Poll on GPS for car

[Joe-n-Doe]

I have been using GPS for business and pleasure for years. First with rental cars and then my own. Hertz uses Magellan, so my first GPS was a Magellan Roadmate 760. It was similar to the one used by Hertz so the learning curve was minimal, plus it came preloaded with maps of the USA and Canada. Some of the other brands and models I looked at when I bought my first GPS did not come with preloaded maps. You had to go on line and down load them. I'm not sure if they still sell unloaded GPSes or not.

On one business trip I rented Avis not Hertz and was provided a Verizon powered cell phone/GPS. It was a total PITA to use and because it operated off cell towers and not satellite I didn't have coverage in many places when I needed it most. Got so mad, I had my wife FEDEX the 760 to me.

Initially my primary use was business. The night before hitting the road, I was able to plug in addresses. It saved me a lot of time and that translated into more compensation for me.

We used it on our first RV cross-country trip. That convinced DW of its value.

This past Sept when we were heading out for Louisville, KY I discovered the LED screen on the 760 was broken. DW insisted on buying a replacement before starting the trip. This time we bought a Magellan Maestro...the Roadmate 760 series is no longer available. I am not as pleased with the Maestro as the Roadmate and wished I had looked closer at Garmin or TomTom.

One feature that neither the Roadmate or Maestro have is the ability to insert GPS coordinates. I can only use street addresses. I'm not sure any of the vehicular GPS units sold, regardless of brand, let you use coordinates. Odd considering many RV Parks display both their street address and coordinates on their websites or in their literature.

[richfaa]

Since we are weak of eye we do not care for the smaller screens so we use a receiver that inputs into the laptop..It is a Garman as we had experience with them while still employed with the FAA and we are impressed with their technical quality and accuracy We have the GPS-18 and they also make the Mobile -10 which is a upgraded model. As for the software they all do about the same thing and all have their strengths and weaknesses. We go for the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) The software has got to be real user friendly..All I realy want to know is how to get from point A to Point B..

[rvfirefighter]

We got a Garmin the day after Thanksgiving at a Walmart special. I does have a small screen, but we can read it without any problems. It has been nice to have an address to someones house and so far it has been very handy.
I feel you need to watch the directions it gives if you are pulling a big fiver. You don't need to go the shortest route and wind up downtown.

[richfaa]

On most of them you can select ...what kind of vehicle you are driving. If you choose truck it will (usually) kkep you on good roads, away from low overpasses and around cities...sometimes..

[sreigle]

I used Delorme's Street Atlas and Streets and Trips with a gps receiver and a laptop in the truck. I liked both but was not real fond of taking my eyes off the road that much.

Last February I bought several gps units, in turn, returning all but the last one. I found the Garmin units to be universally faster reacting and their customer service excellent. I finally chose the Garmin Street Pilot 2720 (now replaced by the 2820) over the other models and couldn't be happier. Our new truck has gps builtin to the dash but I like my Garmin better.

The smaller screen proved to not be a problem because it is sitting on the dash in front of me. Being closer makes it seem bigger. Like someone else said, I bought much cheaper online. Garmin wanted $1200 for the 2720. I got it for $499 at PC Connections and had it shipped overnight.

Think very hard about what you want. If you just want it to plot you a route from point A to point B and you don't care what that route is, any unit will do that. Most will also allow you to adjust the route right on the unit. That's a bit difficult sometimes, though, because you can't see the details of a route and the alternative routes very easily.

Some will only let you store one route at a time in the unit. Or just a few waypoints at a time. Some say you can have multiple destinations in a "trip" but in reality (this was a Magellan unit) you had to wait until you reached one destination, then you could tell it to route you to the next destination. Not a pretty picture when that destination is just a point on a map you chose so it would take you on that particular road and you have to change it to the next route while driving. Be sure you know exactly how its claimed features work.

I bought the 2720 for several reasons. 1. It comes with Mapsource for the pc. I can plan routes on the pc and easily upload to the garmin. Same for waypoints. 2. I can have up to 50 routes loaded at one time, in the Garmin. 3. I can have up to 2500 waypoints loaded at any one time.

Also, there were several other features I liked. And Garmin's customer support is outstanding.

There are a lot of good choices. Like everything else, what is best for me may not be best for you. It all depends on your wants and needs. I found that the toughest part because the claims and terminology are not always as clear as they appear on the surface.