

I just got a Garmin - the smallest one they have. Around $250.00 Wayyyyy worth it. You can check Overstock.com and/or e-bay and other retailers.

It speaks, and provides turn-by-turn directions. You can also view maps without going through the whole navigation process. You can save your favorite destinations. Search by area, food, hotel, gas, banks, etc.

VERY COOL! I'm now addicted.

Have fun. Good luck in your travels.

Answer 2

Only the top of the line have voice guidance. The Garmin C550 is the best one and well worth the price.

There is a significant difference in the quality of the different priced units. Higher quality means more reliable, more accurate, easier to use and more convenient.

A top of the line unit like the C550 is almost always accurate, very reliable, easy to use and the voice prompting is FAR more convenient than trying to visually read a unit every few seconds. If you are going to be using a unit like this so much, you definitely WANT top of the line. Trust me on this. If you go el cheapo, you will wish you had sprung for the delux model.

Another plus of a unit like the C550. If you live in a major metropolitan area, you can sign up for a service that broadcasts traffic info to your Garmin via FM. The unit incorporates this info and warns you of traffic. It even goes so far as to plot various routes and warn you when there is a much better route to your destination because of a traffic tie up.

Answer 3

I've got Tomtom and I'd recomend Garmin. I had Garmin before and their routing, available data (speed, ETA, course, ...) and ETA calculations are all much better.

Tomtom seem to have only three classes of road, major, good and not so good. Their speed estimates are based on something like 60, 45, 30. So if you are on a rural road which isn't an interstate or divided highway, like US6 through Nevada, then they estimate based on a 30mph average, so they tell you you will get there in 8 hours and you make it in 3.5. It also leads to some very very bad route calculations, they can't tell the difference between a paved state road in good condition and a right of way that isn't maintained in winter, so driving from south of Ruby Lake NV to Fallon NV they routed me down the Pony Express trail of 1861-1861 which was barely wider than the Nissan Murano I was driving.

Tomtom also have a terrible POI list and a poor method of selecting POIs, in Death Valley they told me the nearest gas station was 110 miles behind me on US395 in California when it was actually 20 miles ahead of me on US95 in Nevada. It didn't list most gas stations at all, just a few third rate ones, companies you never heard of. To find out where a POI is, relative to you, you have to select it, if it's the wrong one you have to go through the whole process again.

Tomtom also autozoom to show you only the next half mile or so of road, this makes maintaining situational awareness almost impossible and makes it harder to detect when they are telling you to do something very stupid, like following a 'major' road that doubles the length of your journey.

Tomtom has a pretty interface and their voice guidance is much better than the old Magelan units that Hertz use for their Neverlost service.

My old Garmin GPSV had better POIs, better routing and vastly better estimates. Unfortunately it was slow and hard to use. I wish Garmin would release their software for PDAs.

Answer 4

My dad just bought a Garmin GPS system for his truck. Garmin is like the best brand and they are not that expensive. It is really nice easy to use and clear.

Answer 5

Tom Tom or Garmin or Megellan so I hear. I want Tom - Tom.