I have decided to buy my wife a dashboard mounted GPS receiver for Christmas. Unfortuniatly I know nxt to nothing about them so I was looking for someone in the know to school me so I can make a good decision.
I am looking to spend $400 or so, obviously less is better. I know the Tom Tom units were the thing to buy last year, how are they holding up this year? I see they are offering a basic unit for $100. That’s interesting, though it doesn’t seem to have great features.
Do most of these units come with the maps, or is that extra? The map DVDs seem to be $150-$200 which is substantial. What other “hidden costs” am I looking at?
There’s a couple units I have been looking at on Newegg. I am continuing the research.
For that price range, try the Garmin Nuvi 750. It has a large 4.3 inch screen, preloaded maps for all of North America, voice prompts, and speaks street names. Right now, you can find them for around $200, which is about half off list price.
+1 For the Nuvi 750. I work in EMS and this is the model we use in the ambulances and medic response vehicles. They came highly recommended from other agencies. If you want a good sturdy unit with accurate info…I believe this is the one.
I got my wife a GPS almost a year ago. I’m a maximizer. I researched all of the units on the market. I had to remind myself that it was going to be HER GPS, not mine. So with that in mind I ultimately decided on a Magellan. Why? Well it really came down to ease of use. The Magellan had a lot of options but more importantly it didn’t have a complicated interface. It had an easy to navigate interface, which my wife picked up and could use almost immediately. I also decided on a smaller more compact square unit vs the widescreen because it would fit in her purse and bags much easier. She uses it all the time and now doesn’t need to print off or reference Yahoo! maps anymore. She loves it!
You can really go overboard with GPS units and all of their “options” or “features”. The navigation is probably the most important thing. Personally I wouldn’t pay over $200 for a unit, since there are many good units on the market well under that price. I paid $150 at Costco. It was worth every penny.
I use a Garmin c580 it is bulky but has gps and traffic updates. Mt advise… you do not need the traffic updates. Most of the time it doesn’t work (even here in NYC) but the GPS mapping and directions are great. some of my partners use other germin units and they work very well. Easy to navigate user interface easy setup and very portable.
If I were to purchase on for my fiance I would purchase one of the Garmin Nuvi units.
You can go crazy with them. A friend of mine uses one as his organizer as well. One thing to make sure is when you get it home to hook it up to our computer and download the software and mapping updates. (The first one or 2 map updates are free.
By he way I use my GPS for my fulltime job as a LEO on Long Island and for my part time job as a Paramedic in NYC.
-Mike.
I am in the same boat as Zippy. I drive all over the place for work, and on various trips I have purchased (and returned… gotta love Wally World!) 4 different GPS units. Three of them were Garmin, one was a Tom Tom. Each unit had some flaw, or lacked a feature, that turned me off of it. Mostly it related to ease of use. For example, some of the cheaper models have a slower processor, and as a result feel “laggy” when you are using the interface. Others had a weak speaker, unintelligible text-to-speech, or directions/options that just made no sense whatsoever. I finally settled on a Magellan 4250. I discovered it in a store, played with it, noticed how responsive it was… and then saw that it was about $500. Some digging online showed that Magellan had a refurbished model for sale on Amazon.com for all of $150. The only difference was this one had an older basemap (about a year or so) and older firmware. The firmware upgrade was free, but the new map is about $90. So far, I haven’t gotten the map - and don’t intend to until I find a need for it.
As far as features go, this is really difficult to beat. In fact, right now it is down to $119.99.
[ul]
[li]Wide screen (4.3")[/li][li]Bluetooth (cell phone connectivity for speaker and handsfree)[/li][li]Traffic (3 months free)[/li][li]Voice regocnition[/li][li]Street name pronunciation[/li][li]lots of POIs[/li][li]Visually appealing (sleek and slim)[/li][/ul]
decodeddiesel, I would jump on Chooie’s deal (above) if I was you and in the market for a GPS for my wife. Save the extra $180 and buy some ammunition.
The 4250 is basically the same unit I have but only wide screen. My unit is the 3255 with the POI’s upgraded (for free) to 6 million. My father-in-law has the 4250 and it works like a charm, plus it has voice recognition, blue tooth recognition, traffic updates (but cost money and is not always useful) and built in AAA travel info too.
Thought I should also let it be known that I own a Garmin eTrex Venture, so I’m not just a Magellan kool aid sipper. Just really like the Magellan units for the car.
I like the GArmin units best. I’ve owned a Magellan Gold handheld, and a Map60C garmin. I prefer the GArmin. Better antenna, and a better display, and for geocaching (my 2nd most common use) much better.
I’ve never tried a dash-mounted unit, though the displays look impressive. Keep in mind that ALL gps map data will be approx 18mo out of date upon release to the public. It just takes that long to compile the data, and get it into a software pkg. So, if you live in an area of massive housing growth like NTX, it will forever be a little out of date.
I’ve been using a Nuvi 350 for quite some time (since 2004 I think) and even picked up the European map pack for my trips to Italy and England. I got to use my cousin’s magellan for a little bit in Hawaii, I can’t recall the model number but it was roughly the same size as my Nuvi.
I found the Nuvi to have a faster antenna for satellite acquisition and the Magellan actually froze on me a couple times. Not a big deal really, my co-pilot just power cycled it whenever it happened. If I were choosing today, I’d have a really tough time between the two brands. They’re just so full featured, you get a dizzying amount of extras and features depending on price. For full disclosure, my 350 has dumped all my favorites twice for no apparent reason. I’ve since learned to back up my GPX file periodically. Newer units might not do this.
What I like about the newer Nuvis are the built in antennae and the wider screens, I believe the 750 still has the fold out antenna. But that is still a smoking deal for a really versatile GPS unit. I use my Nuvi in and out of the car all the time. I even used the translator application once in southern italy to help me check out of a hotel where nobody spoke english.
After a year of searches, I found the Magellan Maestro 4000 refurbished unit on Amazon for $89 shipped. It has 4" screen and all the bell and whistle that I need.
Going to bump this up. I never got her the GPS, she wanted something else.
After a recent trip to New England I realized a navigation would have been 1000x easier with the GPS and this has renewed my interest in one. Does the advise form one year ago still hold true today?
